“You’re probably wondering why I called you all here today,” I intoned in my deepest boardroom voice.

Joshua snorted and shook his head. “Weirdo,” he said aloud.

“What was that, Mr. Mayhew?”

Ms. Wolters’s shrill voice cut across the room as she spun away from the chalkboard. Joshua coughed and hacked, trying desperately to cover his error.

Unfortunately, some of his classmates, including the big, red-headed boy next to him, mistook Joshua’s actions as the intentional mocking of their teacher. They began to laugh, joining in the supposed fun. Ms. Wolters, believing herself to be at the receiving end of some unheard joke, stood as straight as the piece of chalk she now gripped. Her glare looked no less than murderous.

“Mr. Mayhew, since you seem to have such a keen grasp on this material, please come to the board and tell us what the order is for this differential equation.” She practically spat out the words.

Joshua shot me a panicked look. It was painfully clear from his face that differential equations weren’t exactly his specialty.

“Oh, God,” I moaned. “I’m so sorry. I’m a moron.”

He shook his head slightly, trying to tell me no despite the fact that I’d obviously gotten him into trouble. He slid out of his seat and walked sluggishly to the chalkboard, hardly looking at Ms. Wolters as he took the chalk from her thin hand.

I hurried to his side, fluttering my hands uselessly. I stared up at the complex math problem in front of him, only to see it was a tangled mess of numbers and letters and symbols. Oh no, I thought as I struggled to keep my eyes in focus while staring at the equation. Just looking at all the d’s and 3’s and x’s and y’s, I felt my breath start to mirror Joshua’s in rapidity.

He stared at the equation on the board too, his face a total blank. He seemed pretty smart . . . but maybe not this smart. Not without some warning. Not in the face of this monster problem.

“Crap,” I said out loud. I had no idea what to do. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Ms. Wolters smirk at Joshua, whose hand had pressed the chalk to the board just under the equation and now held it there motionless. The teacher’s smug face infuriated me. I turned back to the problem and stared at it intently, determined to do something, anything.

Nothing . . . nothing . . . nothing.

And then—

“Three,” I shouted. “Joshua, the highest derivative is d3/dy3—the third one. So the order is three.”

He shot me a sidelong glance with one eyebrow raised, and then scratched the number 3 on the board. The ghost of a smile skittered across his face when he turned to Ms. Wolters, but he kept his voice meek.

“I think the order is three, ma’am.”

Ms. Wolters’ mouth gaped open like a trout. When Joshua reached out to give her the stick of chalk, she mindlessly took it and slipped it into her pocket.

“Well . . . um . . .”

As she sputtered at the front of the classroom, Joshua walked back to his seat, deliberately strutting. I walked beside him, cramped close to him by the narrow aisle. We passed a sandy-haired boy who sat in the desk in front of Joshua’s, and the boy reached out one fist into the air. Joshua lifted his left fist and bumped it against the other boy’s.

Using that moment as a distraction, he reached out his right hand almost imperceptibly and brushed his fingers against mine. The flame in my hand was thank-you enough.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

Chapter

Nine

After school ended, Joshua drove us back to Robber’s Cave Park and directed me to our bench. Once seated, Joshua leaned against the edge of the concrete table, resting both elbows behind him on the tabletop. I sat quietly beside him, one leg crossed beneath me, the other propped up and cradled to my chest with my arm. We didn’t speak for a while, probably because I was concentrating on anything but him. Mostly, I tried to ignore the incredulous smile he would occasionally turn up at me.

I had a feeling I knew what he was thinking; and, to my deep embarrassment, I found I was right when he finally spoke.

“So, Amelia—do you remember when exactly you became a math genius?”

I glued my eyes to the tree line and did my best to shrug casually. “I wasn’t . . . I’m not a genius. I probably just studied. Like you should be doing right now.”

Joshua laughed. “I do study. I have a three point eight GPA . . . until Ms. Wolters finishes with me anyway. And what’s with the false modesty?”

I made a petulant little noise and turned around to glare at him. He smiled with feigned innocence, possibly pleased to get a rise out of me, and to get me to look at him, finally.

“Humph.” I whipped my head back to the tree line, fast enough to send my hair flying around my face. For a few more moments, we sat in near silence, except for the sound of Joshua chuckling softly. He started to make a dramatic show of coughing, as if he had to do so in order to cover his laughter.

The coughing was the last straw. I threw my hands up in protest.

“I’m not falsely modest, okay?” I cried. “I have no idea if I’m a genius. Obviously, I know differential equations. But I have no idea how, or why. Anyway, maybe I have a terrible vocabulary . . . or I can’t grasp geography . . . or something.” I trailed off weakly, losing all steam at the end of my quasi defense.

Joshua began to laugh outright. “You’re cute when you’re angry, you know that?”

“Ugh,” I moaned, wrinkling my nose in disgust. Well, at least a little disgust. “That’s patronizing, Joshua.”

More laughter, and then: “See? Good vocabulary. ‘Patronizing’ has four syllables.”

Despite myself, I laughed out loud too.

Soon enough I forgave his teasing. For the rest of the afternoon, however, I made sure to keep almost the entire conversation focused on him, diverting his questions to get as much information about him as possible.

I learned that he’d just turned eighteen in August (it was currently late September, and a Monday—I couldn’t get over this new awareness of time, mostly because it was previously so absent) and that Joshua lived with his parents, his grandmother, and his sixteen-year-old-sister, Jillian.

I pressed him about what he did for fun, and he reluctantly confessed to his place as a center fielder on the school baseball team. When I pushed the subject, Joshua spoke about his athletic ability with modesty. But I could hear the pride in his voice when he speculated that a baseball scholarship, coupled with his good grades, would probably pay his way through college.

“It’s not my absolute favorite thing in the world,” Joshua said, “but I do like playing. College ball couldn’t hurt my chances of becoming a sportswriter, either. Besides, I don’t think my folks are looking forward to paying tuition at two colleges, at the same time.”

“Jillian wants to go to college too?”

“She’d better,” he nearly growled. I leaned back, surprised by the fiercely protective look now on his face. I arched my eyebrows to demand some kind of explanation. Joshua sat forward, resting one elbow on his knee and gesturing in the air with his free hand as he spoke.

“Jillian . . . well, Jillian is kind of a pain in the ass right now. She’s just as smart as the rest of us, maybe smarter. She’s almost like you when it comes to math.” He gave me a quick, sly smile, and I looked down at my crossed leg—an unsuccessful attempt to hide my pleased embarrassment.

“But,” he went on, “it’s really important to her to . . . blend in, or something.”