Bring Your A Game

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.”

that, she pulled Elise over to the last row of seats and declared,

in her pocket, and she fished it out to see that there was a new

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

her phone just as a middle-aged man appeared at the classroom entryway. He was holding a thermos

as we kick off this boot camp, let’s hope that all of you will give it

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

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

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

charged with frenzied energy when everyone heard this. Those who were gathered here for the Mathematics Olympiad Boot Camp were mathletes

Elise got her papers, she

she began writing down her

door when another teacher came down the hallway and asked good-naturedly, “Hey, Henry. Giving

as he explained, “I figured I should see how well they

heard that one of the students here got full marks in the City

gotten wind of this, but he admittedly had higher regards for another student—one of his own, no less—by

been a make-or-break question from the National Mathematics Olympiad last year, and no student had cracked it

I’ll be waiting for your good news,

a blink of an eye, and everyone looked

me beat; I couldn’t come up

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

lips and answered plainly, “I