"Poor, Eleanor. Even by your own wanting standards."

Kipling Kettering was halfway down the 86th page of his third favourite notebook when Eleanor interrupted him. It was a Montblanc: hardback, Italian calfskin leather with Saffiano print; acid-free fine grain 100gsm ink-proof paper. He liked the scratching sound it made when he wanted people to know he wasn't paying attention to what they had to say. Namely, the peanut gallery. Plebs like Wallace West and his dullard new accessory, Kent; Bromorton was an ape, of course, but at least he had charisma, and a dash of style, which was more than could be said for tragic Hank Hall, the veritable poster boy of overachieving trailer park trash. He called him Coach Charity, and was in the middle of another scathing critique of his daily attempts to socialise with human beings. But Eleanor Snow had other ideas.

Of all the students at Brentwood Academy, he found her the least intolerable. It was not that she was a shining beacon of wit in this gloomy wasteland of unutterable bores, but rather a curiosity, more than a mere distraction, but nothing half as engaging as an equal. Not at all. She had a sharp tongue, laced with venom, and he liked to watch her lash out with indiscriminate abandon, and see her victims flail from the poison. He called her the Black Widow, deadly and over-sexed in equal measure. She seemed to like that appraisal, and was intent on living up to it, even if it meant firing glancing shots in his direction from time to time.

"The only number you should be asking for," he surfaced at last, and studied her bare thigh with distaste, "Is the number of teeth in his head. I don't imagine you will be needing your abacus, darling."