Anthony’s eyes widened with disbelief as Morgan’s words sunk In. “Morgan, seriously? You think Mirabe’s grades suck <b>just </b>because you saw her dozing off during the exam?”
He’d never thought Morgan could be so… stupid.
Morgan stood by his opinion, unfazed. “Come on, you saw the test. It was brutal<b>. </b>Even Vincent, the top student every year, didn’t finish that quickly. And you think a girl who transferred from a small town can outdo Vincent?”
Anthony rubbed his temples, feeling Morgan’s stubbornness was reaching new levels of absurdity.
Mirabe, who had been quietly standing by, never uttering a word in her own defense, suddenly looked up. Her delicate features showed no sign of the distress one might expect. Instead, she said in a matter–of–fact tone. “The preliminary results should be out by now, right?”
At her words, Anthony nced at his watch. It was precisely ten o’clock. Without another word, he sidestepped the group and headed to the desk. Firing up theputer, he quickly logged Into the “BrainSpark Nationals” results portal and navigated to <b>the </b>Parkside High School section.
Out of sixty–eight students from Parkside who took the prelims, only twenty–three passed. And there at the top of the board, to everyone’s shock, was Mirabe’s name.
Anthony stared at the screen, his eyes not even blinking. Morgan and the Vice Principal, growing impatient with his silence, moved closer to theputer. The sight of the rankings and the scores made them freeze.
Morgan, regaining hisposure with a grim look, snatched the mouse from Anthony, muttering, “No way. How could she score higher than Vincent. She wasn’t even trying<b>…</b>”
But no matter how many times Morgan refreshed the page, the name at the top, with a perfect score of 150, remained
Mirabe.
Morgan’s hand shook, and the mouse ttered onto the desk.
The Vice Principal, whose face was as gloomy as Morgan’s, gave Mirabe aplex look. The Vice Principal <b>had </b>assumed she was a favor admitted by the principal and had been certain her grades were subpar. He was eager to see her embarrass the head of the school in thepetition.
Ate, Mirabe’s homeroom teacher, noticed the strange expressions all around and hurried over. the score disyed on theputer<b>, </b>she was dumbstruck.
A perfect score?! She hadn’t misread, had she?
Wasn’t Mirabe supposed to be struggling? This score was anything but struggling.
When she saw
Ate knew the test’s difficulty level was higher than the end–of–semester exams, mixing both humanities and sciences. A perfect score meant this student excelled in both areas. Mirabe was in the humanities <b>ss</b>, but she had aced the science questions too<b>. </b>
Ate was astounded. There had been well–rounded students before, but none quite as exceptional <b>as </b>Mirabe.
“Morgan, got anything else to say now?” Anthony snapped back to reality, his toneced with sarcasm.
Upon hearing Anthony’s words, Morgan suddenly remembered the first day of school when Anthony had initially intended to ce Mirabe into his Prodigy ss<b>. </b>