Arcade's Dungeon

Hunter Hero 3: After School

"-are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? That's absolutely infuriating! Why wouldn't she just take it down and repost it! It would take like, two seconds!"

     "Because it only takes one second to make a community post right below the worksheet...?"

     "That ghetto program doesn't work. I didn't see it, and it didn't load. Look," I hissed, turning to Nita as she stood waiting for the bus and I stood waiting for Reed to get out there and drive us back. As much as I would've just loved to run off my energy, daytime and skills did not mesh for me. I was too paranoid and just kept it shoved down deeper than my buzzer. "See? Nothing."

     "Wow." Nita bothered to fake surprise for me while looking at the lack of community posts below the worksheet. Then she bothered to frown and pull out her own phone, showing the opposite: the post was there. "Is your data plan okay?"

     "Yes! It's fine! It's this stupid program that just-ugh," I finally had enough and turned off my phone, putting it away. Getting worked up over the smallest thing for nothing. "Never mind. It's fine. At least I'm ahead now."

     "And now, you get to go home."

     "Yes, I get to go...no." This red car in front of me was looking awfully familiar, parked in the front row of the lot as people were struggling to get out in the early afternoon sun. "Oh, crap...I have club. Oh come on..."

     "It's nice to see you be human once in a while," Nita smiled at me while chewing her lips. "Sure, it's over something only you could worry about, but still."

     "And you're saying you just wouldn't have done the worksheet if this happened to you?"

     "Yes."

     My head tilted at her, incredulous. She only laughed, then laughed harder. "Cade, it was obviously something we hadn't learned before! And Ms. Cargill makes mistakes like that all the time. I'd have just done as much as I knew and shrugged off the rest. That's probably what most people did. You're just really good at putting effort into things that will help you in the future, but not right now."

     "But that's called planning ahead-"

     "But that's called worrying needlessly on things that you can't control. What happens, happens. What doesn't, doesn't. Yeah, it's better to be prepared than not. But what's the difference between you now ahead of the game - uselessly early if I might add - knowing how to solve marginal cost, and you next week knowing how to solve the same thing but alongside everyone else. Sure, you could say you wouldn't have had time to learn it next week or something, but that's planning for a really slim chance. Do it ahead when you need to do it ahead, and don't do more than you need to in the moment. Sometimes it really is enough to just skirt by."

     "Where was this wisdom freshman year? And why am I taking wisdom from someone who stays up till two almost every night?"

     Nita shrugged, seeing the bus pull up into its own lot and beginning to walk towards it. "Wisdom comes when it wants, not when it needs to. Have fun at club, Padawan, and see you next week!"

     "Yeah!" I raised a hand and sighed, turning around. Still burning from the rage she reignited in me by bothering to nudge my shoulder with that, "How long did you work on that last night again?" I turned back into the gates and wandered across the school to go find the classroom our club meetings were held in. Of all times to have a meeting...one just had to be scheduled on a Friday for that week. "Hey," I knocked on the door after hearing someone inside. "It's Cade."

     It took some time, but they did let me in eventually. I heard the whispers and groans that sometimes accompanied my name, but learned to shrug it off over the years. That was high school. If you were succeeding and not helping other people succeed by giving them answers or letting them take pictures of your notes, they didn't typically like you.