Undaunted

Chapter 14: Caught Red Handed

The next morning I wake up early to shuffling sounds and I blink a few times to clear my vision.

"Hmm?" I mumble and my eyes trail over to Ryder, who is currently standing in front of his bed with his school uniform pants on and his shoes while his button up shirt is hanging completely open and his jacket is lying on his bed.

"Get up," Ryder says.

"R--Ryder?" I blush as I stare at his figure, "What are you doing up so early?"

"The scores for our exams were posted. I always get up early because they get posted the next day and I don't like dealing with the crowd. Come on, get up," He explains as he buttons up his shirt.

"Okay," I sigh and climb out of bed.

"Hurry up and..." Ryder trails off and I stare at him in confusion.

"What?" I ask and rub my eyes.

"Nothing," Ryder says and glances away, blushing slightly and mumbling, "You just look cute like that..."

"What was that?" I ask as I examine my tank-top and shorts for something that might be embarrassing since Ryder trailed off.

"Nothing," Ryder says and clears his throat as he grabs his jacket, "I just said that you should get ready before people start getting up."

"Oh," I say, uncertain, "Okay..."

I go over to the closet and pick out my uniform before heading into the bathroom and changing before attending to my other needs. After I finish getting ready I walk out of the bathroom and the two of us walk past my sleeping familiars as we head out the dorm.

"Where are the scores posted?" I ask.

"They're right down the hall," Ryder says as we walk down the hall together, "Come on."

I follow Ryder down the dormitory hall until we reach the middle of the hall where a podium is placed against the wall. Ryder walks up to the podium and presses the symbol on the front of the podium and a floating piece of paper appears with his name, grade ranking, and his scores.

"Hmm," Ryder says as he scans over the paper and a smirk forms on his face once he reaches the bottom.

"You got first place for your grade?!" I gasp as I read from behind him and he looks at me over his shoulder.

"Yeah," He shrugs, "It isn't that big of a deal."

"You scored a hundred percent on all of your tests..." I whisper as he steps back from the podium.

I know that Ryder was always expected to be perfect and that he's extremely smart, but somehow seeing his results is still breathtaking to me.

"I don't know why you're so impressed," Ryder shrugs, "Either that means you think I'm stupid or it means that you feel like you're stupid, so it's probably the latter. You aren't stupid, Philomena. You didn't need help with anything except for when it came to actually casting the spells. I'm sure you got good grades in your old school, but you were clumsy all the time and made a mess of things, so you felt like a screw up, but you aren't."

"You're right..." I whisper as the idea dawns on me, "I had an A average..."

"See," Ryder smiles slightly at me, "So don't worry so much. Just check your grades already so that we can get out of here."

I nod and walk closer to the podium before pressing the same button Ryder pressed earlier and suddenly a paper appears. I bite my lip and play with the hem of my skirt as I read over my results to find that I scored all A's on my tests, except for three. I got two B's on tests that involved spell casting itself and one C, which isn't too bad, but I wish I would've done better.