Chapter 1: Todd

"Can anyone explain the ultraviolet catastrophe?"

I stare at my precise notes. Yes, I can. I could. I don't really want to. I've already got a rep for being a teacher's pet- which is kind of well-deserved. I didn't realize how often I answered the teacher correctly until high school, and by then it was too late. You'd think keeping your head down for two years wouldn't be too hard, and that it would be enough to make everyone forget, and stop whispering 'teacher's pet' whenever you passed by them.

Newsflash: it's not.

At this point, it's old news. A known fact. An indisputable reality. I am a teacher's pet. The teacher's pet, even. Every teacher's pet.

I've tried not talking in class. I've tried waiting until the very last day to hand in my homework, even when I get it all finished in class the very day it gets assigned. I've even tried dumbing down my presentations. Nothing works- well, nothing I'm willing to do. I am not willing to completely forgo studying, skip class, miss assignment deadlines, fail exams, or go out and party to prove I'm not what everyone thinks I am.

So, I'm stuck being what everyone thinks I am.

"No one can tell me what the ultraviolet catastrophe is?"

I keep my gaze trained on the notebook in front of me.

"Well, since you should all have read about it in the textbook for last night's homework, I should be able to choose anyone in this classroom."

Here we go. She'll ask two students who don't know because they never do homework or pay attention in class, then she'll call on me as her last resort.

"Jackson?"

I look up to see him shrug.

"Isabelle?"

Silence.

Ms. Jenson sighs. "Todd?"

"The ultraviolet catastrophe, also known as the Rayleigh-Jeans catastrophe, was the significant discrepancy between a prediction based on classical physics and experimental data. The theory was characterized by the idea that a blackbody will emit infinite ultraviolet radiation-"

The door to the classroom bangs open. Automatically, I look over. Ms. Jenson does, too, sighing in irritation. She watches as the student lazily lopes across the room, then heavily drops into a seat at the back of the class. I flinch prematurely, hearing the routine THUNK of a heavy backpack hitting the ground a moment later. Ms. Jenson's glare stays fixed in that direction, the silence of the classroom growing tense. I avert my eyes, staring at my notes again. I know I'm not the subject of her cross look, but I also know without looking that he probably hasn't even noticed her yet.

The one fortunate thing about all this, is that Ms. Jenson doesn't ask me to finish my explanation, and the class has forgotten all about me, in the wake of the dramatic production put on by this particular late student.

Finally, the bell rings, signalling the end of the school day. I quickly hurry out of the classroom, thanking Ms. Jenson and entering the instantly crowded hallways. I let the streams of people push me towards my locker, then hop out of the way and quickly open my locker, shielding the lock as I enter the combination (unnecessarily; no one bothers looking) and begin transferring textbooks and other miscellaneous items in and out of my locker.

Once I've gotten everything together, I exit out the front doors of the school and begin walking home. I don't mind walking home from school: it's usually pretty peaceful once I get away from the school, and I don't live too far. The only real downside is-

vrrRRRRRRRROOOOOOM.

I pick up my pace a little.

Lots of people think teenagers are all crazy. It's hard to deny, sometimes. And I'm a teenager, myself.

It's also a common belief that millionaires are eccentric. From my personal experience, that statement is 100% accurate.

The flashy, shiny red, loud sports car appears in my peripheral vision. Then (with a loud, unnecessary noise), it jumps forwards, then abruptly slams to a stop, and I catch a glimpse of the person who so efficiently embodies both the crazy-teenager and eccentric-millionaire stereotypes.

He does this every day. As soon as school's out, he jumps into his sports car of the week and drives around in front of the school, terrorizing everyone and being a general nuisance. He also just so happens to be the same student (if he can even be considered that) who makes a point out of arriving to class with about twenty-five minutes left in the school day on a daily basis. The teachers can't do anything to him, either. When he first started here, they tried to punish him. They'd send him to detention, but he wouldn't show up. They'd suspend him, and he wouldn't care. Threatening to call his parents didn't seem to have much of an effect on him, and when one of the teachers finally tried, his parents simply weren't concerned. The popular belief is that they think he's an angel no matter what.

No one really knows what the truth is, with this guy. He does such outlandish things that the truth either seems too boring or easy to believe, or you can't tell it apart from all of the other ridiculous theories. The only thing anyone really knows for sure, is that he's rich. Really, really rich. Rich enough to bring a different sports car to school every second week. How he attained that wealth? No one knows for certain. He's in a few movies, but he seemed to already be pretty rich before that. He seems to be really smart, but he could also be hiring private tutors or something. He's on the stock market (he literally was, at one point- he started selling shares of himself before some responsible adult made him stop) but could have someone doing all that for him.

So the only truly known fact is that he's rich (though, there are conspiracy theories that he isn't actually rich at all and he's a counterfeiter or something, but nobody really believes in those). A lot of the kids who hang around him say that they know other things, but all their "confirmed" facts contradict each other. Nobody even knows his name, for crying out loud. He changes it according to his mood. Everyone just calls him 'The Millionaire' or 'The Eccentric Guy' or something along those lines. After all, we only have one (which is more than enough, really), so everyone knows who you're talking about.

I'm nearly home by now, and I can still hear the occasional engine rev. It's ridiculous, but not new. Every once in a while, he'll get a car that's really loud on purpose, or he'll get his personal mechanic (everyone just assumes he has one, at this point) to remove some nonessential car parts to make it louder.

I open the front door of my house and step inside, carefully closing it behind me. Dropping my backpack on the stairs, I quietly wander into the kitchen. As usual, the house is empty. And it most likely will be until about 9:00pm. My parents both work pretty late.

I get a head start on dinner, then go up to my room to do my homework. Physics is a double sided worksheet due tomorrow, so that gets priority. Then, I'll do my calculus homework, and then I'll work on my biology project until my parents get home.

This is probably another reason why I'm considered a teacher's pet. Because I follow not only the teachers' rules, but my parents' rules to a tee. I know they're not here, and I could probably get away with doing whatever I wanted since they're both exhausted when they do get home, but I don't. They say to do my homework when they're gone, and study if I finish everything, so that's exactly what I do. I don't even know what else I would do. It's not like I have a whole ton of friends to go out and party with, and I'm underage so I would never even think about drinking or smoking. Even just thinking about how I would never do either right now is getting me jittery and anxious.

I focus on my physics homework, finding it easy (I don't know why everyone hates physics so much. You don't even have to think, most of the time. You just use the formulas and substitute values in to get the answers). Then, calculus: not too much for that either. I glance at the clock, finding I have another couple hours to work on my project for biology.

Biology isn't hard for me. I enjoy it, actually, and despite most subjects not being hugely challenging due to my religious studying, I can't say I genuinely like too many other classes. Biology is fun, though. You learn all the systems, how they work, and then look at what happens if something goes wrong. And so often, there's so much that can go wrong.

HELLO! WELCOME TO MY LATEST BOOK AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR READING PAST THE INTRODUCTION! What are your thoughts on the first chapter? Todd? The teenage millionaire? Let me know in the comments!

If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider giving it a vote! Thank you so much for reading!!!