Free The Clueless Girl's Guide to Being a Genius by Janice Repka Page B

closed my diary. “The game of pocket billiards,” I said, “commonly called pool, can teach about angles, because whether an angle is ninety-five degrees or eighty-five degrees will make the difference between the ball going into the pocket or not.”
    â€œI suppose I should take my biology class to a health spa to show the effects of a whole-body massage on the circulatory system,” said Mr. Green.
    â€œI’m sure they’d enjoy that,” I replied.
    â€œLittle lady, a pool hall is not an appropriate place for a field trip,” Mr. Ripple said. “You’ll be explaining that decision to angry parents for weeks.”
    I wanted to tell him he was wrong, but it wouldn’t matter. I had met a lot of people like Mr. Ripple—closed-minded to new ways of doing things. I tossed my apple core in my lunch bag. As I passed by Mr. Ripple, I tried to formulate a pithy comeback. I stared him straight in the eye. He looked a bit odd with his toupee crooked. Then I realized he wasn’t wearing a toupee. “Tarantula!” I screamed.
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    The next day, I told the class, “I have good new and bad news. The good news is that the testing we did last class showed a thirty-two percent increase in scores.” The class erupted. I held out my hands for silence. “The bad news,” I said teasingly, “is that I will not be able to teach class on Friday.”
    â€œWhat gives?” asked Roland.
    Mindy shot up in her seat. “You’re not leaving us?”
    â€œOf course not,” I said. “You won’t be here, either. I’ve arranged for you to be excused from your Friday classes because we’re going on a field trip!”
    The celebration resumed.
    â€œWe are about to start a geometry subsection,” I said. “So I thought you might like to see a practical application of angles.”
    â€œWe’re going to a geometry museum?” Roland guessed.
    â€œNo,” I said. “We’re going to the Shoot-M-Up pool hall on East Third Street.” They were cheering and clapping so loudly, it felt like the room would spin.
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    On Friday, a bus picked us up at the school’s back entrance. I sat in the front so I could count students getting on and off. Mindy said she got “bus sick” and was less likely to throw up if she sat up front, too, and I was happy to offer her the seat next to me.
    The Shoot-M-Up pool hall was across the railroad tracks on the other side of town. It was usually closed during the day, pool being more of an evening recreation. However, I had made arrangements with the manager, Mr. Finch.
    He was a short, chubby man with a bald head and a handlebar mustache. Colorful tattoos peeked out of the ends of his shirtsleeves, and he wore cowboy boots with pointed tips. Mr. Finch had a couple of his regular customers come by to help us with the basics. Contrary to the teachers’ warnings, Mr. Finch was well-mannered and genuinely eager to help. He wouldn’t even accept the small stipend from the school’s field trip fund.
    â€œI consider it my civic duty,” Mr. Finch said. “Just because you run a pool hall, or your kid threw a firecracker down a school toilet and caused a flood back when he was twelve, doesn’t mean you’re not as good a citizen as the rest.”
    The students had gabbed madly on the bus to the pool hall. But when they filed inside, they fell quiet, looking around as if they were really in a geometry museum.
    â€œFirst off, you each get one of these,” said Mr. Finch as pool sticks were passed. The students made mock pool shots in the air. Mr. Finch grabbed Mindy’s stick and turned it around. “Works better if you hit the ball with the thin end of the stick,” he said.
    Nine pool tables were spread apart in three rows of three. Above each table was a fluorescent light in a stained-glass fixture. We would play 8-ball. Mr. Finch explained the