Stargirl of the Edge

Ch 4 - School

It was pouring rain as Olivia and her mum ran from the front door to the jeep. Sometimes Olivia drove herself to school, but this morning Liz needed the car as she was helping at a fund-raising event. Olivia had already passed her driving test the previous year.

She was in the Sixth Form at Brookgrove High School. It was a state school, and so there were no fees to pay. At age 16 she could have left and gone to college, but had decided to stay on at this school, as it was not far from home. Like many high schools, it had a Sixth Form, where students aged 16 to 18 took their AS and A level courses in preparation for university.

It was to be a typical day for Olivia, with lessons in Chemistry, Maths and Physics. She didn't have an Art class today. As usual, she would sit towards the back of the room, generally on her own. Over the previous months she had been finding her Science lessons increasingly difficult. At the beginning of each lesson she would try to concentrate, but then her attention would wander, and she would spend her time gazing through the large window at the back of the lab towards Alderley Edge.

Whilst she was daydreaming, the teacher would mostly talk to the students at the front.

She still felt humiliated after something that had happened a few weeks before in the Chemistry lesson. She had been staring out of the window when the teacher asked her the name of an element they had been discussing, but she couldn't quite remember it. She tried to pronounce it, but got it wrong, and the students started to laugh.

'Molybdenum,' said one of the students at the front.

That was word that filled her with embarrassment.

After Chemistry it was Maths, which she found easier. As an artist, Geometry appealed to her and in this area she generally scored good grades.

At lunchtime she would often sit on her own. She had few close friends, having arrived at this school at the age of fourteen when the family moved to Alderley Edge.

The only subject she felt confident in was Art. From an early age she had shown remarkable talent in drawing and painting. She enjoyed English in the Lower School though she found it difficult due to her dyslexia.

The school had been able to provide support, and she was quite well able to read and write, though it required some effort and she had a tendency to make spelling mistakes. Perhaps she might have studied English Literature, like her mum was doing, but she had decided instead to take Science A Levels in combination with Art.

In her first year at Sixth Form she had done well, and had achieved good grades in her AS level exams.

Unfortunately when she started the A level courses in the second year, she found them a lot more demanding.

Now, in late January, with less than six months to go before her final examinations, she felt she was in a dilemma. She had applied to study Science at university, but was thinking that maybe she should have chosen Art.

Something had gone wrong. There was more and more complexity, more and more memorisation, more and more homework.

If only there were a quick and easy way to make it all clear, a simple method to increase your brain power. Maybe it was possible to put on a recording and learn while you sleep, or maybe you could just eat or drink something to improve your mental capacity.

In her most recent pictures and drawings, Olivia tried to express her frustrations. She played with scientific symbols and diagrams, transforming them in unusual ways.

Now it was the last lesson of the day, Physics, and she was finding it hard to concentrate and difficult to keep her eyes open. That was because she liked to stay awake at night using the internet or reading books. The teacher's words and lip movements seemed to go out of synch. In her book, the diagrams and formulae seemed to merge together and flash randomly in front of her.

Even when she closed her eyes they were still there, a confusing jumble of shapes and letters and numbers and patterns.

It seemed that there was a mountain to climb, but she felt as if she was just slipping back down a rocky hillside.

When the lesson had ended, she left the lab, made her way along the corridor to Miss Lee's classroom and knocked on the door.