My Brilliant Idea (And How It Caused My Downfall) by Stuart David

Author:Stuart David
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

16

For the first time in my life, I get to school as early as I possibly can and stand near the gate, waiting for Cyrus McCormack to come in. I see Drew Thornton quite early on and hide behind a bin before he sees me. I watch carefully as he wanders down to the playground and disappears into the crowd, lost in a world of his own, probably still dreaming about his Warcraft fair. Then I decide to stay behind the bin for the time being. There are quite a few people I’d rather not have to talk to, and I tick them off as they come in: Gary Crawford, my cousin Harry, Chris Yates. All the dominoes from the middle of my sequence. But by the time the bell rings for registration, there’s still no sign of Cyrus, the domino that will set the whole thing in motion, and there’s no sign of the one it’s all leading up to: Elsie Green. I give it a few more minutes, watching latecomers and strays hurrying through the gate with their bed hair still on, then decide Cyrus and Elsie must have arrived at school before I got there, and head for my class.

After registration, it’s a double boredom of history, with Sergeant Monahan. The first bit zips by in quite a spritely fashion because it turns out we had homework, and I’ve forgotten to do it. Monahan powers up the proceedings by choosing randoms in no particular order and getting them to read out what they’ve written for the benefit of the whole class. Waiting on my name to be shouted gets my adrenaline pumping quite sufficiently, and the time seems to pass at a rate of knots. I’m only saved by Eric Beadle’s name getting called before mine, and he very clearly hasn’t applied himself over the weekend either. He makes an admirable attempt at putting something together while he talks, but Monahan sees through it and hauls Eric along the corridor to see Bailey, the headmaster, leaving me free to copy Elaine Cochrane’s work while he’s gone, and to mix it up with some of what I’ve already heard while I wait for my name to come out of the hat.

From here on in, though, the time drags like a week at my aunt Margaret’s place. Monahan uploads terabytes of data about an ancient guy who was found in a muddy bog, perfectly preserved. It all sounds quite gruesome, from what I manage to catch. Something about seeds he’d eaten being found in his stomach, and something about a rope tied around his neck. Something about him being over a thousand years old. Not the sort of thing you want to be thinking about first thing in the morning. Monahan even shows us a picture at one point, but I don’t look at it. I think there’s probably some charity or organization I could contact to get him put on a list of some kind, for attempting to psychologically damage minors.

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