Midyear exams always go well for Amy; she responds well to pressure, she figures, and she's a quick and voluble writer (helpful for the AP US History exam, which has three analytical essay questions, all of which need to be completed in three hours, and Holt's midyear, which is one huge long essay on the ending of Hamlet). So even though she won't see her scores until school resumes after Project Week, Amy's pretty confident that she's managed to maintain her valedictorian-caliber GPA.
Project Week has never been as easy for her as midyears. Exams are simple: straightforward questions and answers, a prescribed period of time, everything laid out for her, with clear expectations and quantitative assessments. Projects are...not as simple. Every year, every student at Schur High chooses something to occupy them for the week; Jake and Rosa are both observing detectives at the local police precinct, Charles is getting in on the ground floor of the restaurant business, Terry is doing independent watercolor painting, and Gina's working on a dance routine with a troupe of people she picked up somewhere.
Amy always has a hard time settling on a project-freshman year, she spent the week fetching coffee down at the superintendent's office in her school district. She got to dress up like a professional every day, but it was ultimately just boring gofer work. Sophomore year, she "broadened her horizons" by going on the school trip to Spain-kinda pointless, as she's fluent in Spanish (though the Cuban dialect she grew up with is significantly different from Castilian).
So this year, junior year, she took the bull by the horns and scored a volunteer internship at a local NPR affiliate.
Which, she's starting to realize two days in, consists mostly of sealing envelopes containing thank-you-notes to contributors. And is incredibly boring.
There's no rule that says she can't use her phone during work, though.
AMY: Envelope 745. Nearing Shining-level insanity.
ROSA: cool, let me know if you snap, i wanna see the murderous rampage
AMY: How's the detective lifestyle?
ROSA: ugh. got paired with some lame old fart who does desk work all day. super jealous of jake.
AMY: Why, what's Jake doing?
ROSA: working with a hot young lady cop who's investigating a murder. he's out at a crime scene right now. basically teenage boy heaven
AMY: Huh. Lucky him. Well, I hope your situation improves.
ROSA: same. ugh, gotta go. old fart's anti-technology. if he catches me texting you i'm toast. he's surprisingly scary for an old fat dude.
AMY: Okay, talk later!
So after that, she kind of has to text Jake, right?
AMY: I hear you're at a crime scene?
JAKE: just got back actually! SO AWESOME
AMY: Sounds cool! Did you catch the murderer yet?
JAKE: nooooooo but detective vi says she thinks it's looking promising
AMY: Is Detective Vi your mentor? I hear she's hot?
JAKE: eh if you're into blondes
JAKE: i bet you'd like detective vi actually
JAKE: not in a gay way
JAKE: just cause she's a smart lady getting stuff done, and you're into that
JAKE: she's always talking about how they need more women on the force
JAKE: and you like that feminist stuff, idk
AMY: I mean, yeah, she sounds pretty great.
JAKE: you shoulda done your project here
JAKE: instead of NPdoRk
JAKE: then we could be hanging out
AMY: Ugh, you would think this NPR job would be more interesting...but no.
JAKE: lotsa envelopes?
AMY: SO MANY ENVELOPES
AMY: Entering envelope-induced coma…
JAKE: hahaha
AMY: Let me know if you catch the guy!
JAKE: or girl
JAKE: gotta be open-minded when it comes to murderers
AMY: Haha, exactly. Good luck!
Jake and Detective Vi catch the murderer, of course. Jake gives a presentation about it the day they get back to school, complete with PowerPoint slides including photos of the victim's remains, the perp's face when they arrested him, and (of course) a selfie of Jake holding up his honorary-detective badge, looking proud.
Amy was not asked to do a presentation. She tries not to be jealous, sitting there in the cafe-gymna-torium, tries to be proud of her friend, tries to remember it's not a competition, not her fault she happened to pick a less exciting project, one that wouldn't read as well in slideshow format.
It doesn't really help, and when Jake returns to his seat after finishing, she doesn't bother to turn around and high-five him. (Charles is congratulating him enough for everyone, she reasons. It's not like Jake's ego needs to get any bigger.)
But, thankfully, after assembly they have English class, and they'll finally be getting their midyear papers back. And that's an area in which she's pretty sure she can beat Jake.
"Welcome back," begins Holt, without cracking a smile to show whether he actually means it. "I trust you all had an enjoyable week away. I spent mine grading your essays, a much less exciting task than playing Encyclopedia Brown." He looks pointedly at an apparently oblivious Jake. "In any event," Holt continues, "for some of you, these grades will be a harsh jolt back to reality. Ms. Linetti? Would you care to help me distribute the exams?"
Gina rolls her eyes and goes over to take the sheaf of papers from Holt. Amy's stabbed with jealousy again, though she knows this time it's even more senseless-Holt probably didn't pick Gina because he likes her the best, or neglect to pick Amy out of any malice. But she can't help imagining with what eagerness she herself would have jumped up to help hand back the papers, unlike Gina's uncaring stroll to the front of the room.
Jake gets his paper back before she does, and he lets out a whoop of triumph upon seeing his grade-though Amy can't make it out even from her seat next to him, she knows Jake well enough to be aware that he doesn't whoop for anything less than a B-plus.
And she's perfectly willing to allow him a B-plus, as long as she gets an A.
But when Gina presents her with her paper, looking at the grade before Amy herself can see it, she shakes her head in mock sorrow and whispers, "Rough luck, girl."
It's a B-minus. Eighty freaking percent! She flips through the pages, looking for Holt's comments, trying to figure out what she's done wrong, but can't find any major flaws-he's marked her word choice "awk" in a few places, sure, but that's it-until she gets to the end of the paper.
"You make a strong and (as usual) well-written argument," Holt has written at the bottom, "but the very strength of your position is here a weakness. You focus on cherry-picking evidence to fit into your points, to the detriment of understanding and interpreting the text as it is. Your writing is admirably neat, but I'd like to see you get messy. You're excluding elements you don't want to see, instead of re-interpreting your argument to fit the evidence."
Her argument is too strong? That's the problem? She lets out a frustrated groan.
"Hey, Amy!" Jake pokes her with his pencil. "Amy, Amy, I got an A-minus! Whaaaaaat!" He lifts his arms and pumps them in a raise-the-roof gesture. "I bet you got an A, huh, smarty-pants?"
"No," says Amy shortly, and lifts her paper to show him her grade.
Jake's eyes go wide. "Aw, man, Amy, I'm sorry! That's gotta be rough for your valedictorian aspirations, huh?"
"Yes."
"Well, hey, if you ever need help, Holt wrote here that my understanding of Ophelia's despair over Hamlet is 'remarkably incisive,' so I'm sure I could give you a few pointers…" He's grinning widely, laughing at her crossed arms, but suddenly his voice drops an octave, gets deeper, mellower, and she's jerked back to dancing with him on the ice last month. "You wanna go for coffee or something after school and talk about it?"
"I'm busy," Amy snaps back at him, and turns away so she won't have to see the hurt look in his eyes.
In the middle of US History, Rosa gets called to Principal Goor's office, which in itself is nothing unusual-she's forever being sent there for losing her temper with guys who try to catcall her and punching them in the face, or destroying school property because she's frustrated with the speed of the internet in the computer lab-but what is strange is that they're barely three hours into the new semester, and Amy's pretty sure even Rosa can't have screwed up already.
Rosa doesn't come back by the end of the class, though, and Amy's starting to get worried when Rosa plops down next to her at lunch, looking unfazed as usual.
Less usual is the pretty blonde girl who takes a seat next to Rosa and smiles nervously at Amy.
"This is Bernice," Rosa says, with no other explanation.
"I'm a transfer student," Bernice explains. "Rosa's my guide for today."
"Really?" Terry asks incredulously. "They made Rosa Diaz the guide for the new girl? Sweetie, I am so sorry. We are not all as scary as she is, I promise."
"Oh, Rosa's been very nice and not at all scary," Bernice assures him.
"That's what I keep trying to tell people! I'm Charles, by the way. Charles Boyle. I see you've chosen the chili today-allow me to recommend that you add a shake or two of cumin? I find the cafeteria's spice allotment lacks flavor." He proffers a container of cumin to Bernice, who waves it away politely.
"So, Bernice," Jake says, "did you just move to New York?"
"No, I've lived here my whole life. Things just weren't working out at my old school, and I wanted to get out as soon as possible."
"Things weren't working out? What, did you flunk your classes? I wouldn't think Schur High would take a failure on, especially at such short notice," says Jake.
"No, I was actually top of my class," Bernice says, and Amy stiffens automatically out of competitive spirit. "It was more...social disconnect."
"What, were people making fun of you? I can't imagine anyone not liking you," says Jake, and Amy turns to look at him, surprised by his flirtatious tone, and realizes that he's looking at Bernice with unhidden admiration.
"I'd rather not talk about it," says Bernice, sounding uncomfortable, and Jake backs off, which is for some reason extremely satisfying to Amy.
Probably, she figures, she's glad to see him get shot down after he's beaten her on the English exam.
That's all it is. She's definitely not jealous of the way that Jake's looking at Bernice. She certainly doesn't feel as though he ought to be reserving that look for her, Amy. She's absolutely not mad that he asked her to get coffee with him not two hours ago, and seems not remotely fazed by her rejection. She's glad that he didn't mean it seriously. She's just annoyed with him for getting a better grade. That's absolutely all.
And the weird feeling in her stomach, like she's going to throw up, is just because the school chili sucks, not because she feels like she threw away something she didn't know she needed.