Wait for it
"And the highest grade on the chemistry midterm goes to.."
Wait for it
"Selena Smith!"
All the other adolescents in the room groaned in response as I happily walked up to Mrs. Harper, retrieving my test. However, as I returned to my seat I noticed something very striking about my score..
"Mrs. Harper this has to be a mistake!" I screeched. The older women returned her gaze to me, while I heard several students already begin to facepalm.
"On my test it said that I scored 98%, which means I missed one question, specifically question 12."
"Yes, but I can assure Ms. Smith we all make-"
"The question is true or false and asks whether it is true that according to the Le Chatelier's principle changing the concentration of a chemical will shift the equilibrium in a reaction"
"Well that is correct-"
"So it is correct?" 100 here I come "because I put true and you clearly marked that wrong"
Many students had switched from the facepalming to banging their heads on their desks as the situation progressed, a common occurrence.
"Oh my! I am quite sorry Ms. Smith! Class, please let us congratulate Selena on her perfect score on the midterm!"
Many students halfheartedly clapped as their foreheads began to turn bright red and swell, a follow-up common occurrence. Taking the moment to bask in my perfect score I was startled when the bell rang, signaling the start of winter break.
I quietly followed behind the stampede of students who raced to the door jumping around and yelling something about freedom. I sighed. Sometimes I feared for the future of humanity when I had to attend school with hooligans like that. Honestly, couldn't they realize that school existed for their benefit? Jeeze
As I walked through the halls of Burgess High I suddenly felt a pair of eyes on me. I noticed a boy in my class anxiously looking at me from behind the door of his locker. What was his name? Denny, no.. um Darcy..nope.. OH it was Derek! Anyway, his quick glances began to unnerve me so I walked up to Derek, stopping in front of his locker while immediately taking note that he was sweating profusely. Hyperhidrosis, he should definitely see a dermatologist.
"So is there any logical explanation for why you've been looking at me for the past couple of minutes? I do have places to go you know."
Derek looked up at me with his hazel eyes before quickly averting his gaze to the floor, finding it suddenly interesting. I raised an eyebrow. "Well?"
"Oh right, so you see.." He continued stealing a quick glance at my impatient grey eyes. "You..me..wanna maybe.. do you wanna maybe go to the Christmas-" Suddenly Derek stopped when he noticed I was gone.
I was already at the door by the time he probably finished his sentence. "Sheesh, can't people these days just say what they need to? I began to walk home, being careful to not slip on any ice. With winter break now in full swing, I had planned a wonderful afternoon of catching up on the latest TED Talks.
I wrapped by coat around me tightly as an unbelievably cold wind blew past me, upsetting my strawberry blonde waves. I mean seriously, ever since around last Easter Burgess has been much colder than I remember it being in all my seventeen years of living here.
Suddenly, as If things couldn't get any worse at the moment, I heard a kid shout my name.
"Selena! Watch out!"
Ah. Would you look at that? That snowball has a wonderful trajectory, isn't kinetic energy and gravity such wonderful components of science? Wait… why is that snowball coming this way? Damnit.
I was instantly met with a face full of snow as I flew backwards on the icy pavement and landed right on my ass. This day just loved ruining my perfect score.
"Selena are you okay?!" I heard that kid I sometimes babysit yell as he ran towards my crumpled form. "No" I deadpanned. "I promise it wasn't my fault! It was Jack who threw it!"
I sat up immediately looking around for this "Jack" character. "Oh really? Please direct me towards this kid so I can explain just how good that snowball tasted."
"Oh, but Jack really isn't a kid..he's 300 years old actually, and I doubt you could see him." I looked at him and noticed that he looked slightly disappointed by the last part of his statement. Sheesh, Jamie's mom really should come clean about how imaginary friends aren't real. It can't possibly be good for the kid's mentality.
"Fine, fine, I'll let Jack get away with this one, but if he tries anything again I'll let him test the nuclear bomb I've been working on."
"Oh cool! Can I try?" Jamie said as he looked up at me with expectant eyes. "What? NO! Bombs are dangerous! Just.. never accept a bomb from anyone-" I stopped, thinking of something else to say. "-and stay in school!" With that I got up and walked away, leaving behind a stunned Jamie with his equally confused group of friends.
"I must say you handled that fantastically"
I stopped.
Who was that?
I slowly turned around and was met with the scariest thing I had every seen in my entire life. Some teen with snow-white hair, wearing a blue hoodie, no shoes and carrying a stick was FLOATING IN THE AIR. Which equals NO GRAVITY. At that moment I knew what was going on.
"Holy Shit!" I yelled. The only logical explanation for there being a lack of gravity meant that earth was nearing a black hole! The gravity of earth was no match for a black hole so I quickly grabbed onto the nearest tree bracing myself. I shut my eyes and prayed that the tree would offer me a couple extra minutes to imagine myself winning the nobel peace prize before being sucked into a black hole.
"I'm sorry world! I'm sorry I couldn't reach my full potential before becoming an adult! At least my life ends this way! At least I'll go out with a bang being sucked into the sky! Oh if Newton could see this!" I continued my last words before I realized something. Nothing was happening. Nothing was happening? NOTHING WAS HAPPENING!
I immediately let go of the tree, immediately toppling over into the snow. On my ass for the second time this day, I opened my eyes hoping to find the world still intact. Unfortunately for me, I was instead greeted with the face of the weird boy from before, hovering above me.
"Well I've never gotten that reaction out of anyone before, especially new believers!" He said smiling at me as if he has won the lottery. Now let me just say this, I am usually calm, collected, and rational when I go about my daily life, but what I was seeing right now was so damn confusing and unexplainable that everything I was just flew out the window like my microwave from nine years ago.
"AHHHHHH!" I screamed before getting up and trying to run away. "Hey! Wait! Come back I want to talk to you!" I heard him yell.
Trying to sprint through the thick snow turned out to be a bad idea because before long my foot got caught on something and I went rolling down a hill before face planting into a sea of white.
I pushed myself up in time to see him flying towards me with that giant stick. "Oh crap!" I yelled as I began to look around for escape. Just as he was about to reach me I pulled myself out of the snow before stumbling a few paces away.
"Look I won't hurt you! I just want to talk!" the boy said as he inched towards me.
Come on come on, think Selena! You're an honors student, you're smart, like to think your pretty, so think! My inner voiced screamed. Got it!
"Okay you want to talk, then how about you put that dangerous looking stick up against that tree?"
The boy then looked at me, then at his stick, and me again with stunned and slightly offended blue eyes.
"First of all it's a staff, and secon-"
"PUT. THE. STICK. AGAINST. THE. TREE."
"Alright! Alright!" I carefully watched him as he went to place the stick down. When he backed away from it he put his hands up to demonstrate it was gone before turning back to me.
"Now if you could-"
He didn't have time to finish the question before I bolted for the stick and ran away. Haha! Whatcha gonna do without your stick weapon pale boy! Okay okay, not the most well thought out plan, but I was covering more distance this time and before long I was back on the sidewalk.
I knew it wouldn't be long for the anomaly to catch up so I quickly looked for a faster means of escape. Seeing a blue car slowly making it's way around the corning, I ran up to it. When it stopped at the stop sign I frantically tapped on the window.
As the car rolled down its window I quickly explained, "Please help me! Some weird boy is chasing me and.. Derek?!" Derek sat in the drivers seat staring at me.
"Well are you gonna let me in or what!" Without a word he unlocked the doors and I hopped in, throwing the stick on the back seat.
When I turned back around to continue explaining to Derek what was happening I saw the strange boy fly around the corner.
"Step on it!" I screamed. "What!" he yelled back. Seeing the white haired boy getting closer I shook his arm yelling "Just go!"
As we spend through the town putting some distance between the strange boy and my heart rate finally began to settle. When Derek pulled into my driveway I finally released the breathe I had been holding for the duration of the drive.
"Well, um, thanks again for driving me home" I stated trying to muster a convincing smile while nervously tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
"Oh, well anytime I suppose?" As I moved to leave the passenger seat I was interrupted by something hard being shoved into my hand.
"Don't want to forget your.. uh.. stick, would we?" I glanced down at the stick in my palm before shrugging and continuing to make my way out of the car.
"Oh and Selena, we were talking earlier today and I was..uh wondering if-" Once again Derek was cut off as I made my way out of the car and up to my door. Sheesh, that boy really needs to just come out and say what's on his mind!
When I entered the confines of my house I threw the damned stick on my couch before quickly locking all the doors and windows. When I was finished I collapsed on the couch, wondering what my dad would think when he finally got home.
Feeling the texture of the strange weapon in my palm I began to wonder why science was failing me now.