Free Carswell's Guide to Being Lucky by Marissa Meyer Page B

into his mouth than he probably
    should have.
    “This report suggests otherwise.”
    He chewed. And chewed. And crewed.
    “Maybe we should get him a tutor,” said his mother, flicking her finger across her portscreen.
    “Is that it, Carswell? Do you need a tutor?”
    He swal owed. “I don’t need a tutor. I know how to do it all. I just don’t feel like doing it.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means that I have better things to do,” he said, setting down his fork. “I understand al the
    concepts, so why should I waste whole days of my life working through those stupid worksheets? Not to
    mention-“ He gestured wildly – At everything, at nothing. At the light fixture that changed automatical y based on the amount of sunlight that filtered in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. At the sensors in
    the wal that detected when a person entered a room and set the thermostat to their own personal
    preferences. At that brainless robotic cat. “We are surrounded by computers all the time. If I ever need help, I’l just have one of them figure it out. So what does it matter?”
    “Because it shows focus . Dedication. Diligence. Important traits that, believe it or not, are usually found in spaceship captains .”
    Scowling, Carswell grabbed the fork again and began sawing at the pancake stack with its side. If his
    mother had noticed, she would have reminded him to use a knife, but she as far too busy pretending to
    be at a different table altogether.
    “I have those traits,” he muttered. And he did, he knew he did. But why waste focus and dedication
    and diligence on something as trivial as math homework?
    “Then prove it. You’re grounded until these grades come up to passing.”
    His head snapped up. “Grounded? But mid-July break starts next week.”
    Standing, his dad snapped his portscreen onto the belt of his own uniform – the impeccably pressed
    blue-and-gray uniform of Colonel Kingsley Thorne, American Republic Fleet 186.
    “Yes, and you wil spend your vacation in your bedroom doing math homework unless you can show
    me, and your teacher, that you’re taking this seriously.”
    Carswell’s stomach sank, but his dad had marched out of the breakfast room before he could begin
    to refute.
    He couldn’t be grounded for mid-July break. He had big plans for those two weeks. Mostly, they
    involved an entrepreneurial enterprise that began with sending Boots up into the fruit trees on his
    neighbor’s property and ended with him selling baskets of perfectly ripe lemons and avocados to every
    little old lady in the neighborhood. He’d been charming his neighbors out of their bank accounts since
    he was seven, and had become quite good at it. Last summer, he’d even managed to get the Hernandez
    family to pay him 200 univs for a box of “succulent, prize-winning” oranges, having no idea that he’d
    picked the fruits of their own tree earlier that day.
    “He’s not serious, is he?” Carswel said, turning back to his mom. “He won’t keep me grounded for
    the whole break?”
    His mom, for maybe the first time that morning, tore her eyes away from the protscreen. She
    blinked at him and he suspected that she had no idea what his father’s doled out punishment was.
    Maybe she didn’t even realize what the argument had been about.
    After a moment, just long enough to let the question dissolve in the air between them, she said,
    “Are you all ready for school, sweetheart?”
    Huffing, Carswel nodded and shoved two more quick bites into his mouth. Snatching up his book
    bag, he pushed away from the table and tossed his blazer over one shoulder.
    His dad watned to se an improvement of grades? Fine. He would find a way to make it happen. He
    would come up with some solution that gave him the freedom he required during his break, but didn’t
    include laboring away over boring math formulas every evening. He had more important things to do
    with his time. Things that involved business transactions