Without warning, Eastman tossed the whiteboard pen in the air.
She caught it on instinct.
“Prove it.”
She leaned back in the chair, tossed the pen back. “What’s in it for me?”
He looked at the board, then to her. “Free pass from homeroom for a week.”
That brought an excited rumble from the students.
She realized, in that moment, that she’d grab all the clout she needed from this class of troublemakers. Party invites would be in the bag for the rest of the semester. People would talk to her, and maybe they could wrap this assignment up sooner so she could find that beach in the Bahamas and truly get drunk.
When she slid out from behind the desk, the class went back to whispering.
Claire walked up to Eastman, plucked the pen from his hand.
For a moment, she looked at the board and growled.
Several voices said she couldn’t do it.
But what the class didn’t understand was that algebra was in fact a useful math that needed to be mastered before the computer classes at Richter were allowed. And Claire loved hacking into computers.
She scratched her head for drama and pulled the cap off the pen.
The first equation was like putting ten divided by two on the board for a CPA to get right. She wrote the answer and moved to the next.
“Show your work.”
She rolled her eyes, erased the answer, and spelled out the process of solving for x.
She stopped, glared at Eastman, and waited for his nod.
The second equation required fractions, the basics. She skipped over the board, spelled out her answer, and proceeded to finish the last two before capping the pen and tossing it at Eastman.
Without asking if she was right, she returned to her chair, grabbed her backpack, and walked to the door.
“Peace,” she said with two fingers flying in the air as the door closed behind her.
As the day inched by, one class at a time, Claire heard her name spoken by people she didn’t know.
Elsie jumped up behind her between classes, full of energy. “Here’s the girl who’s the talk of the school.”
“Et tu, Brute?”
Her snark was lost on Elsie. “What?”
Claire shook her head. “Never mind.”
“Did you really tell Eastman off?”
She was about to correct the girl. “If we wait an hour, the school gossip mill will have me punching the man.”
“So cool,” Elsie laughed.
“Who did you hear it from?”
“Sean told Kyle. The whole school is talking about it.”
“Great.” She really could use something for her headache.
“Is it true you told him you were hungover?”
“What’s he gonna do? Call my mommy and tell on me?” As the words left Claire’s mouth, she realized she’d said them before. Back when she would act out at that age. She didn’t have a mom then any more than she had one now.
“He could tell your aunt.”
“My aunt doesn’t care. She can’t wait until I’m out of her hair.”
“That’s so cool. My parents would flip.”
They walked into class together.
Claire rubbed the space between her eyes. She had one more class before she was faced with Cooper. And she wasn’t ready for that.
She and Elsie sat in their usual chairs. “Do you have an aspirin or something?”
The bell rang as Elsie reached into her purse. “I might.”
Claire looked and found Mr. Dunnan, with his receding hairline and blustery red nose, staring down at her. On the board were almost identical questions to those that had been on Eastman’s.
“Oh, shit.” Claire moaned.
“I can’t find anything,” Elsie whispered.
Dunnan walked down the aisle of desks. “I understand we have a protégé in our class.”
Not today . . . not again.
Claire reached for her backpack and stood.
“Where are you going, Claire?” Dunnan asked.
Because she was there on an assignment, and because she knew walking out without some cooperation from the teacher would likely cause more problems, Claire suffered a breath. “I don’t feel well.”
“Heard that, too. So unfortunate.” Dunnan wasn’t amused. “Have a seat.”
“Fine.”
He turned back around.
“Does anyone have an Advil or something?” Claire asked the entire room.
Someone laughed.
“Students are not allowed to take any medication on campus unless they’re in the nurse’s office,” Dunnan explained.
Claire grabbed her backpack and was halfway to the door before Dunnan stopped her.
“Excuse me!”
“You said go to the nurse’s office.” She used his words against him.
“That was not what I said.”
She looked him in the eye. “All due respect, Mr. Dunnan, but I have a bitch of a headache and I’m on my period. So unless you want me moaning and bleeding all over your classroom, I suggest you allow me to go to the nurse’s office.”
Nothing shut a man up faster than the period card.
“Go.” His nose deepened in color when he was mad.
News of Claire’s shenanigans caught up with the track team.
Cooper wasn’t sure if it was strategy on her part or because of what he’d told her the night before. A combo of both, he assumed.
He searched the team as they slowly made their way on the field, looking for her.
They needed to keep it together.
Coach Bennett approached him. “Afternoon,” he said.
“Hello.”
“I heard our new sprinter is pushing the limits in the classroom.”
“You mean Claire?”
“You heard about it, too?”
Cooper nodded.
“Yeah. Listen, I don’t want to lose her. Varsity girls need a solid runner.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Cooper said.
“No, I’ll do the talking. After, I want you to run that attitude out of her.”
Damn.
He wanted to text her, send a warning.
“Here she is. I’ll let them stretch and then pull her aside. No reason to give her an audience. I heard she likes that.”
Cooper tried to make eye contact with Claire, but she was doing her best to look anywhere but at him.
When the stretching was done and the kids took the field, Coach Bennett waved Claire his way. A look over his shoulder and he asked Cooper to join them.
“Do you know why we called you over?” Bennett asked.
Her eyes caught Cooper’s for two seconds.
“Yeah.”
“I like you, Claire. You fit on the team, the coaches like you. But the classroom has to come first. If you mess up out there, fail your classes . . . track is history.”
“I’m not failing.” The attitude she used on campus seeped out.
“Do you want to be out here?” Bennett asked.
Claire looked from the coach to Cooper. “Yeah.”
“Then clean up the bullshit. I can’t stop you from doing what you wanna do when you’re not in school, but if you bring it on campus, I won’t have any choice but to cut you.”
“Fine.”