Chapter 20

On the bright side, it took Spotch and Mippitt only nine minutes to pull me out of my helmet this time. Of course, that still made me late for lunch. Which also made me late for science class after lunch. Fortunately, Mr. Jeddee doesn’t have triple-gravity boots to punish me with, so I just walk in and sit down at my group table. Mr. Jeddee doesn’t even acknowledge the fact that I’m late. I have a feeling somebody told him what happened.

“What’s wrong with Grimnee?”

“She heard about what Dorn did to you. Grimnee doesn’t like bullies.”

“Who does?”

“No. I mean Grimnee really doesn’t like bullies. She got teased a lot back on her home planet for being so skinny.”

“So… skinny?”

“Yeah. Remember, on her planet the gravity is so high that everybody has to be pretty thick and muscular just to move around.”

“It also means she doesn’t know her own strength in the lighter gravity we have out here.”

Note to self—never make fun of anyone around Grimnee.

“I have graded your short science essays from last week. Overall, I am quite pleased, although some of you need to show a bit more consistency in your work.”

Mr. Jeddee hands the papers back. I wasn’t here last week, so I didn’t have to write one. And the way things are going, that’s probably just as well. Everyone in the group looks pretty pleased with their grades… except Brian. “What’s up?” I ask. “Didn’t do as well as you thought?” He hands me his paper.