Chapter 1

"Number-one spot?" Ethan Hoppe stared at me doubtfully. "You're thinking about cheating? No!"

He stood up abruptly and raised his hand, wanting to switch places. "I'm not sitting with you."

Our homeroom teacher, Janet Bennett, shot him an impatient glance. "You're in your senior year now. You were transferred from the lower-performing class into mine, which has already increased my workload. The advanced class is different from your previous one. Don't bring your old habits here."

Faint laughter rippled through the classroom.

Ms. Bennett scolded, "What are you laughing at? Watch yourselves. Don't let their bad habits rub off on you."

Ethan's voice dropped. "I didn't…"

Ms. Bennett looked down at Ethan and me. "Everyone's time is valuable, okay?"

Ethan froze, and he slowly retracted his hand.

I slouched over my desk and gave him a lazy glance. "Grades are all that matter here. I've been in this class for a month now, and you've only been here a week, so it's normal that you don't know. If your grades are bad, this is the kind of treatment you get."

I pointed to my seat, which was right next to the trash can, with an entire aisle separating me from the other students.

It didn't feel like I was one of their classmates. It felt like I'd been forcibly shoved into a place where I didn't belong.

Ethan clenched his jaw.

I was just like him back then. The disappointment was just as intense as the excitement I'd felt when I first transferred here.

"No matter what, I wouldn't cheat," Ethan declared.

I wagged a finger at him. "Wait, what do you mean? Who said anything about cheating?"

I laid out our report cards side by side. "Individually, we're both terrible at certain subjects. But put us together? We're basically unbeatable!"

Ethan glanced at the report cards before giving me a surprised look. He seemed intrigued that there could be someone in this world just like him—someone whose strengths and weaknesses were the exact opposite of his.

"Do you have a good memory?"

Ethan paused, unsure what I was getting at.

I pulled out the language test and pointed at the questions. "The teachers write the exam papers themselves. Take our language test, for instance. The reading comprehension questions almost certainly came from recent newspaper articles, and the listening section was definitely based on the radio show Mr. Wagner listens to every day."

I flipped through the exam syllabus. "As for physics and chemistry, I can pretty much guess what topics they'll test us on. Our teachers only have a few tricks up their sleeves. Just go over everything before the exam and memorize it. Your score will go up a lot."

Ethan's eyes lit up. "If that's the case, we don't need to learn from scratch. We just need to figure out each teacher's testing habits, and that should be enough to get us through the exams."

I nodded. "Who can break down and predict these questions better than the two of us?"

A smile appeared on Ethan's face. "Sam Dunn, that's a pretty crazy way to study."

"All they care about is grades, so we'll show them what we can do." I grinned. "So, are you in?"

"I'm in!"