Chapter 48
Quill
Trendsetter
Government
Rupert Gregson-Williams
I had to step aside to avoid being trampled by cheering students as they carried Lucas out of the Maplecrest debate building above their heads, chanting his name in unison with the devotion of acolytes in a cult.
All attention was on him. And that for a good reason. He had not only defeated Feng Zhou in the first debate, he had completely torn him apart, using all the borderline attacks Monica and Davian had warned me about.
As I had sat there watching, while Fitzek Junior had leaned back, already confident of victory, it had become clear to me once again how little I belonged here.
To think I had a chance against Lucas was ridiculous. He would corner me just as ruthlessly as he had done with Feng.
It shouldn't bother me, because if he ended up having to compete against Zachary, he probably would argue him into the ground as well, thereby unknowingly stripping my father of his future as director at Maplecrest Law.
But I couldn't count on fate. Father had Zach, and that alone was a trump card he didn't deserve.
Besides, he seemed to be able to blackmail Lucas in times of need, as he had demonstrated recently, shortly before his letter opener slip-up.
In any case, I expected nothing else from him.
“That was Feng's plan from the beginning,” Thomas laughed amusedly as we both settled down by our tree and I pulled out the Atrianima copy out of habit.
“What?”
First, I looked around for Lara, who was rushing toward us across campus in the distance – wearing one of her fall knit sweaters under her light brown coat – obviously trying not to get trampled by the celebrating crowd, before I looked back at Thomas in confusion.
“He told me he hated studying law, but his parents had prepared him for Maplecrest his entire life. He wanted to use these debates to switch to political science.”
“Oh...” Surprised, I leaned back and spotted Feng – in his gray suit – being escorted out of the debate building by his bodyguard. “So he let Lucas win?”
“He really tried. I have to give him that. Because he was afraid of his parents’ reaction. But let’s be honest… He’s better at the debate club than what I saw from him today.”
The debate had been well attended. By the entire campus. And it should be noted that the debate hall was only as big as the largest lecture hall in the main building.
My eyes wandered to the parking lot, where an elegantly dressed Asian woman and a man in a black three-piece suit awaited Feng with expressionless faces, not even greeting him before his father literally pushed him into the limousine.
Pity filled me, turning to self-pity as the limousine drove off.
“Tony is beside himself.” I looked up at Lara, who threw her bag against the tree before sitting down next to me. “Dad is trying to calm him down.”
So that was why Davian had followed my brother out of the hall so quickly.
“You know what that means?” I looked at Lara, who was staring at me with serious concern. “That you have to compete against that jerk?”
“Zach goes first,” I laughed, with far too much ease in my voice. “And if he loses, I'll leave anyway.”
Thomas cleared his throat. “Everyone here knows that Zach is going to win the next debate.”
Zach stood with a few guys under his usual tree, watching the crowd cheer for his distracted best friend. The smile had long since disappeared from his face.
Just then, he turned his head toward me, and the shadow that passed over his face was the very definition of devastating.
“Oh my God! Is that an Atrianima copy?”
Playing Mr. Ganz
Carlos Rafael Rivera
I jerked my head away from Zach and looked up, taken aback, at the brown-haired girl who was accompanied by two young men. All three of them, strangers to me, stopped in front of the tree.
She gestured toward the book in my hands and tapped the young man on her right on the shoulder.
“That's the book we're reading right now, Jeremy!”
Jeremy raised both eyebrows.
“What's so special about it?”
“There are no more copies left. And it's written in such a poetic style that you just have to own a copy!”
The young man on her left cleared his throat audibly. “And the hardcover copy she's holding in her hands is worth four hundred dollars online.”
“What?”
Jeremy looked surprised.
The girl smiled at me euphorically.
“You're from the book club too, right? Are you the one who snatched that last copy from the antique bookstore website?”
“I...,” I started, but the girl didn't even let me get a word in.
“How much do you want?” She rummaged through her bag and pulled out her wallet. “Five hundred? Seven hundred?”
“This book is not for sale.”
Over my dead body would I give away anything that belonged to Davian.
“A thousand?”
“Amy!” Jeremy took the wallet out of her hand, stuffed the money back in it, and shoved it back into her expensive-looking handbag, from which a book was already peeking out. “Stop bothering this girl. Isn’t she one of the debate participants?”
Now all three of them were staring at me.
Amy sighed. “Just another reason for you and your friends to read this book. The whole campus will probably be reading it soon, and you’ll be so lame if you guys don’t have a clue what everyone’s talking about.”
Suppressing the urge to raise both eyebrows, I watched as the three of them turned away from me and strolled off.
“What's the book called?” I heard Jeremy ask, then their voices were drowned out by the cheers of the still-celebrating student crowd.
“What the…,” Lara blurted out. The color had completely drained from her face.
A triumphant grin automatically stole onto my lips.
“Didn't I tell you? That online forum has a lot of members.”
She stared into the void, as if it bothered her that I finally had people to chat with about this book late into the night.
“Since when do people know about Atrianima?” Thomas asked in surprise, still watching the three of them walk away.
“Since I got the 230-member Maplecrest book club to read this book.”
Top Boards
Carlos Rafael Rivera
When I opened the forum this evening, I realized that things were really starting to escalate.
Although I didn't know what was usually going on here, I was sure that normally the comic forum didn't join the book club just to talk about a specific book. Or the girls' basketball team... or the chess club.
Within three hours, the forum had grown by three hundred members, all of whom were now talking about Atrianima and trying to read the book in one night.
I hadn't felt this successful in a long time.
With each additional person who started a discussion about ambiguous passages, my inner desire to push this book back onto the bestseller list grew. So much so that I posted that we might be able to get Atrianima's attention if we could convince even more people to read her book.
My new goal? To get the publisher to start printing new copies again.
It's time to turn a leaking
ink battery over.
– Blue