Free Edison’s Alley by Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman Page B

tension dissolve.
    “Possession is nine-tenths of the law,” she told Carter. Now that his math skills had sunk back to caveman levels, he was left to grapple with the concept of nine-tenths while the
rest of the room breathed a communal sigh of relief, not knowing what had happened, or why it had ended.
    “Pencils down,” said their teacher, blotting his sweaty forehead with his sleeve. “We’ll take this test tomorrow.”
    Caitlin gripped the abacus to her chest as if at any moment it might be ripped away by Carter Black, or the Accelerati. She had an urge to run out of the classroom, find Nick, and hand it over
to him, but she knew she could make a better play. Nick hadn’t given her as much as the time of day since she refused his movie invitation, and the rift between them wasn’t helping
anybody. But now she had an excuse to bridge the gap. The abacus could be her peace offering. Peace offerings had to be treated with care and ceremony. She would bring it to him at his house when
she felt the time was right. She would watch as he placed it into the machine. And that would make them a team again, if not a couple.
    As for Carter Black, he scowled at Caitlin, staring invisible daggers into the back of her head, but he didn’t try to get the abacus back. Truth be told, he was relieved that his fifteen
minutes of genius were over. Unnatural brilliance was uncharted territory for him. It was like rafting down a raging river, never knowing if the twists and turns would lead him to a deadly
waterfall. Now he could happily go back to being the lightless singularity he had always been…but with the heady memory of momentary illumination.
    He had read somewhere that Einstein had failed math in school. In fact, some people had considered him an idiot. Carter Black could relate—and for the first time, he dreamed of aspiring to
that kind of idiocy. Thanks to the abacus, he was now motivated to do something completely foreign to him: he was motivated to try.

C halking up one more failure was the last thing Nick needed, but the chest being sold online was not an antique card catalog, as the picture had
suggested. It was just an ordinary dresser. Nick and Mitch went to see it, dismissed it, and the closer they got to the door, the lower the price became, until the woman was ready to give it to
them for free if they would just haul the thing away.
    Nick turned back to the woman and waved his hand like Obi-Wan Kenobi. “These are not the drawers we’re looking for,” he said, and left.
    “It’s supposed to be ‘you’re,’ not ‘we’re,’” Mitch pointed out as they walked away.
    “Either way,” Nick said with a sigh, “we’re back at square one, and we don’t know where to look.”
    In the wake of their disappointment, Mitch suggested they go for comfort food at Beef-O-Rama. Not an unusual suggestion coming from Mitch.
    But as they arrived, Nick saw Petula through the front window, sitting in a booth, waiting.
    “Suddenly I’m not hungry.” He threw Mitch an accusatory glance and started to walk away.
    Mitch stopped him. “I know you hate her,” he said, “but she
has
been helping us keep Vince alive, since she’s in math with him—and she feels really bad about
how she didn’t tell you he was gonna die in the first place…”
    “She didn’t know
he
was going to die,” Nick pointed out. “She just knew that
someone
would. How do you expect me to forgive her for not telling me someone
was about to die in my house? It could have been you!”
    “And it could have been
her
!” Mitch reminded him. “She put herself in danger by coming to your house—but she came anyway, because she wanted to save you. At least
give her credit for that!”
    Nick was still not ready to give Petula credit for anything. But maybe his anger was as misdirected as Petula had been misguided that day. She wasn’t the enemy. That honor was saved for
Jorgenson and the Accelerati.
    “Anyway,” said Mitch,