The Demon Headmaster by Cross Gillian

Author:Cross, Gillian [Cross, Gillian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780192732965
Publisher: Oxford University Press Children's Books
Published: 2012-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

9

Dinah’s Secret

Dinah had not expected them to be nice to her. It had cost her quite a lot to push the door open. But at the sight of Harvey sobbing among the cushions, she was sure she had done the right thing.

‘Please may I see the sums?’

‘No you may not!’ Lloyd snapped. ‘You only want to gloat, don’t you? You’re just a mean, horrible—’

Harvey raised a tear-stained face from the cushions. ‘Oh, let her,’ he said wearily. ‘What difference can it make? I don’t think she’s horrible enough to gloat, even if you do. There you are, Di. There are the beastly sums. On the floor.’

Dinah bent down and picked up the pieces of paper. Her cheeks had turned red and her heart was thudding uncomfortably. Be quiet! a voice in her head was saying. Don’t be too clever. Don’t give yourself away. She looked at Harvey and then at Lloyd’s wretched, worried face. And then at the sums.

‘Aren’t they impossible?’ Lloyd said.

Dinah took a deep breath. ‘There’s no way either of you could do them.’

‘Ha, ha,’ Lloyd sneered. ‘And I suppose you could, clever clogs.’

‘Yes,’ Dinah said slowly. ‘Yes, I can.’

Lloyd stared at her.

‘It’s all right, Harvey,’ said Dinah. ‘I can do your sums.’

There was total silence. Harvey’s mouth fell open and Lloyd went on staring.

‘I can do them,’ Dinah said again.

Harvey sat up, blinking at them. His hair flopped over his eyes and his cheeks were red.

‘Honest?’

‘Honest,’ said Dinah reluctantly. ‘Give me a pen and some paper and I’ll do them now.’

She felt their eyes watching her as she sat down at the table and read the first sum.

‘You need to use Probability Theory for that one,’ she said briskly. Her eye travelled on down the page. ‘And Spherical Geometry for that one. And this one—phew!’ She whistled. ‘You need Tensor Calculus for that. He really didn’t mean you to do them, did he?’

‘But you can do them?’ Harvey said anxiously.

‘I told you.’ Her pen started to move across the paper and, behind her, she heard Lloyd gasp in disbelief. Taking no notice, she plunged into the sums, completely absorbed. One or two of the problems were so difficult that she had to think hard and she began to hum softly, enjoying herself. By the time she had finished, the two boys were staring at her with awed curiosity.

‘How—how on earth did you do them?’ Lloyd said awkwardly.

Dinah sat back in her chair. ‘I’m clever.’

Lloyd’s mouth twitched, as if he were going to jeer, and she laughed suddenly. ‘No, I’m not boasting. I’m really clever. At sums and all sorts of things like that.’

‘Nobody told us,’ Lloyd said sulkily.

‘Nobody knows.’ Dinah pulled a face. ‘Can’t you imagine how other children would treat me? They’d be mean. I found that out when I was about five. So—I decided to play stupid. I kept quiet and I just went on finding out about things by myself, at the library and so on. And no one’s ever guessed. Nobody’s known about me.

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