Read Epic Adventures of Lydia Bennet (9781476763248) for Free Online Page B

“Buddy system, you know?”
    I hesitated. On the one hand, yes, it’s totally valid to get assignments from someone if you’re absent. On the other hand, I didn’twant Cody to take my giving him my number as a sign to ask me out. But on the other hand . . . he certainly was cute.
    On the other hand, I definitely only wanted to concentrate on school this summer. Apparently I have too many hands because when he offered his phone, one of them typed in my number and handed it back. Freaking hands.
    â€œWell . . . ‘Lydia,’ ” he read, and grinned. “It’s nice to meet you.”
    That moment, a man about my dad’s age, looking effortlessly uncool in a sweater vest and short-sleeved shirt, entered. Professor Latham.
    â€œHere we go,” Cody said, winking at me before turning back around in his seat and whipping his laptop out of his bag, ready to take notes.
    A lot of other people took out laptops, too. And I would have joined them . . . if I had a laptop. Sadly, I’m stuck with my phone for most communication and my ancient, inherited desktop for typing up papers. Seriously, it’s so old, it has a tower. And if you want to do something crazy like watch more than five YouTube videos in a row, the tower overheats.
    But on the plus side, Kitty likes to sleep on it.
    â€œI’m Professor Latham; this is Intro to Psychology. Now, who wants to learn how to manipulate people to do their bidding?”
    Everyone in the room stopped talking and started paying attention.
    â€œOr how about, you want to be an investigator and track killers and get them to confess their crimes?”
    My eyes went wide. Yes, I wanted that. Without the whole having to hang out with killers part. But yes.
    â€œHow many of you just want to listen to another person’s problems and help solve them?”
    I immediately sat on my hand to keep it from waving around above my head like a dork.
    â€œBelieve it or not,” said Professor Latham, “by studying the human mind, you are opening yourself up to all these possibilities. A research psychologist tries to direct people and study the outcomes. A forensic psychologist helps law enforcement dissect crimes and criminal intentions. And a psychological therapist helps people by listening and guiding their thought processes to helpful conclusions.”
    Where has Professor Latham been all my academic life?
    Before, with math or history or whatever, I took down info and regurgitated it like one of Kitty’s hairballs come test time. Here, I’m being given the chance to learn how to help people as well as manipulate them. Where do I sign up?
    I looked around the room. No one else seemed as engaged as me. But they were probably here to finish out a credit requirement or kill six weeks, not because they’d found their calling, I thought, preening a little.
    Professor Latham is going to love me. Just like Ms. W loves me.
    â€œIn this class we will discuss the different perspectives of psychology, such as psychoanalysis, behaviorism, humanism, cognition. We’ll look at some tentpole studies of modern social psychology, like Pavlov’s classical conditioning, as well as the Stanford Prison Experiment, the Milgram Experiment, the Kitty Genovese case . . .”
    I was taking notes as fast as my dad’s fountain pen would let me. Unfortunately, about six minutes into the lecture, the pen ran out of ink. I reached into my bag for one of my trusty gels, and that’s when my hand brushed against my phone. Which was vibrating.
    And I’ve been classically conditioned to answer my phone any time it buzzes (which I didn’t realize until Latham got to that point in the lecture), so I didn’t know how to stop myself.
    He likes the sound of his own voice, doesn’t he?
    I looked down the stadium seating of the lecture hall through other students to Cody. I could see on his