Alex sat in Physics, his hands shaking like crazy under the desk.
Mrs. Kite walked from desk to desk, passing out the exams from yesterday.
He repeated his mantras the Game had taught him to calm himself down, but it wasn’t working. His Aziteks were on his nose, and he played with the day/night cycles outside to distract himself, spinning the sun and the moon and stars in rapid succession.
Mrs. Kite passed out Jenny Prentiss’s test. A+, of course. That smug smirk on Jenny’s face. An A? For me?
He would never run out of Goldz again. He had pledged that, to himself, to the Game.
Alex imagined his father waiting at home tonight. Please, please, please, he whispered, I can’t take it. It wasn’t the whupping. It was the look in his dad’s eyes.
His head was down and so he only sensed Mrs. Kite before him, the flap of wind from her wallpaper dress and her dime-store perfume, thick and flowery. He opened his eyes and she was right there, trying to hand him his paper. She glanced at it before handing it to him, as if she couldn’t quite remember what he got. Her expression was unreadable.
He reached out a shaking hand and took the paper. He looked at the grade in red ink and saw the 61.
“Better,” Mrs. Kite said honestly.
And it was better, a little. It beat the 26 from last time. It beat the 41 from the time before. But it was still a fail. And he knew the rules. His dad had been clear. Don’t bring home another fail. There were no special dispensations. No bending the rules. Four lousy points from No Pain. It might as well have been infinity.
Wild fear ran through him, and then a numb calm. He slid the paper into his bag. To everyone else in the room, he looked okay. Mrs. Kite was already passing out the next paper to someone else.