Jamie Brown Is NOT Rich (14 page)

CHAPTER 20

THE SET-UP

Mr Jefferson asked heaps of questions at Academic Challenge Training, but I was too distracted worrying about Dakota, Harmision, Mum and Dad all being angry at me.

Eventually I got sick of the Jeffersons answering all the questions though, so I answered five questions in a row …

‘Cheetah!’

‘547!’

‘The Great Wall of China!’

‘12!’

‘The Sulfur-crested
Armadillo!’

Okay, so I got them all wrong, but at least Nasty Jefferson didn’t get to answer them!

Then Mr Jefferson asked us to nominate a captain. The captain had to lead the team, answer any tie-break questions, and do all interviews.

I voted …

They voted …

It was a total set-up. Mr Jefferson fell for it though, and said it was nice to see I was finally getting some support.

He left, and I turned on Nasty Jefferson.

‘Dude, you suck. You totally set me up.’

He laughed.

‘Gosh, the first thing you have got right all day. Of course I set you up. I want you gone. I don’t like you, I don’t like how the other chaps and that odd girl like you, and I don’t, ummm, like you.’

He’d run out of things to say. I hadn’t.

‘Look, Little Orphan Annie, I don’t know what your problem is but …’

‘I just told you,’ he interrupted. ‘I don’t like you.’

‘Oh yeah. Well then, I
know
what your problem is, but are you seriously so dumb that you’d risk losing Academic Challenge just to get rid of me?’

He put on his most devious look ever, and I knew I was in trouble.

‘No. That’s how
smart
I am! You can’t speak in front of people. All you say is toilet, which is embarrassing for you and hilarious for us.

‘Snootyville Grammar hasn’t won Academic Challenge in twenty-seven years. It is the only blight on the school’s record. When it looks as though you are merely attempting to be funny and are losing on purpose, we will step in to save the day and you shall be driven out of town. Then we shall make you pay us a
LOT
of money as an apology. It’s genius.’

He was right. He was like an evil villain mastermind.

Wow. He even had a good evil laugh.

My other teammates, the ones I was captain of, laughed at me as well. Nasty Jefferson turned around and …

He screamed, stomped his feet, then went to dry off.

I sat there, alone, knowing this was a pit I couldn’t dig myself out of … actually, you don’t even dig out of a pit!