Read Online The Rule of Won by Stefan Petrucha - Free Book Online Page A

“Printed last month. The National Zetetic Foundation had to award a substantial sum of money to some school, or they’d be in danger of losing their tax-exempt status. The chairman is an SNH graduate. Dana Krull probably read the same article, which made her think of her Crave. Ethan Skinson may have read it, too, which made him pick it. Not really so magic when the odds are stacked like that, is it?”
    â€œOh, please,” I said. “You’re just trying to . . . hey, how did you know it was Dana’s Crave or that Ethan picked it?”
    While his posse looked around nervously, Moore blinked. “We’re reporters.”
    â€œWell, big deal.” I tossed the paper back at him. “The final decision wasn’t made yet, so we still could have had something to do with that.”
    Also on the plus side for
The Rule
was the fact that Moore himself was going to clear me, people liked me again, and Vicky and I were back together.
    Moore shook his head like he felt sorry for me. “You know what circular reasoning is, Caleb? Begging the question?”
    â€œOf course I do. Uh . . . is it like Vanuatu?”
    Sour-faced Mason stepped up again. “No, it means once you assume something is true, you can’t use reason to disprove it. As long as you believe you caused the school to get the grant, you’ll take any data and twist it around to match that assumption.”
    I puffed my chest up defensively. “Ha! I will
not
take any assumption and . . . and . . . do what you said with it.”
    â€œRight,” Moore said. He waved his little gang forward. They fell back into their marching order.
    â€œHey,” I called after them. “Still doing that article about the construction, right?”
    They didn’t answer. My heart sank a little. If Moore was anything like the previous editors, there might not even be an issue until the week before summer vacation.
    Still, I wasn’t going to let their snippy cracks about
The Rule
shake my new faith, especially since I didn’t particularly understand them.
    This time at the meeting, everyone came back. We even had a few new faces, making our trailer feel a little crowded. A few of the quieter kids like Landon seemed livelier. Some had even bought themselves “1” pins. The mood was so good, I soon found myself thinking that Moore and his pals were just losers.
    Vicky sat next to me, hot red and orange flames adorning her fingernails. I pulled her chair closer and wrapped my armaround her waist. I think Erica picked her head up for a second from her writing to watch, but it was hard to tell.
    Ethan was bubbly himself, clapping his hands together even more than last time. Before he could get the Crave started, Vicky applauded. Everyone joined in. A few of us, myself among them, hooted.
    â€œSo far so good, right?” he said.
    The applause grew louder. Ethan got that mad scientist twinkle in his eyes. Before the clapping faded, he raised his voice. “We’re just getting warmed up. Now we’re going to do some heavy-duty imanifesting for our basketball team so they break their losing streak and kick the Regis High Hurricanes’ asses next week!”
    Mike clenched his right hand, swiped it in the air, and said, “Yes!”
    Everyone applauded again. Good times.
    Then Ethan went into his thing about mesmories and imanifesting to catch up the newcomers, and we all chanted about how the Basket Cases would win their next game. I don’t know if it was the breathing or just the overall high feeling, but I conjured my spork easily and kept seeing it fly into a basket.
    When we chanted, pretty much everyone put something into it, and it really did feel like we all shared one great big Voice.
    I wondered if I should tell anyone about that article Moore was planning, but I decided, the same way I decided to leave Erica’s new smile alone, to let it sit. I wanted to ask Vicky outafter the