[CONTENT WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS MASSIVE FEMALE WEIGHT GAIN, FORCE-FEEDING, AND A LITTLE BIT OF SLOB (MESSY EATING, FOOD TRASH & BURPING). THIS STORY ALSO FEATURES HIGH SCHOOL CHARACTERS, AGED EIGHTEEN. IF YOU'RE NOT INTO ANY OF THAT, YOU MAY WISH TO TAKE YOUR READING NEEDS ELSEWHERE.]
The State Mental Acuity and Memorization Test - or, the SMAMT - was a new exam at Yonder Academy, but it was incredibly important. As its name suggested, it was administered by the state, and the entire school administration drilled it into their students' heads that good grades would mean more state funding for the private school. Bad grades could be disastrous.
Eighteen-year-old Brian Buck was preparing to start his senior year anyway, but his family was incredibly connected - his well-connected father constantly sent donations to the coastal Connecticut school, earning himself a large plaque in the main lobby for the school's gratitude - and so he didn't want to be a part of the reason why Yonder Academy went down. Plus, a good grade on a state test his senior year would be very attractive to universities.
Brian tried his best to hit the books, but the SMAMTs didn't mess around. They contained advanced mathematics and language arts, like the SAT on steroids.
So he cheated.
He hadn't been going in expecting to cheat, but the perfect storm coalesced. The test was the third week of September, and early onset senioritis still had Brian in its grasp (it would lay low from October to the end of March). He had had a rough night's sleep, having been glued to a new video game, and his alarm hadn't gone off at the right time because his phone had died, so he missed homeroom.
This was the shape the young man was in when he stumbled into the main lobby of Yonder Academy.
"Hey, man," his best friend Li greeted him with a wave. He sat in one of the benches in the lobby, his eyes glossing over some papers in front of him.
"Dude, why aren't you in there taking the test?" Brian gestured towards the closed gymnasium doors.
"Oh, didn't you hear? They're having us take the SMAMTs in waves," Li explained.
"Are they going alphabetically?!" Brian's panic resumed, since his last name started with a "B."
"Yeah, but by homeroom teacher. Anyone in homerooms ranged from Ms. Ayoke to Mr. Gimili is taking the test now."
Brian breathed a sigh of relief. He and Li had Mr. Zemickis for homeroom. "Thank God."
"Still, it's only an hour per test, so you've got two hours for last minute studying," Li checked his phone. "Eh, maybe not two hours. Common period ends in a half an hour, and you just know Mrs. Jacobsen is going to teach us a math lesson even though we've got the SMAMTs."
Brian groaned. "I'll figure something out. See you later, man."
"See you."
Brian had a lifeline, but it was disappearing fast. He turned down another, quieter hallway, and took a seat at a bench near another entrance to the gymnasium. He whipped a math book from his bag and opened it. This sucks, he thought to himself, not out of laziness but just because of how difficult the material truly was.
He had managed to get a few minutes into the material and was cautiously, gradually beginning to understand it, when the door nearby opened up, distracting him.
"Oh, gosh, Maya, I'm not sure about that test." The words made Brian's heart sink, because they had come from Rebecca Pfiff, one of the smartest girls in his grade. If she had found the test challenging - what would that mean for a schmuck like Brian?
"Mmm, I wouldn't sweat it," Maya shrugged. Rebecca's chubby best friend seemed more preoccupied with the chocolate bar in her pocket than the test she had just abandoned. Rebecca and Maya were close, despite their grade gap - Rebecca was a straight-A student, while Maya was happy with Bs and Cs. If Brian had to guess, Maya had probably rushed through her test when she saw her friend was finishing up.
