chapter 3

"What?" I say with my mouth hanging open. 

"I know right, calculus BC is insane," Geneva says with a sad look on her face. 

We both walk into the classroom but none of the other students pays any attention to us. 

"This is insane," I say to myself but Geneva hears me.

"I know right," she says with a pout. 

Apparently, there are three other boys all huddled up around a desk. They're very focused on whatever it is they're doing that they don't notice Geneva walk up to them. 

"So, have you guys found a solution to this shitty assignment," she says as she plops down in a chair and looks at a textbook. 

I look around the classroom quietly. With a frown on my face, I walk up to the board. I see two questions written on it. "Must be their assignment?" I say to myself. 

"You know we can't afford to do this" one of the boys says. 

"We've had since the holidays to do it but we haven't found a solution," Geneva whines. 

I pick up a marker, face the board and start solving it. I felt like since my day was practically a waste and I was dying to do something, why not help them out?

"Alexa, I'm sure you're bored by..." Geneva pauses.

"What are you doing?" She asks. 

"What does it look like I'm doing?" I reply still facing the board. 

Finally, I step away from the board and turn to face a gaping Geneva. 

"You might want to close your mouth," I said patting her head. 

I reach for the nearest seat and watch all of them gather around the board. I pick up my schedule and look at it again. 

"Calculus BC," I mutter to myself. "This is my next class," I say quietly. 

"She got it. That's exactly what's at the back of the textbook," one of them says. 

"What the hell!!!. We've been trying to solve this for ages and she solves it in less than five minutes," says a boy with round-rimmed glasses a frown evident on his face. 

"Geneva, who is she?" An Asian boy with long tousled hair asks.

"Who are you?" He then turns to face me.

Still looking at the schedule in my hand I reply,

"You're THE ADV 5". 

Just then a short stout middle-aged man wearing a grey suit and tiny round glasses walks into the class. He has white hair all over his head. 

"Settle down everyone, we have quite a lot of work to do today," he says in a loud hoarse voice. Everyone scurries to their seats, Geneva taking the one next to me. 

He picks up a paper and says,

"Alexa Whittier," I get up from my seat and walk to the front of the class. I knew he wanted to introduce me to everyone. 

"Ah, yes. So, Alexa is the new student and she'll be with us for quite a long time," he smiles at me and gestures for me to return to my seat. 

Everyone pretty much gapes at me. In my head, I'm smirking like a fool but on the outside, I'm stone cold like always. It feels so good when you get people's attention like that. 

"Finally, another girl apart from me," Geneva grins as she does a victory dance in her seat. 

"I see you've already solved the assignment," the teacher looks at the board with a frown. 

"And with an entirely different method. Who did this?" He finally asks after staring at it for a long time.

"Alexa did it," Geneva says out loud.

"Impressive" he turns to look at me giving me a curt nod. 

................

The class was finally over. I grabbed my tablet and schedule and start to head out.

"Alexa, we need to talk to you," a light-skinned boy with a full curly afro and clear round glasses says.

I roll my eyes and walk to where they were all standing. 

"What is it?" I say in my usual monotone voice.

"We just wanted to know if you'll like to be a part of our tutoring sessions," he says shifting slightly on his feet.

"To be more exact we're actually tutors," says the Asian boy.

"And we would love an extra hand," the boy with the round-rimmed glasses says.

"Pleeeeeease," Geneva says giving me the puppy dog eyes. 

"Sure, I'll love to help out," I say rolling my eyes. 

"So when do the sessions hold?" I ask no one in particular.

"Here, every day after school for one hour," Geneva says. I nod my head.

"By the way what does ADV 5 mean?" I ask looking at all of them. 

"It means advanced five. The advanced five," the Asian boy says. 

"Advanced five," I say to myself.

"Where's the last person?" I ask after seeing that there are just four of them. 

......

"Hey, you guys I've finally gotten an answer to the assignment," a dark-haired boy enters into the classroom waving a paper in his hand. 

"Don't worry Reuben, Alexa's already done it," Geneva says with a wave of her hand.

"Who's that?" He says rather out of breath standing next to me. 

"Beside you," the Asian boy says pointing at me.

He turns to face me. Staring me down, he looks at me with a rather blank expression and turns back to face the group. 

"Apparently she's the new girl with the golden locker and now the ADV 5's sixth member," says the boy with the round wire-rimmed glasses. 

"Welcome Alexa," Geneva says she steps forward and hugs me. I stand as stiff as a board not returning the hug back. She takes a step back and smiles at me. 

"Welcome to the ADV 5 Alexa" the Asian boy shakes my hand.

"No, no, no. We're no longer the ADV 5 but now we're THE ADV 6" the boy with the wire-rimmed glasses says as he steps forward to shake my hand and gives me a small smile. 

"Welcome again Alexa," the light-skinned boy with the afro steps forward and shakes my hand.

Reuben just stands there squinting at me. 

"I'm so sorry we haven't introduced ourselves properly to you. Since we're going to be together for some time why not do so?" Geneva says with a huge smile on her face. I silently wished I could do that. 

"I'm Geneva Vanderbilt as you already know. Do you guys know I actually found her sleeping up in a tree during recess?" she says and everyone starts to laugh except Reuben.

I just roll my eyes and look at my shoes like they're the most interesting things I've ever seen. 

"This is Kenji Li. He's half Chinese and half Japanese," she says pointing at the Asian boy. Kenji raises a hand up at me in the form of a greeting and smiles. 

"Then there's Levi Vaccaro. He's Italian and he's a computer mad genius,". Levi pushes up his glasses and smiles at me. 

"Over here we have Magner MacQuoid the shy one," she points a finger in his direction. He nervously adjusts his glasses and wipes his sweaty forehead with his palm. He waves at me. 

"And finally, Reuben Ackerman our golden boy," she says with a tease. 

Reuben just stares at me blankly with a slight tick in his jaw. He seemed irritated. 

"Let's get ready for our tutoring session shall we?" He says as he walks to the board and cleans a section of it.

Levi gets up from his seat and walks to the front of the classroom. He starts speaking,

"So Alexa, I know you might be wondering what the aim of this tutoring session is, let me brief you a little bit," he says.

"This session enables us to teach students from the gifted section. Gifted students aren't advanced but are just naturally good at some things if not many things. Each of these students isn't good at a particular course so they come to us for help and each one of them is assigned to one of us. Apparently, these students are the best students in the gifted category and we tutor them for competitions. They're like our substitutes when it comes to that. These competitions are held twice a year and with this strategy, we've been able to remain undefeated," he finally says out of breath. 

"Well, that was a really boring briefing," I say folding my arms across my chest. 

"Anyways, who's going to be my student?" I say with a frown on my face. 

"Um, we pick our students," Magner says. 

"Yup," Geneva says popping the 'p'.

"Here's how we do it," Kenji stands up from his seat. 

"The names of the students are each written down on a piece of paper and rolled. We put the paper in a box and we each get to pick. Whichever paper you pick is the student you get to tutor," he explains. 

"Alright then, shall we begin?" Reuben gets upholding a box. We all gathered around him and each picks a piece of rolled paper. 

One by one we begin to open our paper. I finally open mine and whisper the name that's on it.

"Cameron Durand," I say with a frown on my face.