Chapter 4

The moment I stepped off the bus, an announcement came over the loudspeaker.

The students began filing into the exam rooms, with only a few stragglers still running toward the building.

Mr. Rogers took a couple of steps before stopping. "Go get your replacement slip. I'll go check on the others."

I nodded without saying anything.

By the time I came back out with my replacement exam slip, a commotion had broken out at the school entrance.

"What do you mean you forgot? My mom is going to kill me if she finds out I missed the finals!"

"You hid them! How could you forget?"

"There was a whole stack of them. Where could you have hidden them? Keep looking!"

Jasmine stood surrounded by the others, sobbing so hard that she could barely catch her breath.

"It's all Larissa's fault! She kept pressuring me and asking where the slips were. I got so scared that I completely forgot where I put them."

However, no one was buying her excuses anymore.

Elias looked grim as he searched through Jasmine's bag again and again.

At the entrance to the exam venue, Mr. Rogers stood with his phone pressed to his ear, his brow tightly furrowed. "Yes, the honors class... There was a problem with their exam admission slips..."

He hung up and immediately made another call. Halfway through, he hung up again. When he looked up, his eyes were slightly red.

"I'll think of something." His voice had lost all confidence.

A crowd of parents surrounded Jasmine, their voices growing sharper by the second.

"Find them! My child is going to miss the final because of you. I won't let this go!"

"A game? You thought this was a good idea? You're old enough to know better than to pull stunts like this!"

Jasmine stood there with red eyes, staring at the ground.

Someone was already panicking.

"Wait, what if I take my kid to get another slip printed?"

"How? The exam has already started. Even if you get another one, they won't let them in!"

"Then what are we supposed to do? Just accept this?"

"My kid has already repeated an entire year!"

The voices grew more frantic.

Some parents started crying. Others began making phone calls. One even rushed over to the security guard.

"Please, just make an exception! My child is right here, and the teacher is here too. Just let them in and take the exam!"

No one answered.

The security guard turned his face away. The proctor glanced down at his watch. Everyone stared at the entrance as the doors slowly swung shut.

Then came a quiet click. The doors locked.

Jasmine spotted me, and her eyes suddenly lit up.

"Larissa has an early acceptance to one of the top universities in the country. She can talk to the school and ask them to give us another chance to take the finals."

The moment she finished speaking, every eye turned toward me.

Ryan was the first to react. "Yeah! Larissa can talk to the administration and get us a chance to retake the finals!"

"Exactly! The school can't just let the entire honors class lose their chance at college because of this, can they?" someone immediately chimed in.

"Larissa, please help us. For you, it's just one conversation with the school."

Another wave of noise surged toward me.

Only this time, nobody was yelling at me. They were all begging me for help.

[No wonder everyone dotes on our girl. It only took her a few words to dump all the trouble onto that other girl.]

[You're actually praising her for this? She just dumped her own mess on someone else. That's seriously messed up.]

[Still, why does that other girl look so calm? Does she have another trick up her sleeve?]

I ignored the comments scrolling endlessly before my eyes and simply watched the whole ridiculous scene unfold.

How ironic.

Twenty minutes ago, they had been tearing my slip in half. Now, they were looking to my college admission to save them.

Elias walked over too. He looked at me and parted his lips slightly, but in the end, he said nothing. He did not ask me to help. However, he did not stop anyone else from begging me either.

"An early acceptance to one of the top universities in the country?"

Everyone fell silent, waiting for me to say more.

I looked at them calmly. "Sorry, that won't help you. An hour ago, I already accepted my offer from Cromwell University."