Antarctica [discontinued

Chapter 1

A/N: In case you missed the last one, understanding the AP Chemistry question discussed in this chapter is not important in understanding this story. 

also, thanks to mischevioustw for the cover on the side. x

I ran along the edge to get to class, my chip beeping at me to hurry up, or I’d lose 10 points. My rank on the leaderboard this week was 108 in my age group, with a total of a meager 500 points this past week; losing 10 points is not going to help my case at all, especially with the final awards looming over our heads for next week.

Thankfully, I made it to class with a minute to spare, and looked for my usual seat—near the back door—only to find that it had been taken for today, and the only desirable open seat was behind Jacob, the tallest guy in class. How was I going to learn when I couldn’t see the board? Final examinations were next week, for crying out loud!

“Hey, I sit there, Candace,” someone sneered at me. Richard Snyder, someone kill me now? I’m looking at you, Alyssa, who snatched someone’s seat in the front of the room.

“Sorry, but I don’t think we have assigned seats in this class,” I shot back.

“Well,” he purposely drew the word out, “I think that we should.”

He then proceeded to kick me out of my seat, leaving me sprawled out on the floor, and tossed my notebook to me.

At that point, I’m pretty sure that everyone in our class was watching.

“Tch,” he said in disgust, “you made me lose fifty points. Do you have any idea how difficult Calculus is?”

Actually, it’s not. But I didn’t dare to say that out loud. Instead, I simply got up and dusted myself off before taking the last open seat, the one next to the window, which is supposedly haunted by some evil spirit, which is why no one ever really wanted to sit there, although we had a full classroom, so someone had to sit there. Normally, the last one in had to, unless they resorted to violence to not sit in this seat, which is normally just slightly overboard. Richard was probably the most notorious for this, and as a result had to drop to last place in the rankings—110th place—with no one below him. Second to last—109th place—was taken by Maria Snyder, his sister who was one year under us. Bother that I’m in 108th place, really. It’s not that I can’t be higher, it’s that I don’t want to be higher.

But everyone wants to be higher, right? Wrong. Even though a higher position grants you things like the best jobs and the highest cash prize at the end of the year, staying near the bottom has the perk of anonymity, especially if you don’t do anything to deduct points, but instead not do anything to add points. And generally, that’s what I do. So, I don’t take anymore extra tests, and I only accumulate points by everyday methods, such as cooking or cleaning my living space.

“So,” our teacher, Mr. Browner, boomed, “what do you have to combine sodium with to create table salt?”

Chlorine. The answer is chlorine. He thinks the question will stump everyone.

It doesn’t. Alyssa quickly raises her hand, and answers with chlorine. She gets five points. Hooray. She’ll likely win first place this year.

Obviously, my brainy friend knows everything. And so do I. I just choose not to answer.

“Well, that was a little easy, don’t you think?” he asked.

Everyone, well almost everyone, nods in affirmative.

My guess that around half of those people who nodded were lying.

“I’ll write the next question on the board, since it’s harder, but we should have covered it.”