2.

11 0 0
                                    

Lake























    Lake looked discretely at the answer sheet of a neighboring student. Jacob is his name she thinks. He lives right across the road. Jacob always has the right answers; her parents said he was some sort of prodigy genius or something like tha——





    "Eyes on your own paper, Miss Paddock," Mr. Langley's words cut through Lake like a knife, and She knew she'd been caught. Jacob shrugged his shoulders at her as some sort of apology, but she wasn't sure why he'd apologized. She's the one who cheated off him. Lake wondered why some people were so weird.



After the appropriate amount of waiting, Lake's eyes wandered over to Jacob's desk again, but he'd already flipped his paper over signifying that he was done and Lake would get yet another failing grade. Normally, this class wouldn't have mattered, but since Lake was out of electives and refused to take an animal science class, this was the final piece of her graduation puzzle.

     The bell let out its joyous strains of freedom's song releasing Lake and the other captives of compulsory education until Monday reared its ugly head.

Seven Octobers Where stories live. Discover now