The School for the Elite

Chapter 5: Sudden Genius

I consider my courses of action.

I could just sit here and not take the test, then explain to that rigid woman of a proctor my circumstance after everyone finished. But that would make me miss my class. Maybe I should just run out of the room, but take the very high risk that the proctor will try and hunt me down.

I settle on my final option. To just take the test and see what happens. I mean, why not just test what damage I can do to this exceedingly hard and rigorous test (as the proctor had put it in her further description of her expectations from us for this test)?

I flip the thick stapled stack of papers over. There are easily over twenty pages, all to be done in an hour and a half.

I pick up my pencil and view the first page.

There are many concepts I have never heard of, and some that I have very briefly seen. Of course, the only reason I had even seen any of them was that one evening when I was bored I decided to try and teach myself calculus in an evening. It wasn't exactly successful, but I retained some information.

One thing was for sure, though. The only weapon in my arsenal that I could truly apply to this test was my logic.

As I solve the questions on the first page, I begin the next few pages, then the next. Even though I had never seen some of these in my life, logic, and reasoning can take you quite far if you know how to apply them. 

I finish the test in an hour, with thirty minutes left for the competition problems, which only sum up to about half the amount of problems in the actual test.

As I view the first problem, my stomach drops. Though my logic took me quite far before, the test was nothing compared to these problems.

Just as I decide I would stop there, I hear a quiet yet persistent thump in the back of my mind. I decide to ignore it and look back at the first problem.

Thump

THUMP

I slowly bring my palm to my head and close my eyes. Of all times, why did that headache have to come now? 

I place my pencil down and rub the sides of my head as if I can massage my headache away with enough effort. The pain only gets worse, and I have to grit my teeth to stop myself from groaning. I look back at the competition papers. I slowly reach for my pencil, hoping I can distract myself by thinking about the first problem again. 

Suddenly, the pain stops. It just vanishes.

I sigh with relief, causing the person to my right to stop writing and throw a puzzled look at me, with a hint of annoyance. I ignore him and look back at the first problem, determined to solve it with logic alone. 

I smile to myself, but the world must truly hate me because moments later I feel as if someone had slammed an anvil into my head. 

I begin coughing to stop myself from crying out in pain. The proctor looks at me with disdain, crossing her arms over her very ironed two-piece suit and staring down at me. Some students spare me similar looks, and one girl a few desks in front of me even looks a bit angry. I look to the ground, my head spinning far too furiously to allow me to feel any form of embarrassment or shame. 

I quickly glance to my right, at the clock above the boy next to me. Twenty minutes left. I then look down at his paper and notice he was staring daggers at the last problem of the test. He hadn't even bothered to look at the competition section yet. There are beads of sweat on his brow, and his right hand was shaking slightly. As if he could tell I was staring, he turned his head slightly to look at me in the eyes. 

The second he made eye contact, his eyes widen and he quickly looks away, as if startled. No, not startled. Scared. he scrunches his eyebrows and rubs his eyes, mumbling soundlessly, as if trying to banish some thought out of his mind. 

I look at him, confused, and stare back at my paper.

Something changed.

My mind feels more awake than it did moments before. I felt as if I knew more. It's unexplainable, for even I have no idea what I feel. The best way to describe it was as if my mind just got an electric shock. 

As I look at the first question, I know how to solve it. I flip through the competition problems, and after only seconds of reading them, understand the hows and whys of their solutions.

I stare blankly at the competition papers, trying to find an answer to my current quandary.

I decide to just put in the answers and bother with discovering the roots of my sudden genius later. I finish the whole packet with fifteen minutes to spare and rise from my seat after double-checking my test and competition answers.

The proctor looks at me as one would look at dust, though to my satisfaction she also looked surprised as well as a tad bit confused.

"You finished? Did you even check your work?" She asks, not even trying to hide her skepticism. 

I nod, my eyes lowered to the floor. She scoffs, quietly but audibly, and begins flipping through my papers. At first, she smirks, but as she continues turning the pages, her smirk falters and she looks more and more shocked. I begin grinning, making sure she can't see my face and cover my mouth quickly to stop my grin from spreading farther up my face. 

The woman reaches the competition problems, and lets a quiet gasp out, her eyes widening.

"Fascinating," she mumbles, "how you solved these problems, I've never seen this strategy. Did you make it up on the spot? How did you think of this? Was it just a guess? Yes, a guess."

 She seems to make up her mind that I had simply guessed how to solve each problem but quickly realized the absurdity and very low chance of that possibility. She looks at me again, awe hidden behind the layers of her harsh brown eyes.

"Go sit down, and remain here a few minutes after this test. Do not leave, understood?" She says, still flipping through the pages of my test and competition papers.

I nod, my hand still covering my mouth to hide my grin, and slowly walk towards my seat in the back. 

As I was towards my seat, some of the students are too occupied with scribbling their answers to spare me any sort of glance, while others pause their solving and quickly gape at me as I walk by.

The boy next to me is the last to peek at me, and though he now looks more nervous than anything, a shadow of fear is still etched into his complexion. He looks back to his work just as quickly, and I realize he is still struggling with the last question of the test.

I ignore him and sit down.

As I take a seat, I realize that my headache has already faded away.