Bring Your A Game

Chapter 58

Bring Your A Game Mr Chapter 58

I Could Teach You

Elise flashed a smile and said, “I’m Elise.”

Samantha gaped at her in astonishment. “Wait, you’re Elise?”

Elise nodded. “In the flesh.”

For a moment, Samantha could not recover from her daze. She thought about what Elise had said to Amanda minutes ago, and only then did all the pieces click. “That explains why you put Amanda down the way you did; if someone was badmouthing me to my face, I’d have slapped them!”

Seeing how serious Samantha was amused Elise. She liked that Samantha was not the stereotypically aloof heiress that one might expect, but she gave off the impression that she was kind and approachable instead.

“By the way, Elise, I heard that Zachary Newman is here at the boot camp, too. Having the both of you here is like waiting for a legendary showdown to happen! I can’t wait to see which of you will emerge victorious at the end of the boot camp!”

This was the second time Zachary’s name was brought up in Elise’s presence. She figured he must be some kind of math whiz for everyone to praise him behind his back.

Presently, Elise and Samantha came to a stop at the classroom doorway, whereupon they saw that the room was filled to the brim with other boot camp participants. Their arrival instantly caught the room’s attention, though everyone’s gazes lingered on Samantha the longest. After all, it was hard for a fine- looking girl like her to keep from standing out in a crowd.

“Excuse me,” one of the boys piped up boldly, addressing Samantha. “You can sit next to me if you’d like.”

However, his invitation was swiftly rebuffed when Samantha, having taken one glance at the vacant seat next to him, said apologetically, “Sorry, but I’m going to sit with my friend.”

With that, she pulled Elise over to the last row of seats and declared, “Let’s sit here, Elise.”

Elise did not object to this. She had only just sat down when her phone beeped in her pocket, and she fished it out to see that there was a new message from Jamie, which read, ‘Hey, Boss. Heard that you’ve gone into isolation or something. Send me your location, and I’ll bring goodies for you some other day.’

You fuss over me too much, Jamie, Elise thought with a rueful smile. A few taps on the screen later, she sent her location.

Once that was done, she kept her phone just as a middle-aged man appeared at the classroom entryway. He was holding a thermos flask as he walked in, and a hush descended upon the room as everyone registered his presence.

“Good day, everyone. Welcome to the Mathematics Olympiad Boot Camp. I’m Henry Bolton, and you may address me as Mr. Bolton. I’ll be in charge of your studies for the next half a month, and as we kick off this boot camp, let’s hope that all of you will give it your best for as long as you’re here. Now, in order to keep everyone from getting distracted during camp, please hand over your phones.”

Upon hearing this, Samantha immediately grew reluctant. She had initially hoped that she could play a game or two that evening, but now that she was going to surrender her phone, she might very well die of boredom before tomorrow. Dread filled her as she groaned. “Do we really have to hand over our phones?”

Elise, on the other hand, was unfazed by this. She didn’t think having a phone would make a difference to her boot camp experience. When the student in charge of collecting everyone’s phones reached their row, Elise handed her phone over without protest.

“I’ll keep an eye on your phones throughout this boot camp. Should any of you have an urgent call to make, come see me privately,” Mr. Bolton announced. “Seeing as today’s the first day, I’ve prepared a set of exercises for all of you to get a feel of what this camp is all about. Think of it as an entry test, something that will ease you all into this boot camp experience.”

The classroom was charged with frenzied energy when everyone heard this. Those who were gathered here for the Mathematics Olympiad Boot Camp were mathletes in their own right, and a test was exactly what they needed to prove how strong they were.

Before long, Mr. Bolton passed the exercises down each row, and silence filled the room as everyone set themselves to work. When Elise got her papers, she perused each page fervently and found that almost all the questions were doable, though the last one was tricky.

Picking up her pen, she began writing down her workings and answers.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bolton was observing the students on the other side of the door when another teacher came down the hallway and asked good-naturedly, “Hey, Henry. Giving the kids a test run?”

Mr. Bolton grinned as he explained, “I figured I should see how well they cope right off the bat.”

“I heard that one of the students here got full marks in the City Mathematics Olympiad. That’s potential right there.”

Mr. Bolton had already gotten wind of this, but he admittedly had higher regards for another student— one of his own, no less—by the name of Zachary.

“Like you said, I’m giving these kids a test run. It’s the only way for us to pick out the cream of the crop,” Mr. Bolton pointed out with a long sigh. There had been a make-or-break question from the National Mathematics Olympiad last year, and no student had cracked it to date. Having deliberately put it to the test today, Mr. Bolton hoped that a hard blow would knock some self-awareness into these kids.

“Well, guess I’ll be waiting for your good news, Henry,” the other teacher quipped humorously before walking away.

The two-hour test was over in a blink of an eye, and everyone looked defeated as they handed in their papers.

“The last question got me beat; I couldn’t come up with an answer at all.”

“Me, too. I couldn’t even understand the question, let alone work on it. I dread to think about how I did on the test.” A couple of students huddled together to lament over the paper, and the boy who spoke first glanced over at Zachary, who sat not too far away. “Hey, Zach, what do you think of the paper?”

Zachary pursed his lips and answered plainly, “I gave it my best shot.”

The boy couldn’t hide his surprise at this. “Humility becomes you, Zach. Anyway, did you manage to crack the last question? What was the answer?”

At the mention of this, Zachary frowned and confessed stoically, “I got one-half multiplied by the square root of three for the first sub-question, but that’s about it.”

“Damn, if the first sub-question was all you managed to crack, then what hope is there left for the rest of us?”

Zachary offered no response to this. His own strength in terms of math olympiads had been reflected through this test, and he was painfully aware of how much more work he had to put in for the rest of the boot camp.

Toward the back of the classroom, Samantha was dejected as she whined, “Elise, the last question was ridiculous! I’m probably going to flunk math camp.” She never wanted to join this boot camp in the first place, and she had told her parents as much. But they had been so resolute that they would rather make backdoor deals than have her not join the camp at all. Now that she realized how challenging math olympiads were, she wanted to pack up and go home.

Just then, Elise offered kindly, “I could teach you how to solve the problems if you’d like.”

All thoughts of abandoning camp were struck out of Samantha’s mind; it was as if Elise had turned into her saving grace. “Really?” Delighted, she practically pounced on Elise, wrapping her arms around the girl’s neck as she exclaimed, “That would be amazing! I love you, Elise!”

Somewhat taken aback by the sudden display of affection, Elise said, “Okay, you can let me go now.”

Samantha chuckled and released her. “Come on, let’s go back to the dorm so you can teach me math.”

They sauntered back toward the dormitories and found that their final roommate had arrived as well. “Hi, I’m Riley Bolton.” Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

“I’m Samantha Greene. Pleasure to meet you,” Samantha greeted brightly.

Elise introduced herself with a smile. “And I’m Elise Sinclair. Welcome to Dorm 503.”

Riley was in disbelief when she heard Elise’s name and belatedly asked, “You’re Elise Sinclair? As in, the same Elise Sinclair who got full marks in the City Mathematics Olympiad?”