Page 19 of A Scandal in Homeroom
“Atlantic City is only an hour and a half drive from here,” I pointed out. “You’re underage for the casinos but IDs are easily faked, are they not? You certainly could pass for eighteen, if not twenty-one.”
“Are you done?”
“Am I right?”
She smiled. “Goodnight, Locke.”
She walked around me, and I let her go this time, watching her move between two houses where I ascertained she must have left a bedroom window openfor herto climb through.
“I believe it’s good morning,” I called to her back. She lifted her hand in a negligent wave as if to suggest she was done with me.
I didn’t have the energy to start my jog up again. Instead, I walked home and wondered what game Irene was playing and if it had anything to do with what I’d learned Friday.
A game with more money on the line than the Freshman Bait List.
Question: Where might Irene Adler, a girl wearing knock-off designer shoes, who lived in the West End side of town, get the kind of money she would need to play in a high-stakes game?
Answer: As yet, unknown.
Curiosity beyond piqued.
5
Monday Morning
AP Chem Class
Reen
“You’re really not going to ask me anything else about Saturday night?”
I was leaning over the front of my desk so I could whisper into Locke’s ear while Mr. Crowley had his back to us.
Crowley was talking about the concept of balancing formulas while he made notes on the chalkboard, and I realized I had missed the entire point of today’s lesson because my mind had been occupied with other things.
Which meant I was going to have to teach it to myself from the textbook. It wasn’t so much I cared what might happen if I was tested, but I didn’t like not knowing things other people around me did.
“Why would I, when I already know the answer?” he whispered back.
“You don’t know anything. You guessed something. That means nothing.”
“Idon’tguess. I deduce. Now stop bothering me. I’m trying to pay attention.”
Frustrated, I sat back in my seat. Bullshit, he deduced. I was starting to understand something about Locke.
He wasn’t…normal.
He’d figured out the Freshman List, he’d known Ed’s passcode. He knew about Kylie’s cheating…
And he hadn’t been very far off with the gambling.
I’d been watching other people gamble, not gambling myself.
What if he found out about the poker game?
Locke didn’t present as a rat, but again, he wasn’t normal, either.
He was not just an exchange student from London. He was into everyone’s business, finding out their secrets. Observant as hell. What drove him?
