Mr. Cheater and Ms.Valedictorian (20,000 words, English)

The Keepers of Wisdom

The next morning, Grayson is awakened by his mother who sits at the corner of his bed.

“Grayson… wake up. Wake up Grayson… it’s morning,” Mrs.Blanco gently shakes the boy awake.

Grayson slowly opens his eyes and looks at his mom.

“Five more minutes mom.” Grayson rolls over to face the other side tucking a pillow between his legs as he cozies into the fetal position.

“Erin is here to see you,” his mom tells him.

“Hi Grayson,” Erin’s voice makes Grayson’s eyes pop wide open.

He quickly sits up in bed grabbing the pillow from between his legs and covering his bare chest as he reaches for his blanket to cover his legs. He sees Erin leaning by his open door looking already so fresh and pretty so early in the morning. She is wearing a short yellow green dress that makes her skin look so bright. She has tied her hair in a simple ponytail with a yellow scrunchy, intentionally leaving a few strands of bangs to hang in front which she habitually tucks behind her ears.

“Uh— Ok… I’ll be right out,” Grayson manages to say through his embarrassment.

Grayson’s mom smiles and escorts Erin out of the room. “Let’s wait for him in the living room.”

“Let’s,” Erin replies with a smile as Mrs.Blanco closes the door behind them.

Alone in his room, Grayson covers his head with his blanket in embarrassment.

A few minutes later, Grayson gets out of his room dressed in a plain white shirt and some shorts, his hair clearly not yet washed but is combed to minimize the bed head look— which totally doesn’t work.

“Ok Mr. Grayson Blanco, let’s study,” Erin tells the boy.

“So, can I see this ‘cheat sheet’ that Ms. V so emphatically pointed out is from you?” she asks genuinely curious. Even though all the other Greenvale High Seniors know about or have used a cheat sheet during their final exam, Erin had no real knowledge of this. She didn’t need them.

Grayson goes back to his room to grab the thick red leather bound spring binder. He puts it on the living room coffee table.

*Thud!*

“Whoa! Where did you get this? It’s so thick.” She doesn’t wait for him to answer, Erin reads the inscription on the cover. To the Future, From the Past

She then starts flipping through the pages but goes back to the first page. Judging by the texture and the discoloration on the paper, Erin concludes that it’s already a very old page. They look at a bunch of handwritten initials on it, with the heading The Keepers of Wisdom.

RG

FQ

CS

MD

KG

KC

MS

LM

CG

RS

XB

ES

“I think you should write down your initials on this page,” Erin tells Grayson.

“You think so?” he asks with a smile. “I was wondering about that.”

“Yeah, you should. I guess you’re our keeper of knowledge,” Erin tells Grayson. She smiles but quickly wipes it off her face and looks away.

Grayson catches this but doesn’t know what to make of it. He smiles in agreement as he adds his initials to the list.

GB

“There,” Grayson says proudly.