Chapter 2

As I walked down the aisle, the other parents quickly moved aside, as though being seen near me might somehow rub off on them.

But I didn't even look at them as I walked straight out of the classroom.

For the past three years, Sylvana had been ignored in this class and always assigned a seat in the very back, right beside the trash can.

In the summer, the trash can would stink. In the winter, cold air would blow straight onto her seat.

I had gone to Isla countless times and asked her to move Sylvana to another seat.

But Isla always brushed me off. "Sylvana doesn't pay attention in class. If she sits in the front, she'll distract the other students. Besides, she's a terrible student anyway. It doesn't matter where she sits."

Later, Isla even refused to grade Sylvana's homework.

She said grading homework for a student with such a low IQ was an insult to her profession.

Yet the girl they called an idiot had brought honor to the entire class.

Eleanor's son, Aaron Sterling, was the top student in the class and one of the school's star members of its technology innovation team.

Last year, he won first place in the National Youth Science and Technology Competition with an obstacle-avoiding robot.

The school received a huge prize for it, and Isla became an award-winning teacher.

But no one at the school knew that the core code of Aaron's award-winning robot had been taken from someone else.

Every day after class, he would sneak to the back of the classroom and pick up the discarded sheets of paper Sylvana had thrown into the trash can.

Aaron could only build a pretty robot by putting together ready-made parts.

But the robot's core movement algorithms and gyroscope balance system all came from Sylvana's discarded notes.

I discovered the truth two weeks ago.

The next day, I took a complete set of blueprints Sylvana had drawn and went to see Isla. "Ms. Carter, the core technology in Aaron's award-winning project belongs to Sylvana."

Isla didn't even look at the blueprints.

She simply threw the entire stack into the trash can under her desk. "Mrs. Montgomery, are you delusional, or do you really believe your daughter belongs here? A kid who can't even score above single digits on her exams thinks she can compare herself to the top student in the grade? What a joke."

She continued mocking me, "Do you even know who Aaron's father is? His family owns two technology companies. Do you really think he needs to steal something from an idiot?"

I held back my anger and pointed at the computer screen. "There are very specific patterns in the underlying code. You can have an expert compare them."

Isla slammed her laptop shut and lowered her voice. "Stop wasting my time. Even if Sylvana really did draw those things, so what? Aaron was the one who turned them into something valuable. I'm warning you. Aaron is about to win the national championship and receive a guaranteed spot at a top college. Don't even think about ruining this for him at such a critical moment. Our school will never side with the parent of a failing student like you."

I looked at Isla's arrogant and selfish face.

Then I walked straight out of her office.

After leaving the school, I called Alexander Foster, a mentor at the National Academy of Sciences.

Alexander was one of the country's leading experts in AI architecture.

"Mr. Foster, I think there may be a child you'd be very interested in."

I took pictures of several of Sylvana's sketches and sent them to him.

Three minutes later, Alexander called me back.