When the students lifted their heads, their eyes became transfixed, and what they saw immediately got
them engaged in an enthusiastic discussion.
âItâs the goddess of our school! Arielle came in first!â
âOh my gosh, itâs really her! So pretty and talented, sheâs almost too blessed!â
âNothing to do with that. She must have
also worked very hard! If I had her looks, Iâd forget about the university admissions and join the entertai
nment industry for the big money instead.â
âHang on!â Someone who had noticed the grades pointed up to the scoring
on the bulletin board. âDid all of you not see that? Full marks! She scored full marks for four of the pape
rs!â
âWhat?â
The others who previously only had their sights on the names in the top five and neglected to check the
grades appended and turned their attention there immediately upon the mention by that one student.
Arielle had maximum points for all the other subjects under her name, save Chanaean, for which she s
cored an astonishing zero.
âFrigging hell!â the observing student blurted out an expletive. âManaging to finish ahead despite scorin
g zero for one subject is just ridiculous. But come to think of it, could her Chanaean be so bad
as to score zero?
That seems a little farâfetched, to say the least.â
âOh, I have a friend from the preparatory class who told
me that Arielle was absent the first morning of the exams. As such, it
wasnât a question of her linguistic skills. She simply did not show up to sit for the paper.â
âI see⦠She has to be a genius to come in thirty points ahead of the secondâplaced Wendy even while
skipping one of the papers.â
âDamn! That Wendy whoâs been besmirching my goddess on live stream is in second place?â
âHah, she must have thought that the first place must be hers for the taking in our goddessâ
absence for the Chanaean paper. What a bummer.â
The front of the bulletin board became crowded with the students engaged in discussion before
long, and the names of Arielle and Wendy instantly became the talk of the town.
Students from the preparatory class were still in the midst of their lessons when the school bell rang
for the
end of the period.
The late start amounted to a near-total loss of an entire period. Donovan thus
opted to cancel recess outright over concerns of it delaying the overall progress of his lesson.
âWeâll not be taking a break for the rest of this morning. Anyone who needs to use the
restroom, just raise your
hand and go on ahead, for weâll be resuming the remainder of the class without pause.â
The students quietly groaned inside, though none of them dared to speak up as they understood
Donovanâs temperament. Hence, they silently endured until noonâs bell struck before they rushed
over to check the rankings over at the bulletin board.
It was a long wait for midday, and many students from the other disciplines all rushed down to
the charity flea market over at the field. Their parents, too, variously made their way into the school
grounds one after another.
Cecilia was ahead of the rest of the pack, dragging the reluctant Susanne along as soon as she was
done with her own bakes.
The timing of their arrival coincided with the sounding of the bell at noon.
âWendy should be done with her lessons. Iâll text her, but letâs go check on
the results first,â Cecilia said, brimming with confidence.
Susanne smiled stiffly as she was
genuinely concerned that Arielleâs scores would be abysmal. âYou go on ahead. I need to
use the ladies as I think I might have had something bad for breakfast.â
Cecilia had a good guess as to what was up with
Susanne. She was certain that Susanneâs brat from the countryside must have fared so badly that the
mother
feared being thoroughly embarrassed by her own Wendy and hence wanted to avoid getting shown up!
It occurred to Cecilia that Susanne had not considered that even if her daughter
was not from the country, that little vixen who only knew
how to seduce men would not be a match for her own daughter Wendyâs intrinsic smarts.
With that in mind, Cecilia replied
genially, âDonât worry about it. Iâll accompany you to the restroom first. Itâs not like a few minutes here an