Stars

Chapter 1

I never really understood the point of school. Mankind got along fine without it for a while. And all of a sudden, some dude named Horace Mann decided to invent the education system. And then you have Roberto Nevelis, the guy who invented homework. Isn't the whole point of going home to relax? We might as well stay in school for the rest of our lives since we seem to bring it everywhere we go.

It's hard being at the beginning of my Sophomore year. Adults underestimate how much I know, even though I'm not a freshman anymore. For instance, I know that my teacher, Ms. Yelburg, is going through a divorce, but it's complicated because her husband wants her money and custody of their child but she's an amazing mom and wants to care for her child. That's why she's so cranky. I also know that my teacher doesn't like my parents and that my dad hits my mom because she can't do anything right. I know that my brother is slowly dying, no matter how much everyone tries to hide it. He just won't say it. No one will. I also know that 113 times 591 is 66,783 off the top of my head, but that's not important.

At that moment, I was taking a quiz with the rest of my class. It was simple. It wasn't so difficult to multiply and divide. But that might just be because I'm what some call a "human calculator", which makes no sense. I am most definitely not a rectangular object, but I still get the joke. It's not much of an insult, anyway. So as I sat there, staring at my paper, I naturally couldn't stop thinking about turning it in. I finished my quiz a while ago. I just waited, though, because the first time I finished a quiz and got a perfect score, I was accused of cheating. Of course, it was all sorted out and I was put in an advanced class, but I still get skeptical looks when I finish before everyone else by more than five minutes. I glanced at the clock. I had been waiting for twelve minutes. There were still 58 minutes to go. Taking a deep breath, I got up and gave the teacher my paper. She looked at me with exhausted yet stern eyes.

If someone were to ask me what the most expressive part of our body is, I'd say the eyes. They give off hints and clues as to how a person is feeling. They can even tell you someone's background. Eyes that are shaped a certain way could hint at a certain ethnicity (but I won't get into that).

You can tell when someone is excited or happy when their eyes sparkle, and you can tell when they're sad when their eyes are recessed or ample. You can tell when they're sad because they'll tear up or cry and get shiny and slick.

Right now, my teacher was obviously tired. I bit the inside of my lip to keep quiet from asking if she was okay. She didn't very much like conversing with her students. It would end up a one-sided conversation, anyway. So I watched as she stared at the paper. "I finished, ma'am," I said, my voice quiet. She regarded me with suspicion, her eyes now boring into mine, and then she replied, "In ten minutes?"

I nodded and held my breath as she grabbed her green and red markers. She studied the paper. Her hand hovered over the markers. And then she picked up the green one. I exhaled in relief as she started scribbling green check marks on the paper, not once picking up the red marker. I noticed the class murmuring to each other, their faces one's of disbelief.

She pursed her lips and nodded, placing the paper back into my hands. "Go sit back down, Micail."

I must've been too excited because on my way back to my seat, I bumped into a boy at his desk, bent over his paper, then upright. Our eyes met, and for a minute, I swore I saw the ocean. But it ended as soon as it happened. I reached my seat. When I looked at my paper, it had a letter on it, circled with a green pen. There wasn't a smiley face on it, but there was one on mine as I traced the A on the paper.