DOMINION Bentley Little (accelerated reader books .TXT) 📖

know that I can arrange for you to take independent study. Clearly you’re just spinning your wheels in this class. This is basically a mythology primer, an overview for beginners. I think you would benefit greatly from accelerated coursework.”

“No,” Dion said quickly.

“Don’t be so hasty. Think about it. I don’t know what your future academic plans are, but I can assure you that such a move would look very impressive on your transcripts.”

Outside the classroom, the hall was filled with talking, shouting, slamming lockers: the sounds of lunch. Dion glanced anxiously toward the open door, then turned his attention back to the teacher. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll think about it.”

“Discuss it with your parents. I really feel that you’d just be wasting your time in this course.”

“I will,” Dion said, backing up. He picked up his book and notebook from the top of his desk.

Mr. Holbrook smiled. “I know. It’s lunch. Go. Get out of here. But promise me you’ll consider this option, okay? We’ll talk more about it later.”

“Okay,” Dion said. “Uh, thanks. Bye.” He walked out of the room. In the hall, Kevin, Penelope, and her friend Vella were standing together next to one of the lockers. Dion knew that he was the subject of their conversation, and for some reason the knowledge made him absurdly, unreasonably happy. He walked purposefully toward them, but Penelope, seeing him, waved a quick good-bye to Kevin, and she and her friend disappeared into the stream of people rushing through the building toward the outside lunch area. “What was that about?” he asked Kevin.

“Why? Jealous?”

He hadn’t even thought of that.

“Don’t worry.” Kevin laughed. “She’s all yours. I was just talking to her. I don’t want to cornhusk her.”

Dion grinned. “Oh, you want her friend, huh?”

“For what? I already have a dog.” Kevin snorted.

“Come on. We’re late and it’s getting crowded. Let’s grab some grub.”

The two of them pushed their way through the crowd toward the cafeteria.

Dion was standing in line next to Kevin, trying to overhear the sexually explicit conversation of the two jocks in the next line over, when he felt a light feminine tap on his shoulder. A shiver of goosebumps surfed down his arm. He turned around. As he’d hoped, as he’d feared, he found himself face to face with Penelope. This close, he could see the clear smoothness of her skin, the natural redness of her lips. She nodded at him, smiled, but there was a trace of worry in her brow, a subtle hint of concern in her eyes. “What happened with Mr. Holbrook?” she asked.

“Are you in trouble?”

Dion studied her face. Did she care? Was she interested? His palms were sweaty and he wiped them on his jeans, but his voice betrayed none of his anxious excitement. “He said I should be in an advanced mythology class, but since there was none, he wanted me to take independent study.”

The worry turned to alarm. “Are you going to?”

She was interested.

“No.” He smiled.

A flush of redness spread over her cheeks. “It’s just that… I mean, I, uh—”

Kevin stuck his head between them. “She likes you, okay? God, just come out and say it. I’m tired of this. I have to listen to you two beat around the bush for an hour and a half, and then I’ll have to listen to him analyze it for the next week. She likes you. You like her. You both like each other. Does that about cover it?”

Now both of them were red, embarrassed. They stood awkwardly silent, not looking at each other, neither of them knowing what to say.

“Would you like to sit with us?” Kevin asked, usurping Dion’s obvious next line. “Yes, thank you,” he answered himself.

Penelope looked doubtfully at Dion, then shifted her gaze toward one of the tables. “I’m supposed to eat with—”

“Bring her along,” Kevin said. He motioned for the two of them to move forward in line. “And move up. You’re blocking traffic. Jeez, do I have to do everything for you?”

Dion and Penelope looked at Kevin, then at each other, and laughed.

After paying for her lunch, Penelope went to get Vella, who was brown-bagging it, and the girls joined Dion and Kevin at a table near Senior Corner. It was Kevin who initiated the conversation at first, who expertly drew all of them into the discussion, but what began as a four-way dialogue was soon dominated by Dion and Penelope, who addressed most of their words to each other, involving Kevin and Vella only peripherally.

Dion drank his Coke quickly but hardly touched his hamburger as he kept his eyes and attention fastened on Penelope. He had expected the conversation to be stilted and awkward, filled with favorite food-favorite music favorite movie questions, and there was some of that, but for the most part the conversation flowed naturally, organically, not seeming the least bit forced or false. The two of them did not run out of things to talk about, as he’d feared, but found that each question, each answer, each observation, each reminiscence, opened up entirely new topics and fields for discussion. Neither of them mentioned what Kevin had brought up in line, and for that reason there was an underlying tension in their talk, a tension that maintained a steady rush of intoxicating adrenaline coursing through Dion’s veins.

Lunch ended far too soon.

The bell rang, and Kevin stood up, throwing his wrappers in the metal trash bin next to the table, waving good-bye, and heading off to his sixth-period class. Vella threw away her trash too and waited a respectable distance away for her friend. Around them the flow of people began streaming toward the classrooms.

Penelope looked at Dion, glanced away. “So what are you doing after school?” she asked, not meeting his eyes.

“Why?”

“Well, I thought maybe we could study together. I mean, I’m having a little trouble in Mythology, especially keeping all those Titans and Olympians straight.” She smiled. “Since you’re the big expert, I thought you could help me out.”

She was not