Clever Girl

Chapter 31: a great and sudden change

Mary Shelley, in her book Frankenstein, wrote that nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change. The sun might shine or the clouds might lower, but nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before.

I can't decide if this is actually a painful change, or if it's an exhilarating perception of my abilities, a strange wave of euphoria, and something that I should have shown years ago. But the euphoria shatters quickly when I notice the rage on Jay's face. 

He's glaring daggers into my heart, like I've somehow betrayed him. I know I have. He must feel like such an idiot - but maybe also a little vindicated, knowing he was right about me. The formulas he found in my backpack, how I managed to help the majority of Matty's class receive all A's, and how he tried constantly to catch me in a lie. While my reason had nothing to do with him in particular, he doesn't know that. 

"Are. . . are you fucking kidding me?" Jay hisses, not bothering to mask his fury in front of Keaton. 

I step back and recoil under his stare, which fills up with more anger the longer I look at him. Miss Keaton asks him to sit back down and watch his language, to which he responds by throwing the chalk towards the ledge. He then marches back to his desk like a five-year-old who's just been told to mind his manners. That's when I notice that most of the class is staring at me, in what I can only describe as confused curiosity. Some have their phone cameras facing the front. Were they filming the entire round?

"That was incredible, Veronica," Keaton's voice cuts through the awkward silence. "I've never seen a student do that with such ease and perfection. You solved it before your opponent finished the first line. Why aren't you already in this class?"

"I. . . I don't know. Can I sit down now?"

"But you won the round. You get to pick your next opponent."

"I don't want to do this again.  Someone else can have a turn."

Miss Keaton offers me a warm smile, "I won't make you go again if you're not comfortable. But it would've been great to see you solve more problems. I can see why Principal Cranston requested for you to sit in on this class"

I take a few seconds to consider the situation. While I appreciate the reason for every subject, math is unwavering - and it's this concept that I enjoy the most. My own life is in such constant turmoil and it's great to lose myself in the truthful harmony of math, one that no one and nothing can change. Though I'm not keen on continuing in front of a whole class, and Jay especially, I do want to fall into that euphoria again. 

For the next ten minutes, I rush through more problems, with Keaton pressing me to do 'just one more' every single time. A couple of times it's not against an opponent - it's just me up there, frantic, scrawling along as if someone's chasing me. Many of the students continue to gaze up at me, some still with their phones out. Through their murmurs I can hear varied judgement, muddled awe, and a few wondering who I am and where I came from. 

As soon as the class is over, I run to my desk, gather my things, and hurry out of the room before anyone can interrogate me about what they just witnessed. Maybe Keaton won't tell Cranston anything. Maybe by tomorrow none of it will matter, and they'll have found someone new to infuse with unwanted attention.

Then again, do I really want it to stop? What if I want to feel the euphoria again?

***

The next couple of days bring on more stares, more whispers, more people with their phones out during the Physics class I sit in. Or rather, I dive head-first into without proper life support. Just like Keaton, the Physics teacher makes me stand up in front of the class, reciting the laws of dynamics and energy transformations, as well as electrical, gravitational, and magnetic fields, and other similar topics.