Free The Monkeyface Chronicles by Richard Scarsbrook Page A

losers like Adeline Brown. It’s just the way it is.”
    I don’t look at him or say anything as we trudge into the school.

The Meaning of Know
    T his is the last class before Christmas Holidays begin. Here in the windowless, overheated Science Room, the feeling of desperate anticipation is rising to a slow boil, even without Grant Brush to stir the pot. Mr. Springthorpe has not arrived yet; he is habitually late when he has to teach Class 8-C.
    A shower of spitballs and eraser chunks rain down from the back right corner of the classroom, where Sam Simpson, Trevor Blunt, and a few of Grant Brush’s other toadies sit. I occupy the middle desk of the middle row, right in the crossfire zone. Adeline sits beside Cecil in the front left corner. She has not made eye contact with me since recess ended.
    Caitlin Black sits in the front right corner, looking unhappy to be here as always. Because she was struggling in Math and Science classes, Caitlin has been transferred into the more “deliberately paced learning environment” of Class 8-C. There has been none of her usual chirping and preening. Separated from Lara and Carrie, Caitlin has seemed translucent, colourless, a mere outline of herself. But today she’s got fire in her eyes.
    Caitlin turns and stares at me for a moment, probably wondering what Adeline has told me. She can’t read my face, though, so turns her sniper’s eye on Adeline, who is hunched over hiding in her science textbook, stalwartly ignoring the little projectiles that bounce off her back and catch in her hair.
    Caitlin isn’t the only one with eyes trained on Adeline. In Mr. Springthorpe’s absence, Sam Simpson has been scanning the room for a victim.
    â€œHey, Adeline,” he calls out. “Yeah, I’m lookin’ at you, you ugly cow! Since you’re a Bible freak and all, I’ve got a Bible question for ya.”
    Caitlin wears a feline expression; her green eyes narrow, lips in a tight, slender grin, the ends of her long red hair like spikes against either cheek. She’s in on this.
    â€œSo, like, in the Bible,” Sam says, “the word ‘know’ means having sex, right?”
    â€œAnswer him, Adeline,” Caitlin Black demands.
    â€œWhy don’t you read the Bible and find out for yourself,” Adeline says.
    â€œHere’s an example,” Sam says. “In the Bible, ‘Adeline knows Philip’ would mean ‘Adeline fucks Philip,’ right?”
    A few of the other kids giggle and gasp.
    â€œCongratulations, Sam,” Adeline says, without unlocking her eyes from her science book. “For a change you’re right about something. ‘To know’ occurs frequently in the Bible — ‘and Adam knew Eve,’ ‘I have two daughters which have not known man,’ and so on. Most people who study the Bible agree that the term ‘to know,’ or yada in Hebrew, refers specifically to having sex, or ‘fucking’ as you put it.”
    Everyone in the class is quiet. Nobody can quite believe that they have just heard Adeline Brown, a uniform-wearing member of the Tabernacle of God’s Will, say the word “fucking.”
    â€œAfter Biblical times,” Adeline continues, “if you got caught having sex with someone you weren’t supposed to, like your sister or somebody else’s wife, you would be punished ‘For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.’ ” She pronounces these last four words slowly. “See? It spells fuck .”
    This was not the reaction Sam was hoping for from Adeline, so he turns to Caleb Carter, who has been flipping through the pages of a Star Wars fan magazine. Sam reaches over and snatches it away.
    â€œHey, Monkeyface,” Sam calls out, “If you and Adeline get to know each other enough, this is what your baby’s gonna look like!” He holds the magazine open to a picture of the sluglike Jabba the Hutt.