The Silent Spillbills by Tor Seidler MICHEAL DI CAPUA BOOKS HARPER COLLINS PUBLISHERS
Her Majesty That's it for today Einsteins said Mr Massimino the math teacher and every boy in the class bolted out of the room For the most part the girls didn't bolt Katerina Farnsworth included But then Katerina didn't dawdle either and since she'd taken her usual precaution of packing her book bag before class she didn't have to stop by her locker So she was one of the first out the front doors Thornton Lake School was a private school not far from New Haven Connecticut that went from seventh to twelfth grades Not surprisingly it was located on Thornton Lake and so rowing rather than baseball or track was the most popular spring sport On this sunny afternoon in May the head mistress Ms Wainwright happened to be talking
with the crew coach Mr LeBlanc on the far side of the parking lot above the grassy slope leading down to the dock and the shell shack The headmistress was about twice the size of the coach so they made kind of a comical sight But it didn't seem comical to Katerina when Ms Wainwright suddenly turned away from him and spotted her Yoohoo Katerina Three more steps and she would have been safe in her school bus Now she had no choice but to veer off toward the bulky headmistress Quite a day for you isn't it Ms Wainwright said her bright eyes magnified by big round thick rimmed glasses It's hard to believe from the picture in the paper your grandfather's really ninety It was taken when he was seventy six Katerina thought But despite dozens of sessions with speech therapists and long hours of tongue exercises Katerina stuttered her S's so she just nodded politely Imagine ninety and still in harness Ms Wainwright gushed on It says there's going to be a big bash for him at the Park Plaza Hotel tonight
