CECE, DISRESPECTFULLY | rewriting

08: INTERLOPER

            'You're here.'

I sneer as I enter the maths classroom. Should be illegal to be in here after four p.m. At least Apostolou ain't around though he supposedly is the supervisor of this club.

Not that Diwa's company is much better. Her glare is already latched onto me.

'You told me to,' I say. 'After school. Maths classroom.'

'I didn't expect you to find time in your busy schedule of fighting people and getting high to actually show up.'

That's on me. Walked right into that one.

I reluctantly move over to her. Diwa sits at a desk alone while the other two maths olympiad members share another. Meira I recognise but the second person dressed in a Hawaiian shirt layered with a turtleneck don't rouse any familiarity. Must be Noah then.

He leans over the two desks and does his best to whisper to Diwa as if I'm not close enough to hear. 'Um, why– why... are they here?'

'Cece is our new recruit,' Diwa says with uncharacteristic pep until she slides right back into the snide I love her for. 'Given that he can pass a trial.'

Noah stares at her like she's grown a second head while Meira stares at me like I'm a ghost or whatever she finds scary. So maybe just me.

'Trust me, Meira,' I say, 'I don't like this any more than you do.'

It is so fucking ridiculous that I have to do this. I deserve the punishment, sure, but this is a punishment for Noah and Meira too who are completely innocent in all of this. Diwa is also innocent but she deserves to be punished a little on account of being unbearable. Unfortunately, annoying her means I also have to get annoyed by her.

Maybe I should just get expelled and shipped to Somer–

I can't finish the thought before I'm drowning. The prayer is muffled beneath the rush of water, my thrashing ricocheting from the edges of the basin I'm to be cleansed in. Then it's a pool. I'm drowning in the deep end. And everyone laughs.

I walk blindly in the plain of reality that my body occupies, feel around for a chair to sit in and look where I hope Noah and Meira are sitting.

'Swear down, I ain't tryna torture you. I need this.'

'It's not that,' Meira's voice responds. 'I just... you know my name.'

'Of course, I know your name. We're in the same year.'

'Yeah, but... You're... And I'm...' She gestures vaguely and sinks in her chair.

I turn to Diwa. 'So where's this test?'

Looking almost as smug as Josh used to whenever he stole my food in Brookes Boys' Home, Diwa places a worksheet in front of me. 'This is the individual work section of the national maths olympiad finale from last year. No calculator. Just try to solve one question in twenty minutes and we'll vote on it.'

I make sure to smile wide enough that she can see every letter of the F-U-C-K from my grillz before I pull the test closer. The first question reads:

Consider the equation p(x) : ax2 + bx + c = 0 whose coefficients a, b and c are all non-zero, and each of them satisfies an equation that results from removing the term containing that coefficent from the equation p(x); for example, the coefficient b is a solution of the equation ax2 + c = 0. What is the sum of all solutions of p(x)?

Easy.

I lean back in my chair until the front legs rise off the floor and cross my arms. My focus floats to the ceiling which means I don't get to enjoy the delicious fury that must stitch itself across Diwa's features. It radiates from her like heat.