The Class Dunce? No, I'm the Valedictorian

For three whole years, everyone at school knows me as a hopeless student who can barely pass a test. After the SATs, I am sitting at my cousin's college acceptance celebration, quietly eating my meal. My aunt, Karen Reed, suddenly snatches the plate from my hands. "Your scores are pathetic, and you still have the nerve to sit here and eat?" My cousin, Wilbert Yard, swirls his drink and sneers. "Jason, you won't get anywhere in life with a brain like yours. You can be my driver someday. I'll pay you 800 dollars a month." My uncle, George Yard, points a finger in my face. He looks at me in disgust and says, "Your parents have been working out of town for three years, and you still can't get decent grades. You're embarrassing the family!" Everyone at the table turns to look at me. Just then, my phone rings. I casually put it on speaker, and my homeroom teacher's voice fills the entire room. "Jason, you scored a 1590 on the SAT! That's the highest score in the state!" Chapter 1 My homeroom teacher, Ellie Carter, continued speaking through the phone. "Jason Yard, you really had everyone fooled. A total of 1590! "You got the highest SAT score in the state this year!" Ms. Carter's voice trembled with excitement. A muscle in my aunt Karen Reed's face twitched. She snatched my phone from me. "Ms. Carter, have you been drinking?" she asked. "Jason could barely score 400 on a practice SAT, yet you're saying he got the highest score in the state? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!" There was a brief silence on the other end. Then Ms. Carter's voice turned serious. "You're Jason's aunt, right? Why would I joke about something this important?" Karen's face darkened, and she hung up. "Give me a break!" she snapped. "Jason, you've gotten pretty bold. Did you really hire someone to put on this whole act just to look good in front of everyone?" My cousin, Wilbert Yard, finally snapped out of it. He pointed at me and laughed. "I knew there was no way! He must've paid someone to make that call." The relatives around the table all chimed in. "Exactly. We all know how Jason does in school." "He's always near the bottom of the school. How could he suddenly get the highest SAT score in the state?" "He's so desperate for attention. I can't believe he would make up a lie like this." My uncle, George Yard, scoffed. "Jason, your parents work themselves to the bone on construction sites just to put you through school. And this is how you repay them? You're terrible at school, but you sure are good at lying." I sat in my chair without saying a word. I simply pulled out a napkin and wiped the grease from my hands. I had listened to insults like these for three years. Three years ago, Mom and Dad left town for work and sent me to live with George's family. Every month, Mom and Dad sent them 500 dollars for my living expenses. But on my very first day at George's house, Karen pointed at the storage room and said, "We don't have enough bedrooms, so you'll sleep in here." The storage room had no windows. It was like an oven in the summer and an icebox in the winter. Wilbert had the master bedroom with a balcony. Karen made him elaborate meals every day, including braised short ribs and homemade chicken soup. When it came to me, I got nothing but scraps poured over some pasta. On my first big test of freshman year, I came in first in my class and placed in the top ten in the entire school. Wilbert came in dead last in our class. That night, Wilbert locked himself in his room and cried. Karen stayed in the living room, making pointed remarks. "Some people should remember they're living under someone else's roof. Who are they trying to impress with those high scores? "Are they trying to show off how smart they are? How can someone be so calculating?" The next morning, every textbook I had left on my desk was torn to pieces, and my backpack had been thrown in the toilet. Wilbert stood in the doorway, sneering at me. I went to George and told him what had happened. He raised his hand and slapped me across the face. "Wilbert is your cousin! You did so well on your exam to make him feel bad, didn't you?" That slap made me come to my senses. Mom and Dad worked grueling jobs on construction sites. Mom had a herniated disk in her lower back, and Dad's hands were covered in calluses. They scraped by every month, sending me the money they had worked so hard to earn. All they wanted was for me to be able to stay in school and focus on my studies. If I got kicked out of the house, Mom and Dad would have no choice but to swallow their pride and beg George to take me back. I couldn't put them through that. So from that day on, I learned to hide how capable I really was. Chapter 2 At the end of my freshman year, we had our final exams. On the math final, I only answered the first few basic questions. For the harder problems, I deliberately used the wrong formulas. I ended up with a score of 41, while Wilbert got a 43. That night, Karen actually made an extra dish for dinner. She smiled as she placed a drumstick on Wilbert's plate. "Wilbert, you're so smart. You barely had to try, and you're already better than some people." Then she tossed a dry dinner roll onto my plate. "Eat up. If you're too dumb to do well in school, then you can at least work for your keep. Don't waste food." I chewed on the dry, stale bread, feeling nothing. They thought I was a complete failure, but in reality, I knew exactly how many points I wanted to get on every test. I could score whatever I wanted. For my entire sophomore year, I made sure to score just below Wilbert. If he got a 60, I would get a 56. If he got an 80, I would score a 78. I was always a few points behind him, which made George and Karen grow increasingly pleased with themselves. They bragged to everyone about what a great student Wilbert was and said I was hopeless. Whenever Mom and Dad called to ask about my grades, Karen would grab the phone and sigh. "Wendy, it's not that we haven't tried, but Jason just isn't smart enough for school. "The money you send every month isn't even enough to pay for a tutor." Mom wiped away tears on the other end of the call. The next month, the money they sent went from 500 dollars to 600 dollars. Every penny went straight into Karen's pocket. Wilbert got the latest iPhone and bought a pair of sneakers that cost hundreds of dollars. Meanwhile, I didn't even have a decent pair of sports shoes. Every night, after they went to bed, I stayed in the storage room and worked through every practice test I could find under the dim light of a desk lamp. I had gone over every type of problem countless times on scratch paper. I was waiting for the day of the SATs. That was the one thing that could finally expose George and his family for who they really were. Wilbert slammed his hand on the table, snapping me out of my thoughts. "Look it up, right now!" Wilbert demanded. "The SAT results are up!" He pointed a finger in my face. "Jason, give us your SAT registration number. Let's see how you actually did, right here in front of everyone!" Karen sneered. "If you don't show us your scores today, I'll make you beg Wilbert for forgiveness!" All the relatives crowded around, and everyone stared at the tablet screen. I calmly pulled out my SAT registration confirmation from my pocket and placed it on the table. "Go on, check it." Wilbert stared at the tablet, and his hands began to tremble. Karen leaned closer. She stared at the screen for a long time, looking confused. "Why isn't there a score? Why does it just say 'Under Review'?" "Oh, there isn't even a score. Did he get a zero?" a relative asked. "Jason, did you get caught cheating on the SAT? Is that why they withheld your score?" Karen asked. Wilbert swallowed hard and clenched his teeth. His eyes were filled with jealousy, but he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of all the relatives. Seizing on Karen's words, he suddenly raised the tablet and shouted, "Exactly! He must have cheated!" George pointed at me and started cursing. "You disgraceful little bastard! You've disgraced the entire family!" The relatives immediately began whispering among themselves. "Oh my God! He actually cheated and got his score withheld." "Bad grades are one thing, but now we know he's a terrible person, too." "How did our family end up with someone like him?" Wilbert walked over and looked down at me. "Jason, you're finished. Cheating on the SAT will go on your record," he said. "Look at my score. I got 1180. I'm about to become a real college student!" Karen beamed with pride. "Wilbert is going places! Some people cheat, get their score withheld, and still think they can compete with Wilbert?" I remained seated and looked at Wilbert, giving him a knowing smirk. "Wilbert, you took the SAT too. Do you really think I scored nothing?" Chapter 3 Wilbert's smile froze. His eyes darted, but he forced himself to keep his chin up. "If it's not a zero, then what is it? The score isn't even showing. How can you still deny it?" I looked at him like he was an idiot. "Sometimes the scores can be held for additional verification," I said. "That's why all you can see right now is 'Under Review.' "You're pretending you don't even know something this basic. Who do you think you're fooling?" The private room fell silent for a second. Then the relatives all pulled out their phones. Some opened their browsers and started searching. Others murmured among themselves. "It says here that some scores can be temporarily withheld for review." "So that's why it says 'Under Review.'" "Could Jason really have scored that high?" Wilbert slammed his hand on the table. "That's impossible! Jason failed every test in the past. How could he suddenly improve that much? "The system must have glitched!" Karen caught on and immediately started shouting, "Exactly! The system has to be broken. Otherwise, Jason must have cheated!" George pointed a finger in my face, his expression furious. "I'm calling the cops!" I ignored their shouting and grabbed the menu from the table. I flipped over to the back and pulled a ballpoint pen from my pocket. "You think I cheated?" I asked. "Then I'll show you exactly how I got this score." I gripped the pen and quickly wrote out a series of equations. Then I stopped and slapped the menu down in the middle of the table. "That's the final question on this year's SAT Math section." I pointed at what I had written. "This is the solution to the final step. "The first is the standard polar-coordinate method. It's tedious and takes about 40 minutes of calculations. "The second uses spatial-vector projection. It only takes five steps." I looked at Wilbert. "Which one of these two methods can you understand?" Sweat began to bead on his forehead. One of the relatives at the table was a distant uncle who taught advanced math at the local high school. Hector Greene took one look at the page, and his eyes widened. "This is the final question from this year's SAT Math section?" he asked. Karen quickly asked, "Hector, what do you think? Did he just make that all up?" Hector's hands were trembling. "This is absolutely incredible! I've never seen this vector approach in any of our department's solution guides. "You completely bypassed the tedious differentiation. You would need to be at least an elite-level math competitor to come up with a solution like this!" Hector suddenly looked up at me in shock. "Jason, did you really come up with this by yourself?" I kept my expression calm. "I solved this problem in three minutes on the day of the test." Hector was a veteran teacher, and there was no way he would have helped me put on an act. Karen rushed over and snatched the menu from Hector's hands. "Hector, you must have made a mistake! He probably stole the answer and memorized it." Karen pointed at me and screamed hysterically, "Jason, you cheated! I'm calling the cops on you!" George joined in. "Exactly! We'll put you in jail!" Then he grabbed a chair and raised it over his head. "I'll teach you a lesson on your parents' behalf, you little cheat!" Just as he was about to bring the chair down on me, someone kicked the private-room door open with a loud bang. George recoiled in surprise, the chair still raised above his head. A crowd of people rushed into the private room. The group on the left wore red vests, while the people on the right wore blue ID badges. The two groups fought to get through first, shoving their way forward. "Ronald, stop trying to beat me to it!" "We found this address first. You know the rules!" "Bullshit! We parked our car downstairs first!" A middle-aged man wearing glasses suddenly pushed through the crowd. He rushed up to me, grabbed my hand, and shook it vigorously. "Jason, we finally found you!" he said. "I'm Ronald Page, the director of admissions at Harvorton University!"