กรุ่นรักไอริส

I'd barely gotten to "C-D-E-F-G" when I caught my sister, Joey Crawford, freezing up.

She usually copied my answers without missing a beat, but this time her pen hovered in midair. She kept glancing back at me, her face turning red.

I couldn't help it. A laugh slipped out.

She panicked and stomped her foot under the desk, hard enough that the thud echoed through the room.

"Quiet, please. Eyes on your own paper." The proctor looked up and fixed her with a stern look.

Joey's face went scarlet. She shot me a glare that could have killed.

If those live comments said I was her stepping stone, then fine. I'd pave her a path straight into a ditch.

I stopped humming and turned my attention back to the exam. It was time to set the trap.

The real answer to question two was B, so I deliberately thought, "I got this one wrong on the last practice exam. It's definitely C. I can't make the same mistake again."

Question five worked out to D, so I put on a whole internal performance. "Wait, I think I messed up the calculation. A actually follows a cleaner logic. Yeah, A. Definitely A."

I didn't let up on the free-response sections either. I took every correct step and key formula and swapped them for the wrong approach, then ran through each one over and over in my head to make sure every thought was loud and convincing enough for her to pick up.

From the corner of my eye, I could see Joey's back. She glanced my way every few seconds, then dropped her head and scribbled furiously, never once touching her scratch paper.

The proctor passed by her desk and glanced at her nearly full answer sheet. A look of approval crossed his face. When he reached mine, he saw the page almost entirely blank, sighed quietly, and walked away shaking his head.

I knew what he was thinking.

From sophomore year through the first half of junior year, I'd ranked first in every exam. Every teacher considered me a lock for the Ivies. Then Joey transferred into our class, and my ranking plummeted.

Worse, I'd been branded a cheater. Everyone assumed I'd cracked under pressure and gone off the rails. At the last parent-teacher night, Dad brought Joey a bouquet of sunflowers. He didn't even look at me.

I kept my head down and kept feeding her wrong answers, nice and steady.

An hour into the exam, a sharp click came from the seat ahead to my left. Joey snapped her pen cap shut, shook out her wrist, and stood up.

She was the first person in the entire room to finish. Every head turned as she carried her exam to the front.

She took the long way around on purpose, passing right by my desk. She glanced down at my mostly blank answer sheet, and the smirk on her face stretched wide.

The proctor took her exam and flipped through it with a smile. "Done already? That's some confidence. I'm sure you did great."

Joey gave him a sweet little smile, then practically bounced out of the room.