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do your homework, they make this huge production out of it. They even call home if you mess up enough times. Seriously, you can’t get a break for one second. Like with calculus. Ms. Jacobs is insane. She expects us to be ready to take notes right when class starts. She acts like we’re supposed to pay attention to every little thing.
    None of this is helpful when the boy you moved here for has a girlfriend.
    I wish I could think about something else. Just focus on anything but the fact that Scott has a girlfriend who isn’t me. This being calc, the only available distraction is a set of parametric equations.
    I tackle them.
    Avoiding classwork was simple at my old school. I know that everyone always says their school is the worst, but trust me, mine was the worst. You could totally get away with doing nothing, because the teachers never said anything. They would just give you a bad grade, which didn’t faze most of the kids anyway. They hardly ever collected work. If they were going to, you could always just copy the answers from someone else. Lots of teachers didn’t even read what we handed in. For most classes, your grade only depended on the quantity of work you did, not the quality. And people were actually surprised that I wasn’t into school?
    When I finish solving the last equation, I sneak a look at the girl next to me. She’s still working on hers along with everyone else. Her name is Sadie, and she’s wearing the same earrings as me—same silver hoops, same thin black stripes. Her look is actually kind of cool. She’s got this whole Smart Sexy Girl thing going on, all shoulder-length copper hair with gold highlights, brown eyes that are more interesting than mine, and cat’s-eye glasses. She’s like two inches shorter than me and looks cute in everything she wears. She might want to rethink the headbands, though.
    Sadie glances at my paper.
    “How did you get that?” she whispers.
    “What?”
    “Number five. It’s impossible.”
    “No it’s not.” I hand her my paper so she can see.
    “You may ask your neighbor questions,” Ms. Jacobs reminds us, “but we’re working individually.” She looks right at me.
    I am so not used to that. Teachers who make eye contact freak me out. I used to be able to completely disappear in class whenever I wanted to. I could be invisible.
    Not anymore.
    Sadie passes my paper back. She’s like, “How did you get that?”
    Playing their game is repulsive. Here we have one student helping another so she can solve some meaningless problem she’ll never have to deal with in real life. I don’t want to explain how I got it. I don’t want to talk to Sadie at all. But it’s better than thinking about Scott, which is what I’d be doing if I was just waiting for everyone else to finish. So I explain how I solved the problem.
    “That’s ...” Sadie examines my paper again. “Where did you learn that thing you did in step three?”
    “At my old school.”
    “Wow,” she marvels. “You must have had an amazing math teacher.”
    “Not really.”
    As I’m packing up my bag after class, Sadie goes, “Have you ever thought about peer tutoring? We’re starting this week and I think you’d be great.”
    “Oh, that’s okay.”
    “No, seriously. How fast did you finish those problems? People were still working on them like fifteen minutes later.”
    “I just wanted to get them over with.”
    “Yeah, but you got them all right. That’s unbelievable.”
    It’s official. Floating under the radar is definitely a thing of the past.
    “We’re meeting after school today,” Sadie says. “Can you come?”
    “No offense, but that’s not my thing.”
    “What’s not your thing? Helping people?”
    Okay, see, there’s no need to get harsh. The girl doesn’t even know me and she’s being all insulting. I don’t have time to explain myself to her. Of course I like helping people. I’m not a bad person. I just don’t see the point of explaining stuff to a