Chapter 69

The math teacher began his lecture. Less than ten minutes in, the room was filled with yawns. The students looked miserable, as if they weren’t learning but having their souls drained.
“Juniper, are you sleepy?” Qadir asked, hiding his face behind a book, his eyelids feeling heavy.
“I’m okay,” Juniper replied, turning to look at him and blinking wearily. The problems were ridiculously simple, like asking what 1+1 was. It was mind-numbingly boring. But sleeping would be disrespectful to the teacher, so she popped a candy in her mouth to stay awake.
“Alright, class, try to solve this problem,” the math teacher said after explaining an example, pointing to the blackboard. “It’s not very difficult. Just use your heads, and you’ll find the answer.”
“What the hell Qadir muttered, chewing on his pen and letting out a long yawn. “Why are we comparing the speeds of a car and a bicycle?”
It was a word problem about calculating speed. Juniper glanced at it and got the answer in less than a second. So boring.
As the teacher strolled around the room, he happened to see Juniper. She was resting her chin on her left hand, a pen held loosely in her right, and had lazily written a single number, ‘2’, on her scratch paper. For such a complex problem, there was no process, no reasoning, not even any calculations. Her paper was cleaner than her face.
Did she really think she could solve it with mental math? Did she think she was a genius? He was sure she had just gotten lazy and looked up the answer in the back of the book.
At that thought, the math teacher’s face darkened. He despised students like her- not very bright, unwilling to put in the effort, and always trying to be clever. Raise her score to 40? With an attitude like that, she’d be lucky to raise it by 4.
After math tutoring ended, Juniper walked ahead with Qadir and Queenie flanking her like bodyguards. The trio ambled toward the cafeteria.
“Juniper, let’s grab the class president. How about fondue for lunch?” Qadir said, looking completely drained. “I used up way too many brain cells and need to refuel. My treat, order whatever you want.”
“Don’t think I didn’t see you. The teacher lectured for an hour, and you slept for forty minutes,” Queenie teased, not holding back. “The remaining twenty minutes you spent staring into space.”
Qadir’s face flushed. “Come on, genius, give me a break!”
“I think you should really try harder,” Queenie said, pursing her lips. “It would be so boring to just inherit your family’s business after graduation. College is a lot of fun!”
“No worries,” Qadir said, sidling up to Juniper with a grin. “I’ve got Juniper with me.”
Juniper turned her head, giving Qadir a quizzical look. “Who’s with you? I’m going to college.”
“No way, Juniper!” Qadir was stunned. “With our grades? Even if we study like crazy for three months, there’s no way we can improve that quickly.”
Not to mention, Juniper’s grades were far worse than his.
“Want to bet?” Juniper stuffed her hands in her pockets, her expression lazy but her tone dangerously confident. “Queenie, you keep an eye on him. If he dozes off in class again, just hit him with a hammer.”
She had noticed that Qadir was actually quite smart; he just didn’t like to study. If he applied himself even a little, he could definitely get into college.
“If you don’t study, you won’t even be able to count the money from selling your family’s pigs. You’ll run your family’s business into the ground!”
Qadir frowned, chastened and unable to retort.
“You got it,” Queenie said, stifling a laugh at Qadir’s defeated expression. She leaned in and whispered, “Juniper’s not like you. You can’t even imagine how high her IQ is.”