Back in school after the winter break, everyone was all smiles and exhilaration. Kids fervently shared stories about the holidays up until the announcement regarding the end-of-term grades, report cards, class, and year rankings got out.

The head teacher of the humanities class stood at the podium and knocked on the hardwood tabletop twice before speaking. “Everyone, know that these grades aren’t everything,” he said, earning an eyebrow raise from Sae. Was the man actually trying to console the kids?

“That is, there’s still time to get better until the entrance exams. Drive yourselves until the last moment, and if you successfully get to answer a question worth five points, that’s five more points to get you closer to your dreams.”

These fourteen-fifteen-year-olds, however, were far from having an actual dream that would propel them to strive and study without sleep or clutch after points like their lives depended on it. Most of them thought high school was something they had to do. They were in no hurry to lay down the foundations of their futures just yet. What was high school if not for that? They weren’t in talks of universities, so they did not take it to heart at all.

However, their parents were a force that struck fear in their hearts. Hearing that the teachers were done grading the papers meant nothing but trouble. It was only their first week back in school, yet everyone would get their report cards to bring home. The report cards had to be signed by a guardian… Just what kind of threat was this?

Most of class C became unsteady as they wobbled from class to class, their merry mood tossed aside, forgotten with the wind. Teo was really indignant about the matter. “How come we just got back, but the teachers are already bombarding us with grades and class rankings? If my grades are worse than they were on the last exam...” A cold shiver ran through him. “She found out about the amulet.”

“Who?” asked Sae. He was writing in a notebook and did not raise his head.

“Who else? My mum,” Teo said, “She found out that I used her card to pay.”

Sae’s pencil stilled on the paper. He faced Teo. “You actually bought that scam with your mum’s card?”

Teo scooted closer and leaned his forehead to the edge of Sae’s desk. They were sitting across from each other with the desk between them. Teo liked to monopolise others’ seats for his own purposes, but most of the time he was courteous enough to find one that had been deserted by its owner.

He sighed, and his shoulders dipped. “She said if I don’t show her something good she’ll get me into one of those parochial schools, seeing how devoted I am.” His voice came out muffled with his head down. “I had to search up what it meant, and they have all these classes ‘outside of the secular curriculum’. Cold sweat came over me the moment I read that part. Fuck, who wants to go to a place like that?”

“Listen up, kids!” The maths teacher rapped her knuckles on the podium. One of her arms hugged a stack of papers to her chest with the class book and other lesson materials. She held a glass travel mug in her hand, the liquid sloshing with her movements. “Everyone, get back to your seats. We’ll start the lesson now.”

The maths teacher put everything down, then took a sip from her bottle. Since her job was to talk almost all day, she loved warm tea, the loose-leaf kind. She often left the infuser out altogether; the tea leaves swam freely, until she finished the whole bottle.

Teo ambled back to his seat.

“I hope you all had a good break, but it’s time to get back to reality.” The teacher capped the bottle and put it aside, reaching for the test papers. “I don’t intend to talk a lot about the exam or how I know full well this is not a science class major. You’ll all know the level you’re at when seeing the grades. Class rep, hand them out.”

The class president stood and took over the papers. Moving up and down the rows, she handed out everyone’s respective tests. One line off to the right of Sae, Teo clutched his hands together and looked like he was wishing for a miracle.

The class average was about the same as the last time. Many classmates tittered and moaned in anguish upon facing the grades.

“That’s it. I’m never getting to see the sun again,” someone said, close to tears.

“Who said if you don’t know the answer, just choose C every time? Who was it?!”

“Let’s suck it up and get our punishments after getting home.”

Sae glanced at the red mark on the upper corner of the paper, then looked up. The teacher was writing the most challenging questions on the board. The whole class went silent.

“These aren’t even hard questions, so why...” The maths teacher sighed. “Teo, you lost a lot of points here. Can you understand now what you did wrong?”

Teo was still in a daze. “Yes,” he said, dejected. “Everything.”

The others laughed, but truth be told, they weren’t that much better. The top scorer was the class rep, but the teacher said even her points were average considering the science classes’ students. Sae noted that compared to the class president, he got three points less.

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“Who cares?” Minke fumed between classes, “We aren’t members of the science classes. And the teacher said she’s not going to talk about it. Teo, how many points did you score?”

Teo’s face was so pale he almost looked green. “Fifty.”

Minke couldn’t say much after that.

All through the week, lessons started with passing out and discussing the exam papers. It was quite obvious why these students were in the humanities class – their class averages in those subjects were much higher. But even with that, the class only got third in the overall ranking, smack in the middle.

The school wasn’t so cruel as to announce every student’s ranking, but every class’ top three got ranked on a joined list posted in the school’s aula. Sunshine lit up the open space, gathering a pool of light right before the display of the top-ranking list.

The weather had been brilliant despite being winter; the sun shone stubbornly, warming the windowsills. The kids opened the windows, letting the idea of balmy warmth inside. Sae had been back at school for almost a week without a splint or a brace in sight. He had to be careful, so could not participate in gym class for another week. Otherwise, he was good as new.

The usual crew gathered around, and Teo even called the others from one class over.

“What is this about?” Kaikai asked, while pulling a chair and flipping it over. His long legs wrapped around its backside. He rested his forearms on the chair’s back. “Your messages sounded like someone was about to die.”

Teo raised his hand. “Me, that is I. My grades… they did not get better.”

The others tried to pretend that they were immensely surprised, though not everyone wanted to put on an act. Kaikai opened a packet of sweets and put it on the desk in the centre, right before Sae. Everyone took a candy, unwrapping it. Sae, on the other hand, readily took three at a time and pushed the packet aside with a pen. He was about to review his physics test paper, his worst out of every subject, when the bunch had invaded.

“So?” Kaikai asked while sucking on the candy wrapped in his tongue. “It can’t be that bad. Even the class ranking?”

“We didn’t get that yet. But we have to stay after the last lesson before going home. I think we’ll get it then.” Minke propped herself up on the heater next to Teo, putting her hand on his shoulder as an act of solidarity. “Maybe we should make a prayer circle. Push someone just one place back so you can move up in the ranks. Is that what this is about?”

Hearing the word prayer, Teo instinctively groaned. “Don’t talk to me about that. My mum is going to banish me. I don’t want to go to a parochial school!”

This situation… really was a tight one.

“Everything’s that amulet’s fault.” Teo huffed and puffed. “I’m thinking about asking for a refund. Do you think my mother would spare me if I got the money back?”

They thought about it for a while. Which was the bigger offence? Not studying and looking for luck charms in his free time, or buying said luck charms with her mother’s money?

“I don’t think it’s about the money.” Susu said, “It could not have been that expensive.”

Teo defended himself. “It really wasn’t!” He even got a discount as he bought three on the first try.

Then why didn’t you buy it yourself?

Sae tried to concentrate, but it was impossible with an assembly holding a meeting at his front door.

“What if they don’t agree with the complaint, saying you didn’t use the product properly,” Susu wondered, “No one said to sew it into your underpants.”

The bunch wordlessly looked at each other.

“What if...” Minke cut in, fully in a contemplative mode. “What if it really is about usage, but the amulet’s only a prop to enhance your knowledge. Like, it can’t give something that’s missing, but it can strengthen from the groundwork and up.”

Sae’s eyelid twitched. He couldn’t keep listening to this any longer. Putting down the pencil, he said, “That’s even worse. You’re basically saying he’s too stupid to use a thing designed to uplift basic mental abilities.”

Minke, “…..”

Susu, “…..”

Kaikai, “…..”

Teo, who suddenly got a thousand knives stuck in his heart, “…..”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Damn Minke, that’s cold,” Kaikai said, “Remind me to never piss you off in the future.”

“I wasn’t...” Minke didn’t know how to shield herself. She crouched beside Teo, trying to face him as she said, “Teo, I didn’t mean it like that!”

“If I can’t think of something...” Teo hung his head low.

“Get another candy.” Kaikai pushed the packet towards Teo. “Get them all.”

Kaikai knew what it was like to feel the weight of a parent’s unfounded expectations and the wrath of not measuring up. But what Teo’s mother asked for wasn’t that much. “Sae,” Kaikai went on to say, “help him.”

Sae was just minding his business when he was cued for no reason. “Why me?”

“Because you have the power.”

“What power?”

“The power of knowledge,” Susu sing-songed.

“Get him into high school!” said Kaikai.

“Is that even possible?” asked Sae.

Teo choked for a moment. “The hell? Am I not worthy?”

Kaikai mediated. “Say you’ll help him study for the entrance exams.”

Four pairs of eyes stared at Sae, unblinking. Out of them, one was shining unbearably, the early mist of tears sparkling with a mixture of last hope and gratitude for rescue. Sae looked down, his eyelashes casting faint shadows over his cheeks in the sunlight. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t say no. And that’s all that mattered.

“I’ll call you big bro for the rest of my life. You are my brother now!” Teo almost jumped onto Sae. He roughly grabbed at his head, locking it in place to give two loud smooches on his cheeks.

“Get off,” Sae pushed him away and rubbed his cheek with the heel of his hand. “Don’t call me big bro, or I’ll never promise your mother to help you. And don’t think this is a big thing. You get my notes and can ask me about homework. But. I’m not going to write anything for you, no cramming or revising with you.”

Sae was smart. Making these conditions meant he had nothing to do out of the ordinary. Teo was an essentially lazy person. To top it off, his attention span vied a chihuahua’s when it came to studying. The possibility of him actively coming and asking question after question was basically nonexistent. This guided studying would not require Sae plus energy whatsoever.

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Up until now, the classroom had been filled with the everyday din of thirty-something kids put together for survival. Talk it out and be friends, or scream and cry. Amidst the noise, a classmate burst through the back door and yelled with his whole heart: “The top-ranking list is out!” He was obviously very excited, barely able to restrain himself on the way back to the classroom.

The other students didn’t take this seriously at all. “So? Is that something noteworthy?”

“Who cares; not like any of us are on it.”

Except for the top three in the class, you mean...

“No, no. What I mean is…” The boy pushed his glasses up his high nose bridge. His eyes opened wide and round. “Shum Deil is on it. I just saw it.”

Instantaneously, a murmur travelled through the whole class. Shum Deil was on the top ranking list? That bad kid who either cut class, or got sent out of the room? The one who just got transferred but already had too many disciplinary records to count? That Shum Deil?

Kaikai and Susu did not seem surprised at all. Teo moved closer, his misery long forgotten in the face of fresh gossip. “Did he cheat? What place is he in the class?”

“First,” Kaikai replied and blew at a speck on one of his fingernails.

Minke leaned closer as well. “What place are you?”

“Tenth.”

The youngsters looked at each other. Even Sae’s brows knitted. To say that Kaikai, the apple of the heavens with a horde of private teachers and all kinds of prep classes behind him, only came in tenth as opposed to Shum Deil. What kind of situation was this? Was that brat a genius?

Two boys raced down the hallway, passing by the classroom’s windows with hard slaps of their feet echoing on the stone floor.

“What place is he on the list?” someone inside their classroom asked.

The herald boy still could not believe it. “He’s… first.”

“First? In the whole school?”

“Yes.”

“Is this legit?”

The boy adjusted his glasses again – it must have been a nervous tick. “I heard the teachers talking when they put the notice up. They said the tests were checked three times by different teachers. He got almost all of the answers right. A whopping 98% overall accuracy rate.”

No one could believe it. Sure, there were rumours: the only thing that saved Shum Deil’s bum from getting expelled so many times was his outstanding academic record. He was so smart the teachers preferred to look the other way, up until that fateful incident. But who would believe it without concrete evidence?

Ever since Shum Deil transferred over, he lived the life of a troublemaker, not as someone who could ace a paper, and definitely not almost all of them.

“What if there was foul play?” asked the class president. In their class, even though she got the best score in maths, the first in overall ranking still came out to be Sae. If that wasn’t enough, ought she just swallow that the problematic transfer student was the best in the whole school? That was more than nonsensical.

A billowing-voiced classmate retorted, “How could he cheat every single answer?”

Almost all at once, half the class came into action, flowing out into the hallway. Their aim was none other than the top-ranking list.

At this time, Sae turned back to his physics test, reading over the answers. The teacher gave out the homework of copying the questions they messed up and correcting the answers until they solved them right. The formulas were all in the book, and the teacher talked about the problems in length and detail during class. Sae picked back up his pencil, ready to start scribbling.

“You’re not going?” asked Kaikai. Out of their lot, only he remained in the room.

Sae shook his head without looking up. Pencil in hand, he started writing. A second later, Kaikai took out his phone to fiddle with.

Sae didn’t have to see the list to believe or not believe it.

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The news did not only shake the humanities class; all of the graduating year was dumbfounded. The teachers did not know what to say. Should they succumb to their suspicions, saying that there was a leak in their air-tight security system? How could a mere teenager steal all the answers to all subject exams?

But then what else?

For a student to cheat his way through all of his subjects was unheard of. And then, there was the issue of the 98% answer accuracy rate. That was more than shocking. No one saw it coming.

On one hand, the teachers got Shum Deil’s previous academic records jotted down in black and white, clear as day. However, they all regarded this school to be superior to District II. And so, it wasn’t guaranteed that he would bring the same level here.

Once lessons started, they got to know the boy first-hand, and all they saw was someone sleeping in class, not coming to class, not doing one piece of assignment for months. That student played on his phone, chatted with the bad students, and never seemed prepared. The premonition of him being of high intellect was one not a soul had taken seriously.

On the other hand, this was the first big test-taking since Shum Deil had transferred. And a real challenge he successfully passed. And so, everyone who was quizzical about his abilities got thoroughly astonished.

No matter what, the fact firmly remained: Shum Deil was the best scorer of the end-of-term examinations out of all the senior year students in H Junior High. His name stayed on the top of the list, and his contribution kicked science class II’s average up to first place.

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The end of the first semester passed quickly, and it became the second semester again.

“Please don’t burden yourself too much with this little rascal,” said Teo’s mum. The feisty little woman pinched his son’s middle before he could sit down. “You, go to the other side.”

“Little rascal? Me? Lady, do you even know when was the last time I got into a fight? Getting good grades isn’t everything!” Teo rebutted. He was still somewhat traumatised by the past happenings. After the report card got home, Teo lay low for a while so that his mother wouldn’t spank him too much. Miraculously, she did not sell him off to some strict and religious boarding school, but she reminded him of the possibility every other day. She was a lady boss alright; she did the part impeccably.

There were tricks to appease her, though. Teo had nagged Sae daily for a week before Sae agreed to visit Mrs Bede’s store. The plan was to announce his upcoming involvement with the academic career of the family’s youngest.

“Let me look at you. How are you?” Teo’s mum said and held Sae’s upper arms, “Everyone got so scared with what happened. Does it still hurt anywhere?”

“It’s fine now.” A small smile passed Sae’s lips. “It’s been some time.”

After filling her eyes with an obviously healthy and unharmed Sae, the woman let him go.

“Sit, sit.” She ushered him close to the heaters. The small table was round, suited for up to three people. Sae sat across from Teo, who was currently crunching on some walnuts.

He had known Teo’s mum since he’d known Teo, as well as everyone else in this neighbourhood. That was about the time he could remember things. These people had been familiar with each other for a long while now.

Teo’s mother returned with steaming cups, utensils, and small dishes. “Teo said you went in for the exams even though you had to stay home. Did the accident affect your performance at school? What about the exams?”

“It was okay.” Sae accepted the cup and put his hands around its warm surface. “Thank you.”

“Ah, so mannered. See, this is why I like you so much.” The woman arranged the small plates on the tabletop. “What place did you get?”

It was embarrassing to talk about these things out loud. Even his mum didn’t care about those things. Sae hesitated before admitting, “Top Ten.”

“And in the class?”

Sae didn’t say anything but smiled without showing teeth.

Teo helped out, “First.”

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Before Sae could bring up the topic at hand, Mrs Bede insisted that both boys eat a hearty meal. Although the food his mother brought home from the restaurant was of high quality and rather tasty, Sae loved the food Teo’s mother cooked in her little shop all the more. Sae could feel how much Teo’s mum went out of her way to treat him. She brought out plate after plate – even dishes that were not on the menu. When arriving at their table, the soup was still bubbling with a sprinkle of greens floating within golden spheres of oil on top. The braised meat was fragrant and soft. The dishes sizzled, their colours vibrant, vegetables fresh and crunchy. The teenagers ate until they felt full.

“Did you mention something to your mother about our agreement?” Sae asked, leaning closer over the small round table.

“Nothing in particular,” Teo said, “I guess she’s just really happy to see you in one piece. You don’t know what the neighbourhood ladies went through trying to come up with ways to support your mum. Their group chat went off more than ours before a big game.”

Okay, like, there was no pressure now. Sae made eye contact with Teo’s mum, who approached from the kitchen.

Every time a customer came in, a gust of cold wind swept over the little shop’s floor like a panther in pursuit of tasty ankles. Mrs Bede put a plate of fruit in the centre of the round table. On it were apple-pears and orange segments arranged intermittently.

“Eat up,” she said as she took a seat.

Teo leaned back in his chair, patting his stomach with his left hand. “Mum, if we eat more, we’re going down. Don’t do this.”

His mum waved it off and put a fork into Sae’s hand.

Teo cleared his throat. Before continuing, he straightened his spine. “I actually invited Sae today because he agreed to help me with the entrance exams.”

The woman looked at his son sharply, then at Sae. “What do you mean? Then what about his entrance exams? You can’t burden him––”

“Actually,” Sae cut in just in time, “I’m not taking the entrance exams.”

“You’re not?” asked Teo with surprise before his mother could press a word out.

Sae shook his head diplomatically. He skewed a piece of apple-pear on his fork and nibbled on it while the other two got their wits together.

“Then,” Mrs Bede opened her mouth to say, “What are your plans?”

“M High, early admission.”

“That’s in the district,” she said while Teo declared, “I want to go there!”

There was another thing no one said out loud, but they all thought silently, So just what kind of school was M High?

Sae smiled and ate some more fruit. The pears were juicy and fragrant, and the oranges were equally sweet and sour. He wanted to smack his lips after taking a bite. “Their admission process isn’t that difficult. The entrance exam questions are straightforward and fair. I looked it up in case I wouldn’t get in and have to take them,” he continued, “It’s not that hard to get in. Teo only has to work a little harder.”

Sae munched some more after finishing his piece. He didn’t plan to talk any more about it. If Teo’s mother was happy and agreed to not threaten her son anymore, Sae reckoned the topic closed and done.

“Mum, see?” Teo said after a few seconds, “We can do it!”

Excuse me, since when was this a team thing?

Sae kicked Teo under the table, whispering in low tones, “I’m not going to hold your hand every step along the way.”

“I know. I know,” Teo whispered back, “But see, she’s thinking it over.”

The two boys sat looking at the middle-aged woman until she stood up with a sigh. She stepped closer to Sae and put a hand on the back of his head, stroking his hair. “Did he scam you?”

The question came out shockingly sincere.

Sae laughed. He couldn’t help it. “I’m just helping out my friend a little. No need to worry. I won’t overexert myself with it. It’s Teo who wants to get in.”

Mother and son glanced at each other; she did not like the look of that fake, slimy smile. Her son was a trickster; she knew that fact the best.

Mrs Bede threatened, “You better make it, or else you know where you’ll get your diploma.”

Teo swallowed nervously. “I… I swear I’ll get in.” His declaration only lacked a fist to the heart to make it screen worthy.

“Sae, dear,” Teo’s mum next turned to him, her hand resting on his shoulder. “Thank you for taking this load onto your shoulders. I wish you two well.”

“No problem.” Sae glanced at Teo as Teo’s mother got called away. The boy reached out his fist for a bump and smiled from ear to ear.