Jessica the Genius by Pascal Francine

Author:Pascal, Francine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-01-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Jessica gritted her teeth and turned the page of her math workbook. It was a Friday night, and she couldn't believe she was slaving away at her desk. But the retake of the SATs was scheduled for nine o'clock the next morning. She'd been killing herself all week studying for the test, determined to get superhigh scores and clear her name.

She stretched her arms and yawned, then pushed her bangs away from her sweaty forehead. This must be what doing homework on a regular basis is like, she thought. No wonder I've never wanted any part of it.

She got up and dug around in a mound of laundry for a sweatshirt. Elizabeth had always said Jessica's room looked like a mud-wrestling pit, but at the moment it was an even bigger mess than usual. For five days straight, Jessica had dashed home from school and done nothing but burrow into her workbooks, letting everything else fall apart.

Clothes were piled several feet high on her bed, on the rug, and on her chair. Shirts draped from her shelves and her bedside lamp. She unearthed a wrinkled football jersey and pulled it over her head, then shoved aside the dead plants and wads of crumpled-up workbook practice sheets, and plowed her way back to her desk.

"Jessica!" Mrs. Wakefield called up from the front hallway. "Winston is here."

Jessica put her pencil between her teeth and bit hard. "Send him up, Mom," she mumbled, squeezing her eyes shut.

She couldn't believe she was desperate enough to ask Winston to come over and help her study, but extreme circumstances called for extreme measures. Spending a Friday night in her room with the Sweet Valley class clown was about as extreme as it got.

"Jessica, light of my life. I thought we'd never be alone to satisfy our tormented longing for one another," Winston called as he came up the stairs. He banged on the door and burst into the room. Jessica covered her eyes with her hands so she didn't have to look at his pink Hawaiian shirt.

"Careful not to break the door down. I've grown rather fond of it," Jessica said irritably. "Besides, this is not a date, got it?" she added, waving her pencil at him. "I have to do even better on the SATs tomorrow than I did the first time. Pull up a chair and let's get to work.

"I may need some preliminary instruction on just how, exactly, to pull up a chair," Winston said, scratching his head. "It looks like a shopping mall exploded in here."

Jessica reached over and pushed an avalanche of jeans and tops off the rocking chair near her desk. "Sit."

"Your wish is my command." Winston lowered himself into the chair.

"All right, Winston, let's get down to business," Jessica said, handing him the math book. "I want to know every one of the equations in this book cold."

Winston peered at her through his glasses. "Ms. Wakefield, as your professor, I consider it my job to suggest that you take it easy.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.