Chapter 3

Wilbert's smile froze. His eyes darted, but he forced himself to keep his chin up. "If it's not a zero, then what is it? The score isn't even showing. How can you still deny it?"

I looked at him like he was an idiot.

"Sometimes the scores can be held for additional verification," I said. "That's why all you can see right now is 'Under Review.'

"You're pretending you don't even know something this basic. Who do you think you're fooling?"

The private room fell silent for a second. Then the relatives all pulled out their phones.

Some opened their browsers and started searching. Others murmured among themselves.

"It says here that some scores can be temporarily withheld for review."

"So that's why it says 'Under Review.'"

"Could Jason really have scored that high?"

Wilbert slammed his hand on the table. "That's impossible! Jason failed every test in the past. How could he suddenly improve that much?

"The system must have glitched!"

Karen caught on and immediately started shouting, "Exactly! The system has to be broken. Otherwise, Jason must have cheated!"

George pointed a finger in my face, his expression furious. "I'm calling the cops!"

I ignored their shouting and grabbed the menu from the table. I flipped over to the back and pulled a ballpoint pen from my pocket.

"You think I cheated?" I asked. "Then I'll show you exactly how I got this score."

I gripped the pen and quickly wrote out a series of equations. Then I stopped and slapped the menu down in the middle of the table.

"That's the final question on this year's SAT Math section." I pointed at what I had written. "This is the solution to the final step.

"The first is the standard polar-coordinate method. It's tedious and takes about 40 minutes of calculations.

"The second uses spatial-vector projection. It only takes five steps."

I looked at Wilbert. "Which one of these two methods can you understand?"

Sweat began to bead on his forehead.

One of the relatives at the table was a distant uncle who taught advanced math at the local high school. Hector Greene took one look at the page, and his eyes widened.

"This is the final question from this year's SAT Math section?" he asked.

Karen quickly asked, "Hector, what do you think? Did he just make that all up?"

Hector's hands were trembling. "This is absolutely incredible! I've never seen this vector approach in any of our department's solution guides.

"You completely bypassed the tedious differentiation. You would need to be at least an elite-level math competitor to come up with a solution like this!"

Hector suddenly looked up at me in shock. "Jason, did you really come up with this by yourself?"

I kept my expression calm. "I solved this problem in three minutes on the day of the test."

Hector was a veteran teacher, and there was no way he would have helped me put on an act.

Karen rushed over and snatched the menu from Hector's hands. "Hector, you must have made a mistake! He probably stole the answer and memorized it."

Karen pointed at me and screamed hysterically, "Jason, you cheated! I'm calling the cops on you!"

George joined in. "Exactly! We'll put you in jail!"

Then he grabbed a chair and raised it over his head. "I'll teach you a lesson on your parents' behalf, you little cheat!"

Just as he was about to bring the chair down on me, someone kicked the private-room door open with a loud bang.

George recoiled in surprise, the chair still raised above his head.

A crowd of people rushed into the private room.

The group on the left wore red vests, while the people on the right wore blue ID badges.

The two groups fought to get through first, shoving their way forward.

"Ronald, stop trying to beat me to it!"

"We found this address first. You know the rules!"

"Bullshit! We parked our car downstairs first!"

A middle-aged man wearing glasses suddenly pushed through the crowd. He rushed up to me, grabbed my hand, and shook it vigorously.

"Jason, we finally found you!" he said. "I'm Ronald Page, the director of admissions at Harvorton University!"