Free Sophomores and Other Oxymorons by David Lubar Page B

My brain went
ka-ching!
“Hands,” I said. Hands went up. I counted. Nine more copies. Wow. “I’ll have them for you tomorrow.”
    The cluster darted away, moving like a school of baitfish.
    â€œThat was you not so long ago,” Lee said. “And yet, you smirk.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œThat look of amusement on your face. You think of them as pathetically helpless and clueless. Right?”
    â€œSort of. What’s wrong with that?”
    â€œNothing. I just find it amusing.”
    â€œYou’re amused at my amusement?” I asked.
    â€œConstantly.”
    â€œI’ll keep that in mind.”
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    When I got home, I figured I’d tackle the essay first. After that, I’d print the nine manuals. Despite Lee’s warning, I knew it would be fun to take a position in favor of arrogance. I found out pretty quickly that I’d made the right decision, because the words just flowed directly from my mind to my fingers. I was totally rocking the task. It was fun defending arrogance. The first time I checked the word count, after what seemed like only two or three minutes, I was already up to three hundred words. Then I got on a roll, and fell into the creative zone where time no longer exists. When I checked again, I was closeto a thousand words, and I still had plenty to say. Before I knew it, I had two thousand words.
    Take that, Mrs. Gilroy.
    Okay—I guess that was an arrogant thought, but I’d earned the right to think it. And I’d proved, by way of a well-constructed and clever series of arguments, that arrogance was not a bad thing. Now to get back to filling the orders for my manual.
    I’d already done the hard work of separating the survival tips from the personal stuff, and formatting everything to look good. All I had to do was print nine copies. I set things up on the computer, then clicked
PRINT.
    Our printer was kind of slow. But I didn’t need to hang around and watch the pages ooze out. I went upstairs to do my homework. After I finished my bio and geometry, I checked things, and saw a thin stack of pages in the output tray and a flashing light on the control panel. The printer was out of paper.
    I fanned through the sheets. Oh, crap. I’d printed nine cover pages, nine copies of page one, then nine copies of page two, and so on. And it had only gotten to page three. There were twenty-eight more pages to print. And I’d have to collate the copies. It would be better to print one copy at a time.
    I found more paper in a drawer under the computer desk—about a quarter of a pack—and refilled the printer. Then I went to the computer, cleared the current print job, andtold it to print one copy. There was probably some way to tell it to print multiple copies in the right order, but I didn’t want to spend time hunting for that. It was easier to do it manually. I figured I’d just print the copies one by one. It would be tedious, but better than separating all the pages after everything was printed. And, as I liked to remind myself, I was making money with every copy.
    On my way up the stairs, I realized I didn’t need to print the cover and the first three pages again. I already had nine copies of them. Too late for this copy. But not for the rest.
    I printed the second and third copies without those pages. By then, I was totally out of paper. Tomorrow, I’d walk home after school and buy some in town. Paper wasn’t expensive. Six of the freshmen would just have to wait for their copies. It felt good to be in demand. I was probably J. P. Zenger High School’s best-selling author. And its only one.
    I put the finished copies in my backpack. “I’m in business,” I said. Business. Maybe I could come up with another idea to sell to the freshmen. Or to everyone. There was no reason I had to limit my market to one segment. This looked like a real easy way