Striving

The simples| One

Monday October 22, 2016. Reverend High School. AP math test that takes 2 hours to complete. 20 minutes left on the clock and I still haven't written my name. Daniel Castor right in front of me speeding through the test and marking every single correct answer. Lauren Bishop right next to him drooling at how good looking he is. Then there's me.. Hyeon-ni... You know that one Asian in the class everyone always expects to be smart. I am smart and I can ace this whole thing in under 10 minutes, but something just won't let me. I stare at the paper and look at the first answer. 'If Caroline has 456 apples and she has a 3 foot deep crate, how many apples would she need to fill the crate?' What is this, second grade math? I'm in the 11th grade for gods sake. I looked at the clock that was counting down the minutes and it read 19 minutes. 'I'm positive I have been looking at this paper for more than one minute..' I quickly wrote my name and filled in all the correct answers. I looked at the clock again and it read 9 minutes. I sighed and pulled my hair in a pony tail and sat back in my chair and stared at the ceiling. My best friend Kade who sat behind me poked me and and asked what the answer to the last question was. The current teacher we had, could catch anyone cheating no matter how hard you tried. She could never catch me because I was always swift with my cheating. I stretched and whispered him the answer. The teacher looked at me stretching, got up and walked over to me. I smirked as she came my way and prepared what I was going to say. "Ms. Lee, did you really think I wouldn't catch you giving an answer to your friend over here?".The whole class turned around to me shocked, everyone knew I always got good grades and never cheat. I sat up in my seat and looked her dead in the eye which shocked her a little bit. "Mrs. Oliver, explain to me exactly how I cheated by stretching". She looked at me shocked as to how I talked back to her. Most kids would just except the fact that they cheated because they were scared of her. I for sure wasn't. "I saw your lips moving and he was looking at you while you said it." I laughed a bit at how precise she always was when it comes to catching someone cheating. "Simply stretching and opening my mouth is not cheating. Of course he will look at me because I'm leaning right on his desk and he probably wanted to tell me to simply not lean on his desk so much" I said. She looked at me dumbfounded and stumbled to find the correct answer. I smirked at her attempt to say something back to me. She looked at the rest of the class who were staring at us wanting to see what would happen next. "GET BACK TO WORK OR YOU ALL HAVE DETENTION!" She barked. A small laugh escaped Kade's mouth and I joined him. Mrs. Oliver glared at us and I quickly fixed myself and smirked at her. The clock went by fast and it finally rang to indicate the test was done. "Alright pencils down, papers turned". The whole class did as they were told and flipped their papers. She collected every single paper and glared as she went by me. The bell finally rang and I gathered my things and headed for the door. "Thank god it's Friday!" Someone yelled. The hallway filled with kids headed out the school cheered. I jumped on Kade's back and he pulled me up to keep me from falling. We headed out of the school and sat on the familiar curb waiting for our cars to come home. Kade sat right next to me and I laid my head on his lap and stared up at the sky clicking my phone on and off. Kade was silently looking through his Instagram when a car pulled up in front of us with blasting music. Kade didn't look up from his phone but I sat up wondering what was disturbing my peaceful gaze at the sky. "Don't even bother giving them attention H, they always come by our school to tell us to study hard and not end up like a weirdo". He put his fingers in quotes when he said 'study hard'. They were yelling stuff about how school is boring and we should be grateful we aren't adults. One of the guy stopped yelling and looked in my direction and I froze. He nudged the rest of the guys sticking their heads out of the car yelling and they all looked at me. "WELL IF IT ISN'T KADE!" One of the guys jumped out and started walking towards us. I tried hiding behind Kade since I didn't know who they were. The driver parked in the parking lot and they all jumped out of the car headed our way. "Aww, who is this little cutie hiding behind you? Is she your girlfriend?" The man looked to be about in his 20's and had some really cool tattoos. His leaned his face towards me but Kade pushed him away. "Your no fun Kade.... I just want to say hi to her, Jesus". Kade stood up and looked at him sternly showing his dominance. The man towered over Kade but he didn't care. He smirked and turned around to his boys and made a salute as they walked away. "I'LL SEE YOU LATER KADER! KEEP HER PRETTY!" And with that he drove away.