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like, ‘Run!’
    â€˜Alyce, don’t stand there, run!’ I yell at her. Our beaker is spewing out blue liquid like a 7-Eleven slurpy machine gone crazy. Alyce is mesmerised by her monster creation. I’m hopeless at science but, like most kids, I know a little something about slurpy damage control. When the machine has gone crazy, and the man behind the counter is looking at you as if to say, ‘You’re paying for everything that thing is pumping out’, there’s only one rule to follow. Dump that cup and cutyour losses. Everyone knows it. Except Alyce. I bet she goes to the counter and pays for every chunk of ice wasted.
    â€˜Everyone remain calm, no one knock the Bunsen burners,’ Mrs Turner keeps calling. No one’s listening. The number one rule of classroom behaviour: if you get the chance to scream and run, you do.
    â€˜I’ve never made a mistake with an experiment before,’ Alyce says.
    â€˜I know. It’s fantastic.’ You get a sign like this, and fate’s definitely giving you the big thumbs-up.
    Alyce could make worse choices. Flemming plays a good game of soccer. His left foot is stronger than his right, but we can work on that. I don’t see any reason why the two of them shouldn’t hit it off. There’s the Annabelle problem of course. But there was the Annabelle problem with Nick and me. And didn’t that end well, Faltrain? I ignore Jane’s voice in my head. I’ll just make sure Alyce knows how to kiss before I send her out on a date. Anyway, Nick is a total idiot. Flemming is more like Martin.
    â€˜Hey,’ Flemming calls across the room to Alyce, ‘nice job.’ See? Alyce Fuller just climbed one step closer to the top of the school ladder. She got twenty-five kids out of science for at least ten minutes. All she has to do now is pretend that she did it on purpose and she’ll be on her way to personally addressed party invitations. Of course people would think she’s a whole lot cooler if she’d stop saying ‘Oh dear’ every five seconds.
    â€˜Oh dear.’
    â€˜Alyce, relax.’ Anyone would think she’d blown up the school. ‘It’s just a little smoke.’
    â€˜Gracie Faltrain, to the principal’s office,’ the loudspeakerbreaks through the noise of the room. Okay, now it’s time to panic.
    â€˜He sees a little smoke and it’s, “Gracie Faltrain to the office”.’
    â€˜What do you think it’s about?’ Alyce asks.
    I shrug my shoulders. There are a million reasons why I could be called to the principal’s office. And none of them are good.
    Annabelle shoots me a smile that can only mean two things: she knows something and I am dead.
    I run through the list of possible offences on my way down the corridor. I knocked over Fred Cazaar last week, but that was a complete accident. There was the small detail of being late back from lunch four times in a row, but the soccer field is a long way from the classrooms.
    â€˜Mr Yoosta?’ I say, looking through the already open door. There’s this policy in the school that the principal’s office is always available to students. If you’re listening from the corridor, you can pretty much hear whatever’s going on inside. A lot of kids don’t like it, but take it from someone who has spent her fair share of time in trouble, it’s a good thing. It means he hardly ever yells and there’s lots of room for a fast, easy getaway.
    â€˜Gracie, come in and sit down.’
    â€˜Okay. But if this is about Fred Cazaar, even he said it was an accident.’
    â€˜I’m sure it was, but this isn’t about that.’ He writes something on the paper in front of him and I make a mental note to keep my mouth shut from now on. ‘It’s about the Firsts. You must know you’ve caused a stir, a girl playing on an all-boys’ team. You’re quite a