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.”

She had only just sat down when her phone beeped in her pocket, and she fished it out to see that there was a

over me too much, Jamie, Elise thought with a rueful

He was holding a thermos flask as

as we kick off this boot camp, let’s hope that all of

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

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

Bolton announced. “Seeing as today’s the first day, I’ve prepared a set

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

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

up her pen, she began writing down her workings and

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

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

students here got full marks in the

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

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

guess I’ll be waiting for your good news, Henry,”

two-hour test was over in a blink of an eye,

I couldn’t come up with

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

plainly, “I