How Far We've Come

Chapter 7

A/N: Special thanks to RaineFF for being an awesome Lina and allter8 for being the best Vanessa ever!

The next day, school was rather monotonous. We did laps in Gym, practiced vocabulary in Spanish, and factored binomials in Algebra. Even English was boring, as we annotated some Shakespearean excerpt. By the time lunch came around, I'd had enough boredom to last me a lifetime.

    "Rough start?" asked Clary and I groaned dramatically.

    "Tell me about it!" I complained. "Ugh, school is so much work."

    Jessica laughed as she threw down her backpack and plopped against the lockers across from me. "I think that's the idea. Besides, who knows? The Global classes always give us something to look forward to. I wonder which one it'll be today..."

    Lina grinned. "Who knows? But I'm always up for a surprise."

    "As long as it's a good surprise," Jason clarified. "The last thing I want is, like, a pop quiz or something."

    Sometimes I wonder if Jason is psychic. Because only moments after we entered History class, Mr. Marvin clapped his hands.   

    "Okay everyone! Take out a sheet of paper," he instructed. "This will be worth five formative points, and you don't have much in that category right now."

    My jaw dropped. We were having a pop quiz! I raised my hand and clarified, "Aren't pop quizzes illegal in our county?"

    Mr. Marvin laughed. "This isn't a pop quiz," he scoffed. "It's a Celebration of Knowledge!"

    I smacked my forehead. Why did it have to be History? History was my absolutely worst subject! Nonetheless, I took out a sheet of paper feeling less than defeated.

    Mr. Marvin stated the first question, and as soon as the words left his mouth, I realized I didn't have even the slightest clue what he was talking about.

    The words bounced around my skull, echoing again and again, haunting me more and more. My heart beat fast and my head pounded. My hands sweat. What was the answer? What was it? I racked my brain for even an inkling of what he was talking about when he began the second question. Taking a deep breath, I wrote down a random answer.

    The other four questions were just as hard, if not harder. By the time Mr. Marvin finished, I was almost positive that I had gotten every question wrong. Hands trembling and legs shaking, I passed the paper forwards.

    As soon as Mr. Marvin collected the last sheet of paper, the class burst into a conversation and discussion of the questions.

    "How do you think you did?" I asked Clary, wondering if she did as badly as I thought I did. But, she just smiled.

    "That wasn't that hard! Personally, I thought that question number three was a tad ideologically biased, and definitely not specific enough, but it matched the curriculum," she rambled. I internally cursed myself. History was Clary's best subject, much like Vanessa. As a matter of fact, the two were shockingly alike. Multiple siblings, youngest in the family, loved History and Government, loved Science, hated Math, loved books... the list could go on and on. Shaking my head, I turned to Jessica and asked her the same question.

    She shrugged. "I don't know. I just hope I got a decent grade, although in this case it's pretty unlikely I got an A." I slumped back into my chair, feeling hopeless as ever.

    Biology was a depressing blur while the only thing on my mind was the test, and by the time we reached Technology, most people were a mess.

    "Ah," sympathized Mr. Gandalf. "Celebration of Knowledge?"