Purrcyâs body?â
âWe buried him in the rose garden outside the Headmasterâs office,â said Judith.
âAt least thatâs a suitable, respectful resting place,â said Friday, unexpectedly impressed by the thoughtfulness of the girls.
âWe found a hole there so we thought that would do the job,â said Stacey. âSave us having to dig one up ourselves.â
Rebecca shook her head sadly. âYou see, it is this slipshod mentality that will prevent them from ever becoming good cooks.â
Chapter 13
A Secret in the Woods
It was mandatory for students at Highcrest Academy to join at least one extracurricular club. Friday had pointed out to the Headmaster that by making an activity compulsory, it therefore was no longer extracurricular but, rather, curricular. The Headmaster simply told her to âbe quiet and go back to classâ.
Naturally the first club Friday joined was the science club. It was run by one of Fridayâs favourite teachers,Mr Davies. There was very little he could teach Friday that she didnât already know. But what she liked about Mr Davies was his enthusiasm. The delight he took in explaining the process of osmosis, the genuine wonder with which he held the periodic table and the excitement he felt for Newtonian physics was contagious. For Mr Davies, every day spent exploring science was as fun as a day at Disney land, something Mr Davies also highly recommended, because there is no better place to study gravity, momentum and centrifugal force than in the loop-da-loop of a rollercoaster.
The science club had spent the previous two weeks observing oral bacteria, by spitting into petri dishes then watching what grew. It was a disgusting but educational exercise. This weekâs meeting was promising to be even more exciting. They were going to explore aeronautical physics by building rockets. The student whose rocket flew the highest would get a bar of chocolate.
Friday was pouring all her knowledge of physics into building the most aerodynamically pure and chemically potent rocket she possibly could.
Melanie helped, of course. It was her job to sit at the desk so that she blocked Ianâs view of what Friday was doing.
âAre we all ready?â asked Mr Davies. He was holding his own bright red rocket, which was about the size of a postal tube and had flickering flames painted on the side. He was practically dancing from foot to foot with excitement. âThen letâs go.â
The students got up from their desks and made their way with their rockets to the door. The rockets were going to be fired from the school cricket pitch. A vertical measure had been erected, and a high-speed camera was being used so that the flights could be accurately gauged.
âI donât know why youâre bothering, Barnes,â said Ian as the bottleneck of the doorway drew him and Friday together. âThis is a real practical experiment, not a hypothetical mind game like you usually play.â
âIâm perfectly capable of transferring my intellectual knowledge to real-world scenarios,â said Friday.
âReally?â said Ian. âBut you apparently canât manage the simple real-world task of tying your shoelaces.â
Friday looked down. âWhat are you talking about?â she asked. âTheyâre tied.â
âYes, but you doubted yourself enough that you had to check, didnât you?â said Ian. âLetâs see if you have the same faith in your rocket.â
âOooh,â said Melanie. âYou should write down some of this witty byplay so you can read the transcripts to your grandchildren one day.â
âI didnât know Barnes and Wainscott were planning to start a family,â said Christopher.
Friday blushed. She didnât realise that Christopher was standing close by.
âOh yes,â said Melanie, âitâs inevitable. Theyâre just in
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