Julie nodded.
"Keep the boy away from me until I control my temper. Then I suggest you find someone to protect the town of Grantville from the predations of this boy. I have a book with some color pictures in it back at the firehouse he needs to see and I agree with Bill. Keep his little ass away from the power station until someone teaches him that you do not do that to a junction box in a structure with people sleeping in it!"
The silence was profound.
No one had ever heard Chief Matheny shout. They did know that Chief Steven Matheny hated fires. Even small, well-tended ones.
***
Blaise hated that ruler.
He hated it with an intensity that Satan must save for mankind.
Tears dripped in fearful, trembling streams from angry eyes.
The ruler had been off by at least a thirty-second of one of those God cursed things called inches. The metric system, invented by the French of course, was better. The metric system wouldn't have failed him.
The angle was measured perfectly. His calculations were flawless.
It should have worked! He had been wrong. Wrong!
Because of that damn ruler…
Blaise shook himself. Or, rather, someone else did.
"Snap out of it!" Mr. Sebastian shook him. "We'll go to my room. I think you've been punished enough just by sitting here all this time."
"At least a thirty-second of an inch." Blaise glared up at Allan Sebastian with tears in his eyes. "I hate that ruler! I had to prove it was wrong, not me!"
Allan Sebastian leaned in close. So close his nose almost touched Blaise's.
"No mathematical equation is worth dying for," he whispered harshly. "Do you understand?"
"Yes, Mr. Sebastian." The world's greatest mathematician nodded.
"Your punishment is… I want ten rulers to replace the plastic one you broke. They will be accurate to at least a thirty-second of an inch… no! One sixty-fourth of an inch. Ten, Blaise. I want ten. You will make them. I want them all by the end of the week. Understand? Whatever else you have to do, whatever other punishments, that one is mine. You want my help? I need yours."