Hatchetfield.

You're as Cool as You Think You Are

Stephanie had never been popular.

Ever since she was younger she was considered a loner. Sure people talked to her, mostly to get weed. But she didn't consider anyone at Hawkins High her friend. And she doubted any of them would ever do the same.

Not since her Dad's scandal when he use to be Mayor...

But she prefered it this way. It was easier to go through the halls invisible. It felt safer.

The only problem this year was her biology class with Ms. Mulberry.

Stephanie hated it. Anytime Ms. Mulberry asked a question it felt like she'd focus right on her. And of course she'd always give Stephanie the harder questions and make her look like an idiot in front of the whole class. The worst was the pop-quizzes though. Ms. Mulberry claimed she used them to help "boost everyone's grades" but they did anything but that for Stephanie.

And they always had to pass their quiz over to another kid to grade. Which ment at least one other person got to see just how badly she did.

And as if this day couldn't get any worse, today when Stephanie walked into Ms. Mulberry's class she discovered they now had new assigned seats.

"Some of us have been a little too chatty in class." Ms. Mulberry said, giving some of the cheerleaders a pointed look. "So today we'll be shaking things up with a new seating chart!"

And to Stephanie's absolute horror, she discovered that now she was sitting next to the one and only Peter Spankoffski.

Pete was probably one of the smartest guys at Hatchetfield High. On track to be the school's valedictorian next spring. He also happened to be one of the more popular guys. Apperently he was rich but he wasn't the type of guy to flaunt it. He could be super funny and a lot of the girls found him cute in an "adorkable" way. Some people rumored that just being around him could raise your gpa.

And now he was sitting right next to the dumbest, most invisible girl at Hatchetfield.

Stephanie wished she could crawl under her desk and die.

"Clear your desks everyone! Time for a pop-quiz!"

And of course, the perfect cherry on top of this shit sunday. Another fucking pop quiz.

When Ms. Mulberry set the paper in front of her, Stephanie felt like she was going to short-circuit.

They had been going over cells and all the weird little things inside cells. But all the organelles had these long, complicated names and the pictures just looked like blobs and squiggly lines to Stephanie. She could stare at that picture for hours and it would still mean absolutley nothing to her.

"You have 5 minutes to label as many organelles as you can." Ms. Mulberry said as she paced around the room. "And I'm giving bonus point if you can tell me their functions."

It was just a paper with a whole mess of blobs and squiggles. Stephanie didn't even have a wordbank to work off of.

She tried her best to write some scientific-sounding words down so at least there was something on the paper. And a couple phrases she remembered Ms. Mulberry saying.

With that done, she just prayed that Ms. Mulberry had them pass their papers to the right.

"Times up!" Ms. Mulberry called out. "Now let's go over some answers. Pass your papers to the left!"

Perfect. Just perfect. Now Perfect Pete was going to see first-hand what a total loser she was.

She watched Pete grade out of the corner of her eye. He was frowning down at her paper. He actually seemed kinda sad.