Even with the rotten yogurt feeling in her stomach growing worse, Emma made it through morning swim practice and math.

If only second period English didn’t have to happen. When class started, a heavy stone bounced and kicked inside her belly. She hadn’t turned in her project to turn-it-in.com. She didn’t bring anything to turn in at all.

Halfway through class, Mr. Attwood passed around a printout of their grades with only their student ID numbers as identification.

When the sheet reached Emma, she traced her fingers over the smooth paper, until they found her number. A big, fat F stared at her. The zero on the My Future project dropped her grade to 48%.

The rotten yogurt feeling gave way to hollowness. Her eyes burned. She blinked, and her back went rigid. The rest of the class passed in a blur.

Somehow, seeing it in print made it real, even though she’d known it was coming.

On the whiteboard, Mr. Attwood’s precise handwriting spelled out this week’s poem. Robert Frost, too familiar.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by.

Emma snorted. Failing English was the one less traveled by for honor’s students, but that didn’t mean throwing away her whole future was the path that she wouldn’t regret later.

The bell rang, and by the time she shuffled zombielike to the end of the row of English classrooms and around through the trailers to Advanced Placement Human Geography break ended. APHuG. The classroom felt like anything but a hug. In a fog, she passed Ms. Range’s World War II posters. The Lincoln-Douglass busts, their closed-mouth smiles mocking her. The Man in the Iron Mask replica mask mournfully stared at her as she made her way to her seat in the center of the front row. Ms. Range loved that historically inaccurate movie.

Overwhelmed, Emma’s eyes scrambled for a place to rest until she found the clock over the cluttered whiteboard. The charcoal gray numbers against the faint background clicked when they changed. 10:32 a.m. The clock was digital, so she never understood the faint click the numbers made when they changed, but click they did.

10:33 a.m.

Odd. So not divisible by two or four. Didn’t end in five or zero, so not divisible by five. The digits added up to seven, so not divisible by three.

Maybe seven?

Seven into ten, would leave three. Thirty-three by seven would be four. Thirty-three less twenty-eight left five—fifty-three. No.

Not eleven. Thirteen?

Maybe eight times thirteen for… umm… eighty plus thirty-two… too much. Also, that would be even. Seven times thirteen, Seventy plus twenty-one made—

“Emma’s crying,” someone said.

“What? The ice queen is actually crying?” her stupid cousin asked.

Emma had told Hannah not to call her that at least a dozen times. But Hannah would tell her robots couldn’t have their feelings hurt. It didn’t seem to matter what Emma said.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“I’m not,” Emma said, playing the numbers game to calm her roiling emotions. Okay, one hundred and three minus ninety-one left twelve. With the three made one hundred and twenty-three—but 10:33 wasn’t divisible by three.

All of a sudden, Ms. Range was there, kneeling in front of her.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Ms. Range’s breath smelled like chocolate. Emma was pretty sure Ms. Range had a stash of M&Ms in her desk.

“I’m fine.” That was Emma’s normal answer. That’s what you said no matter what, right?

“Emma, you’re crying.” Ms. Range pointed to her face.

Emma touched her cheeks. Now that she realized it, the hot, wet streaks started to sting. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment.

Ms. Range’s brown eyes drilled into her.

Emma looked down at the whorls in the fake wood of the desk. “I—” Emma stammered, trying to come up with something to say.

After an awkward moment, Connor said she’d freaked out in English class.

Emma’s cheeks burned hotter.

On the class phone, Ms. Range called Mr. Attwood.

“I’ve got Emma Edgin doing the crying thing. Did something happen in your class?” Ms. Range pitched her voice soft, but the whole class stared at Emma.

She put her head on her desk. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. She’d ruined her life by failing Honors English because she hadn’t done the stupid future project, and now everyone was going to find out what a screw up she was.

She could not be flaming out of high school. With one paper, she’d flushed away her entire future. School was over. College was gone. Her whole life was over and nothing would work itself out. She couldn’t save this. She didn’t even know how to run away and find something else or somewhere else to go.

Ms. Range kept murmuring into the phone. All the while, the whole class’s eyes darted from Ms. Range to Emma and back again with every nod and mm-hmm.

Finally, Ms. Range asked Emma to follow her. Outside, Emma stared up at the blue sky. The warm spring sun burned Emma’s bare shoulders. Thanks to all the plants in bloom, her eyes itched and her nose tickled.

Emma sneezed. Stupid allergies.

“Have you ever been tested for a developmental disorder?” Ms. Range asked. Her brown lips pursed in what might be a gentle frown of concern.

“What?” Emma asked, incredulous. “Like a learning disability?”

No one had ever suggested anything like that before. Emma was near the top of her class. Not number one, she was too disorganized for that, but, still, she always aced the standardized tests and—“How dare you!”

“Hear me out,” Ms. Range said, holding up a finger as if to buy herself some time.

Emma crossed her arms and turned away, then realized that was rude. Even though she didn’t want to listen to Ms. Range, she turned back. Emma wasn’t stupid. Nan always pushed her to do her best, but maybe her best wasn’t good enough for high school.

“There are different kinds of developmental disorders.” Ms. Range took a deep breath and re-plastered a smile on her face. “What happened with your English project? Is it true you didn’t turn in a single part?”

“I just… It was too much. I don’t know what I want to be. I just couldn’t get started.”

“That right there sounds like it an executive function issue.” Ms. Range shoulders dropped. “We’ll schedule a meeting this afternoon with you, me, your grandmother, Mr. Attwood, Mr. Wale, and Ms. Ngo, and we’ll figure this out.” Ms. Range smiled, making shadows appear in the creases between her cheeks and nose.

Emma’s mouth might as well have been stuffed with cotton balls. What would she do with so many people all being in one small office with her?

“Emma, are you listening?”

Emma nodded absently. To be stared at by a roomful of people—authority figures—figuring out if she was broken.

“There’s nothing wrong with having a developmental disorder. If you do, we might be able to work out an alternate schedule for your project, that way you can still pass English and—”

“And what? If I have a learning disability, how can I go to college and do all the things I need to be successful?” Emma’s voice came out loud and shrill. She didn’t sound like herself at all. Ashamed, she looked away.

At the window, half the class had pushed the blinds aside and stared out at them.

“Relax. It won’t be like that. Whatever happens, we want to make sure you get the support you need.” Ms. Range tucked a dark braid behind her ear. “If not, we’ll figure out what went wrong with this project and get things settled, okay? Besides, sweetheart, you’re a freshman. You have time to course correct.”

Emma didn’t know what to say. Yeah, she was quirky, but how could anyone think she had some kind of learning disorder? There wasn’t anything wrong with her. She was just a regular teenager. A regular teenager who procrastinated so much on her English project she never turned it in.

Procrastination was normal, wasn’t it?