Bring Your A Game Mr Chapter 59
Bring Your A Game Mr Chapter 59
She’s Elise!
Elise was calm as ever as she hummed in affirmation, but Riley, on the other hand, was rather
overwhelmed. “You’re, like, beyond amazing. You have no idea how much I look up to you. I never
thought I’d actually get to be roommates with you! I go to Cloverfield High, which is next door, by
the way.”
“Okay, can we save the chit-chat forter? Elise, you have to help me out with those questions from the
test!” Samantha was a little antsy as she dragged Elise toward the desk.
Riley interjected when she heard this. “Are you guys going through the questions? Mind if I join in?”
Following this, the three girls huddled over the desk, and Elise went about exining the questions
from earlier. By the end of the session, even Samantha—who had looked clueless throughout the
entire test—managed to wrap her head around the questions.
Riley, on the other hand, gained new understandings as well. “I went through countless workings, and
my answers came out different each time. For a minute I thought I’d messed up somewhere in the
calction, but as it turns out, I was using the wrong method all along.”
“Elise, is there another approach we could use for this question?” Samantha pressed.
Elise nced at the question and said slowly, “Well, yes… but I don’t rmend the other approach
because of howplicated it is.”
Just as they were discussing this, Amanda walked in on them. At the sight of the three girls gathered
by the desk, she drawled sourly, “How pretentious.”
Riley had never met or heard of Amanda before this, but she wondered how anyone could sound so
unfriendly from the get-go. Riley shot her a frown, a little peeved by her hostile demeanor.
Meanwhile, Samantha simply ignored Amanda. Instead, she tugged on Elise’s arm and said, “Why
don’t we go over a couple more questions before we call it a day, Elise?”
More than happy to oblige, Elise quipped, “Sure.”
Riley wasted no time in joining them. “I’ll stick around with you guys.”
At that moment, there was a knock on the door, and a voice called out from the other side, “Hey, Elise?
There’s someone by the school entrance asking for you!”
Elise couldn’t help but be a little taken aback. Who would be asking for me? She didn’t stop wondering
until she reached the school entrance and saw Jamie, who was carrying two carrier bags of snacks as
he eximed, “So this is where you’ve been hiding, Boss!” Heaven knows I’ve been calling you all day
only to find that you’ve turned your phone off, he wanted to say.
More to the point, he had pleaded with the security guard at the entrance with dire efforts before the
stubborn man finally allowed him to pass. Presently, Jamie held up the bags and said, “These are for
you, Boss.”
Content property of N?velDra/ma.Org.
“What, all these?” Elise gaped in shock at the inordinate amount of snacks in those bags.
“Come on, Boss, these probably won’tst you more than a day! Eat all you want. I’ll bring more over if
you run out.”
A sudden thought crossed Elise’s mind as she took the bags from Jamie. “By the way, could you log
into my ount and check if there’s any news? Let me know if there is.”
Jamie made a noise of agreement. “Got it, Boss! Now run along and get some rest. It’s gettingte as it
is.”
He had only just said this when the sound of an approaching car came within earshot. The both of them
turned simultaneously to see a familiar car pulling up at the school entrance. Elise froze, and as her
heart threatened to stop beating, the backseat window of the car rolled down to reveal half of
Alexander’s features.
Jamie rubbed his nose sheepishly. “I’ll get going now, Boss!” With that, he hurried away from the
scene. Following this, Alexander got down from the car and walked up to Elise.
“I thought you were going home,” Elise mumbled.
Alexander said nothing, but he kept his gaze on her for a while before answering, “I passed by that
pan-European restaurant you like and figured I’d buy you beef stew.”
She could hardly believe that he would actually buy her beef stew. “Thank you! I’d buy you a meal to
show my thanks, but that will have to wait, seeing as I’m going to be in istion for the rest of this math
camp.”
He gave a ‘hmm’ in response. “That’s fine with me.”
A little weighed down by the carrier bags in hand, Elise said, “Right. I’ll be getting back to the dorm
now.”
“Okay,” Alexander replied as he handed the beef stew over to her. She took it graciously, and for some
reason, she felt as if she was carrying lead, even though the take-out couldn’t weigh much on its own.
Thank heavens he hasn’t asked about Jamie yet.
At the thought of this, she visibly rxed.
Alexander did not retract his gaze until after Elise had gone into the dormitory. Then, his eyes flickered
over to the direction in which Jamie had left.
Judging from their interaction earlier, anyone could easily tell that Elise and Jamie were on good terms.
Alexander thought about the dinner partyst time, where he had seen Elise and Jamie together; she
had said that the both of them had only met not too long ago and barely knew one another.
Taking out his phone, Alexander made a call and instructed gloomily, “Help me look into this guy
named Jamie Keller and all those who are even remotely associated with him.”
“Yes, Mr. Griffith,” came the reply on the other line.
He hung up the call after that. With onest nce at the school entrance, he turned to get into his car
and left the premises.
…
The next morning heralded the official first day of the Mathematics Olympiad Boot Camp, and Elise,
along with Samantha and Riley, arrived early in the ssroom.
It didn’t take long for Mr. Bolton to show up with the test papers from the day before. Upon seeing this,
everyone in ss quieted down, and not a single breath was drawn as they waited for Mr. Bolton to
speak on the lectern.
“So, we unofficially kicked off boot camp with a test yesterday, and I spent the better part of my night
going through all your answers. I think it’s safe to say that this paper is challenging in its own right, but I
never expected for one of you to actually get full marks for it.”
The students buzzed with surprise when they heard this. Nearly everyone looked at Zachary in awe,
but the boy was equally bewildered as he sat stiffly in the front of the room. He knew the test had
started out with predictable and basic questions, but it got trickier toward the end, and he never did
answer two sub-questions. In short, there was no way he had gotten full marks on the test.
“Way to go, Zach! You were just being modest yesterday, weren’t you? You said you did fine, but it
looks like you scored full marks without even breaking a sweat!”
“Yeah, Zach! You had us thinking you did poorly on the test, but who could have thought you had such
an impressive trick up your sleeve? All things aside, you owe us a meal.”
Exasperated, Zachary pressed his lips into a thin line and corrected, “Look, I can’t be the one to have
scored full marks. My answer for thest question was iplete.”
“What?” The two students from before asked in unison, one as astounded as the other.
Just then, Mr. Bolton pushed his sses up his nose bridge and held up the paper with the full marks.
“Well done, Miss Elise.”
Everyone exchanged baffled looks at the mention of this name. Elise? Who is she and why haven’t we
seen her before?
The room was buzzing with anticipation. As Elise rose from her seat slowly, everyone turned to
appraise her with interest. None of them could hide the shock on their faces when they took in her
appearance; indeed, she looked like the schrly type.
“Miss Elise,e forward and collect your paper,” Mr. Bolton said. She did as told and put one foot out
in front of the other,ing to a stop in front of the lectern so she could take her paper.
Seated in the first row, Amanda faltered as she watched Elise with wide eyes. I can’t believe she’s
Elise!