Fourteen minutes and counting. Her eyes hurriedly scanned the question again, her leg jiggling. If F. Scott Fitzgerald were alive today, would he have written Gatsby . . .
âYou suck, Thompkins.â
Jayne sat up a little straighter. Lori was a jerk. But she shouldâve been used to the Loris of the world. Sheâd been dealing with them since first grade, when she won her first class spelling bee and someone called her a poophead.
She put Lori out of her mind. Or tried. She looked at the clock. Twelve minutes left.
Câmon, Jayne. You know you donât suck. What is going to suck is you flunking this test because you didnât finish these two essay questions. And then blowing an A average. Harvard wonât like that much. And your mom definitely wonât like that.
She ended up finishing the essay questions right before the bell rang. But she wasnât happy with her answers.
Or the way she had let Lori harass her.
Â
âYouâre sure Iâm still number one?â
âYes, Jayne.â Angie Challen, junior guidance counselor and all-around granola, folded her hands on top of the file in front of her. She had tiny bird hands that went with the messy nest of red hair secured on top of her head with three number-two pencils.
She didnât look too upset with Jayneâs line of questioning. After all, Jayneâd been asking the same question for the last two and a half years.
Miss Challen was also a family friend and knew how much Jayne and her parents wanted Jayne to get into a good school. And by parents she meant Jayneâs mother . And by good school she meant Harvard . She knew Jayneâs dad would be happy to see her go to collegeâany college.
But Gen Thompkins liked to say, âThe rest are crap, Jayne. And Iâm not sending my daughter to a crap school like I had to go to.â
Miss Challen winked at Jayne. âIf you want, you can stand over my shoulder while I add everything together again.â
Jayne pushed herself away from the doorjamb. âThatâs okay, I believe you.â
She smoothed her blue tennis skirt over her thighs. She had the highest GPA for the eleventh quarter in a row. She only had to keep it up for five more quartersâthen sheâd be valedictorian.
And then sheâd be off for four more years of straight Aâs.
Crap .
Whereâd that come from? That . . . resignation? Sure, she had to work for Aâs. She sometimes had to put in forty hours of studying a week.
She liked studying. She liked Aâs. No big deal.
But sometimes itâd be nice to be normal, like . . . going to the mall. And slurping an Orange Julius with Ellie. And not getting an âI told you soâ look from her mom when she got an A-minus a few days later.
She stole a glance at her watch. Twenty-five minutes to get to practice. Between meeting with Janice to talk about the car wash for the French Club next week and now sharing small talk with Miss Challen, she was running late. She had to be on time today. After covering for Ellie yesterday, she knew that if she was late today, Coach could quite possibly make Missy Travers captain.
And Missy Travers didnât deserve captain. She always hit her forehands into the net. Missy getting to put âcaptainâ on her college résumé was totally unacceptable.
âDid you turn in the Senior Student application?â
âYesterday.â The Senior Student was the best academic award in Phoenix. Probably even in Arizona. The winner got to spend all four summers during college living and learning in different places around the world. Like excavating in Egypt and learning about wildlife preservation in Alaska.
Over one thousand people were said to apply for it.
Jayne didnât care where the scholarship took her, as long as it was far away from her insane family.
âSent in my transcripts, my three letters of recommendation, and an essay about my greatest