Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131789 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
In my world, knowledge is the real power. And I’m damn good at mining it. But as it stands right now, I’m nowhere close to trusting Fennelly Bishop enough to let him know the extent of my capabilities. People don’t tend to react well to learning their illusions of privacy are paper windows.
After calculus in the morning with Fenn, I end up lab partners with Silas in physics. Silas is startled to find I’m perfectly capable of understanding the day’s tasks, but not as startled as our teacher. Come to think of it, the calc teacher also seemed confused that I understood what inverse functions are. I’m sensing the teachers expected me to be a barely literate caveman, regarding the public education system only slightly above those places you take your dog to make them stop peeing on the furniture. I suppose they’re not entirely wrong. I was in AP classes like three schools ago before all the expulsions caught up with me and they stopped letting me enroll. Despite their opinions about my intellect, I’ve never found school all that difficult, just excruciatingly dull. I have little patience for the conventional classroom experience. It makes me too restless.
After lunch, I spot Lawson when I walk into my modern lit class. From the back row he kicks a chair at me to insist I sit beside him. The guy’s a royal prick, but I sort of dig it. He doesn’t care what other people think of him. Hell, except for the ways they can amuse him, I don’t figure he thinks about anyone else much at all. That, I respect. At least with him, he wears it all on his sleeve.
“And how are we enjoying our first day in Shangri-La?” he asks, watching me with a lazy smile. His blazer’s draped over the back of his chair, tie loosened.
He does have this unsettling quality about him, though. When he looks at you, you know he’s considering your fate. How he might write you into his plot. We’re all characters in his riddle of mischief and malice.
“Stood outside for twenty minutes waiting for a golf cart to pull up, but it never came.”
“Yes, well, the chauffeurs’ strike has made pedestrians of us all. Unions truly are the bane of civilized society.”
I’m fairly sure he’s only half kidding.
For real, though, I don’t know how I’m going to last the month wearing a suit with this weather. It’s like taking a stroll through a fat man’s ass crack in a sauna out there. What’s the point of a fancy school and all this money if we can’t at least get some scooters in this bitch?
“Fenn says you were jerking it in your room the whole weekend.” Lawson glances over, flashing a magnanimous smile. “If you need help picking up girls, all you gotta do is ask.”
I roll my eyes. “I pick up fine, thanks.”
“You sure? I’ll set up some introductions. There’s this one girl, Rae, a senior over at Ballard.” His eyes glaze over a little. “Man, I’d sell my soul to Satan to fuck her again. But she’s like our boy Fenn—one and done, you know? She doesn’t do seconds. Says it’s the only way to avoid forming attachments.”
My mouth quirks in a reluctant smile. Sounds like a girl after my own heart. “Attachments blow,” I agree.
“You want her number, then? Swear to God, her body is unreal—”
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
Lawson lurches upright in his seat, his attention snapping to the front of the room. “What is all this?”
“I’m Mr. Goodwyn.” The teacher approaching the desk at the head of the class is a tall, clean-cut dude who looks like he spent his summer behind the register of a J.Crew in an outlet mall. The rolled-up sleeves of his white button-down reveal a pair of muscular arms without a hint of sagging skin or liver spots. He stands out like a sore thumb among a mostly geriatric faculty.
“They’re letting freshmen teach senior lit now?” Lawson cracks. It gets muffled laughter from the rest of the class.
“I’m handing out copies of the syllabus with a picture of my driver’s license attached,” Mr. Goodwyn responds, unfazed. “Please take one and pass it back.”
Mr. Goodwyn’s young. Mid-twenties going on sixteen. Clearly he’s heard it enough to have a sense of humor about it.
“How is Dante’s Inferno modern literature?” Lawson calls out after glancing at the syllabus.
“Among other works, we’ll be examining Dante’s influence on the hero’s journey and modern novels like Richard Matheson’s What Dreams May Come,” Mr. Goodwyn says while writing page numbers on the whiteboard.
“Oh, yeah.” Lawson smirks. “I saw that one. Jennifer Connelly goes ass-to-ass on a double-sided dildo with a hooker.”
The room full of high school senior males collectively chokes on its laughter. Mr. Goodwyn pauses at the board, his back to us.