Coolest Girl in Town (Elise and Alexander)
Chapter 58

Chapter 58

Elise flashed a smile and said, “I'm Elise.”

Samantha gaped at her in astonishment. “Wait, you're Elise?”

Elise nodded. “In the flesh.”

For a moment, Samantha could not recover from her daze. She thought about what Elise had said toAmanda minutes ago, and only then did all the pieces click. “That explains why you put Amandadown the way you did; if someone was badmouthing me to my face, I'd have slapped them!”Seeing how serious Samantha was amused Elise. She liked that Samantha was not thestereotypically aloof heiress that one might expect, but she gave off the impression that she waskind and approachable instead.

“By the way, Elise, I heard that Zachary Newman is here at the boot camp, too. Having the both ofyou here is like waiting for a legendary showdown to happen! I can't wait to see which of you willemerge victorious at the end of the boot camp!”

Daily new chapters in www.noveljar.com This was the second time Zachary's name was brought upin Elise’s presence. She figured he must be some kind of math whiz for everyone to praise himbehind his back.

Presently, Elise and Samantha came to a stop at the classroom doorway, whereupon they saw thatthe room was filled to the brim with other boot camp participants. Their arrival instantly caught theroom's attention, though everyone's gazes lingered on Samantha the longest. After all, it was hardfor a fine-looking girl like her to keep from standing out in a crowd.

“Excuse me,” one of the boys piped up boldly, addressing Samantha. “You can sit next to me if you'dlike.”

However, his invitation was swiftly rebuffed when Samantha, having taken one glance at the vacantseat next to him, said apologetically, “Sorry, but I'm going to sit with my friend.”

With that, she pulled Elise over to the last row of seats and declared, “Let's sit here, Elise.”

Elise did not object to this. She had only just sat down when her phone beeped in her pocket, andshe fished it out to see that there was a new message from Jamie, which read, “Hey, Boss. Heard thatyou've gone into isolation or something. Send me your location, and I'll bring goodies for you someother day.

You fuss over me too much, Jamie, Elise thought with a rueful smile. A few taps on the screen later,she sent her location.

Once that was done, she kept her phone just as a middle-aged man appeared at the classroomentryway. He was holding a thermos flask as he walked in, and a hush descended upon the room aseveryone registered his presence.

"Good day, everyone. Welcome to the Mathematics Olympiad Boot Camp. I'm Henry Bolton, andyou may address me as Mr. Bolton. I'll be in charge of your studies for the next half a month, and aswe kick off this boot camp, let's hope that all of you will give it your best for as long as you're here.Now, in order to keep everyone from getting distracted during camp, please hand over yourphones.”

Daily new chapters in www.noveljar.com Upon hearing this, Samantha immediately grew reluctant.She had initially hoped that she could play a game or two that evening, but now that she was goingto surrender her phone, she might very well die of boredom before tomorrow. Dread filled her asshe groaned. “Do we really have to hand over our phones?”

Elise, on the other hand, was unfazed by this. She didn’t think having a phone would make adifference to her boot camp experience. When the student in charge of collecting everyone'sphones reached their row, Elise handed her phone over without protest.

“I'll keep an eye on your phones throughout this boot camp. Should any of you have an urgent callto make, come see me privately,” Mr. Bolton announced. “Seeing as today's the first day, I'veprepared a set of exercises for all of you to get a feel of what this camp is all about. Think of it as anentry test, something that will ease you all into this boot camp experience.”

The classroom was charged with frenzied energy when everyone heard this. Those who weregathered here for the Mathematics Olympiad Boot Camp were mathletes in their own right, and atest was exactly what they needed to prove how strong they were.

Before long, Mr. Bolton passed the exercises down each row, and silence filled the room aseveryone set themselves to work. When Elise got her papers, she perused each page fervently andfound that almost all the questions were doable, though the last one was tricky.

Picking up her pen, she began writing down her workings and answers.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bolton was observing the students on the other side of the door when anotherteacher came down the hallway and asked good-naturedly, “Hey, Henry. Giving the kids a test run?”Mr. Bolton grinned as he explained, “I figured I should see how well they cope right off the bat.”

“I heard that one of the students here got full marks in the City Mathematics Olympiad. That'spotential right there.”

Mr. Bolton had already gotten wind of this, but he admittedly had higher regards for anotherstudent-one of his own, no less—by the name of Zachary.

“Like you said, I'm giving these kids a test run. It's the only way for us to pick out the cream of thecrop,” Mr. Bolton pointed out with a long sigh. There had been a make or-break question from theNational Mathematics Olympiad last year, and no student had cracked it to date. Havingdeliberately put it to the test today, Mr. Bolton hoped that a hard blow would knock some self-awareness into these kids.

"Well, guess I'll be waiting for your good news, Henry,” the other teacher quipped humorouslybefore walking away.

The two-hour test was over in a blink of an eye, and everyone looked defeated as they handed intheir papers. Daily new chapters in www.noveljar.com

“The last question got me beat; I couldn't come up with an answer at all.”

“Me, too. I couldn't even understand the question, let alone work on it. I dread to think about how Idid on the test.” A couple of students huddled together to lament over the paper, and the boy whospoke first glanced over at Zachary, who sat not too far away. “Hey, Zach, what do you think of thepaper?”

Zachary pursed his lips and answered plainly, “I gave it my best shot.”

The boy couldn't hide his surprise at this. “Humility becomes you, Zach. Anyway, did you manage tocrack the last question? What was the answer?”

At the mention of this, Zachary frowned and confessed stoically, “I got one-half multiplied by thesquare root of three for the first sub—question, but that's about it.”

“Damn, if the first sub—question was all you managed to crack, then what hope is there left for therest of us?”

Zachary offered no response to this. His own strength in terms of math olympiads had beenreflected through this test, and he was painfully aware of how much more work he had to put in forthe rest of the boot camp.

Toward the back of the classroom, Samantha was dejected as she whined, “Elise, the last questionwas ridiculous! I'm probably going to flunk math camp.” She never wanted to join this boot camp inthe first place, and she had told her parents as much. But they had been so resolute that they wouldrather make backdoor deals than have her not join the camp at all. Now that she realized howchallenging math olympiads were, she wanted to pack up and go home.

Just then, Elise offered kindly, “I could teach you how to solve the problems if you'd like.”

All thoughts of abandoning camp were struck out of Samantha's mind; it was as if Elise had turnedinto her saving grace. “Really?” Delighted, she practically pounced on Elise, wrapping her armsaround the girl's neck as she exclaimed, “That would be amazing! I love you, Elise!"

Somewhat taken aback by the sudden display of affection, Elise said, “Okay, you can let me go now.”Samantha chuckled and released her. “Come on, let's go back to the dorm so you can teach memath.”

They sauntered back toward the dormitories and found that their final roommate had arrived aswell. “Hi, I'm Riley Bolton.”

“I'm Samantha Greene. Pleasure to meet you,” Samantha greeted brightly. Daily new chapters inwww.noveljar.com

Elise introduced herself with a smile. “And I'm Elise Sinclair. Welcome to Dorm 503."

Riley was in disbelief when she heard Elise’s name and belatedly asked, “You're Elise Sinclair? As in,the same Elise Sinclair who got full marks in the City Mathematics Olympiad?”