The Set Up by Sophie McKenzie Read Free Book Online Page B

my skills was obviously far more important than spending a load of money on her.
    Which meant – and how had this happened? – learning to juggle with seven balls.
    By Saturday night.
     

    The entrance hall was empty – all the teachers and pupils at their next class. Mr Rogerson, our maths teacher scuttled past, his arms full of textbooks.
    ‘Shouldn’t you be in a lesson, Nico?’ He raised his eyebrows.
    ‘On my way, sir.’ I pushed myself up off the wall and headed along the corridor towards my history class. Fergus was already in there when I arrived though the class hadn’t technically started. He raised an eyebrow at me, but didn’t say anything.
    It was the day after I’d given Ketty the money for the Youth Marathon. She’d barely spoken to me since and I was going quietly mad with frustration.
    I’d quickly realised how insane my ambition to learn to juggle seven balls in four days had been. But at least I could use telekinesis to help. I’d been practising like mad ever since, unable to concentrate on anything else, though I’d still only managed to keep four balls in the air so far.
    Fergus made some announcement about a new boy who had started at Fox Academy that day. All the usual stuff . . . please make him feel welcome . . . blah, blah, like head teachers do. I drifted off after a few seconds. It was the same during science and then maths. In fact, the only thing – apart from Ketty – that I noticed in the whole of my maths class was that Mr Rogerson’s hair seemed to have slid slightly to one side.
    ‘D’you think he’s wearing a wig?’ Tom whispered in my ear.
    I grinned. ‘I dare you to go up to him and pull it off.’
    Tom grinned back. ‘After you.’ He glanced at the front of the classroom, where Mr Rogerson was busily writing an equation on the whiteboard. ‘Hey, you said you’d show me a picture of your fit new girlfriend.’
    I frowned for a second before I realised he must be talking about Dylan.
    ‘Yeah, next time I see her,’ I whispered.
    ‘You’re making her up.’
    ‘I’m no—’
    ‘Another whisper and you’ll both be in detention.’ Mr Rogerson’s clipped tones temporarily ended our conversation, but Tom didn’t let the subject of Dylan drop. In fact, he was still teasing me during lunch break. In the end I headed up to Fergus’s flat to get away from him. I used to live here, but last year I told Fergus I’d rather be in the dorms with everyone else. I still had a bedroom, though, and keys.
    I let myself in and sat on the sofa. There was a bowl of apples on the table and I spent a few minutes attempting to juggle five of them using telekinesis. I could still only manage four.
    Disgruntled, I put the apples back in the bowl and looked round. I hadn’t been in here for weeks, but the flat was as tidy as ever. Fergus’s timetable was clipped neatly to the fridge door, along with a picture of me and Mum from when I was about three.
    I wandered over to take a closer look. Mum was smiling in the photo. What would she say if she knew about me and Ketty? I sighed. Chances were, that if she were alive, I probably wouldn’t tell her. Most boys I knew didn’t seem to talk to their mums about girl stuff.
    The timetable showed that the whole of Fergus’s lunch hour today was taken up with a staff meeting. Jack’s instruction to look for information about the fourth teen with the Medusa gene suddenly popped into my head. Well, I might as well see what I could find while there was no danger of Fergus interrupting me. I could have another go at the juggling in a minute.
    I scanned the bookshelves, then spent a few minutes investigating a cupboard that contained a load of private bank and tax info. Nothing remotely to do with the Medusa gene. I had a quick look round in Fergus’s bedroom, but there was clearly nothing in here apart from clothes and a few old car magazines.
    Maybe all the really important stuff was in his office. I headed out of the flat and past