Clay Landslide, Tsunami Hurricane, Glory Paradise, Starflight Galaxy, Sunny Roadrunner, Peril Cinder, Riptide Whitewash, Deathbringer Moonslayer, and Fatespeaker Moonslayer are starting their second year at Jade Preparatory Academy under the watchfu...
Turtle Hurricane was not in a good mood. For one, it was the first day of school. That was never a cause for joy. But that wasn't why Turtle was in a bad mood. He was mostly in a bad mood because he didn't have any friends in his class. If only he'd tested into C instead of F . . . Then at least he'd have Kinkajou . . . But alas, he was in F. And if he were a grade above, he would have his sister, Deathbringer, Peril, and more.
But Turtle was in ninth grade, so he was alone. There was nothing he could do other than mope, and even someone with no initiative like Turtle knew that moping didn't do anything other than bring spirits down.
Turtle pushed open the door to his first actual class, math. The teacher, a Foglia named Hawthorn Mulberry, smiled at him. That didn't make up for the hostile stares of his classmates, but at least someone was nice. He surveyed the room, looking for any familiar faces. There was one Foglia, one Ua, one Shavar, one Zerua, two Ramils and three Segaras - plus him. No faces were friendly, but Turtle groaned inwardly when he noticed a Ramil, Segara, and Zerua sitting together. Viper, Squid, and Flame. The old bullies from middle school. He sat as far away from them as possible, next to a Ramil covered in tattoos who gave Turtle the creeps and a friendly-looking Foglia.
"Hey," said the Foglia. "I'm Mandrake. You?"
"Turtle," Turtle replied glumly, barely listening. Then he frowned. "Wait, Mandrake. Are you from Cicada City?"
"Yeah," Mandrake said, looking confused. "Why? Do I know you?"
"No. But I think you know my friend. Her name is Sundew."
"Oh, her." Mandrake let out a soft groan, though Turtle noted with confusion that he was blushing a bit. "Yeah, I know her." He didn't go into detail, and Turtle didn't ask, because he was already regretting getting himself into this conversation. He had to talk to someone who wasn't one of his friends. It was so much work.
"Okay, class," the teacher said overly enthusiastically. "Since it's the first day of school and you kids are new, we're going to give you an assessment!"
The Ramil next to Turtle raised his hand. "But didn't we take a test a week ago? When they decided what class we belong in?" he asked without raising his hand.
"Yes, you did indeed, Sirocco," Hawthorn replied, smiling. "But that tested what you're going to learn this year. Now you're going to take a test on what you should have learned last year, if your school was competent."
They actually tested what we'll learn this year? Turtle thought incredulously. What kind of school does that? No wonder he'd done badly on it. Only people like Starflight who knew everything they're going to learn before they learn it would do well on a test like that.
Hawthorn handed out tests and Turtle skimmed it. He was immediately overwhelmed. He recognized most of the questions as something he'd learned, but he didn't remember how to do them.
What is the missing side length? Show your work.
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Turtle stared at the problem. He had absolutely no idea what to do. Normally, he would have simply taken a guess, but the problem had told him to show his work. A guess would never work. Turtle sighed and turned to the next problem. Maybe something would come to him if he distracted himself.
Nothing did. In fact, the rest of the test continued in a similar fashion. Turtle didn't know how to do anything on it.
So he went back to the beginning and stared at the first question.
"Ten minutes," Hawthorn warned after Turtle had been staring at the question for approximately eleven and a half minutes.
Turtle grimaced. He frowned at the problem. The shortest side was three. The next shortest side was four. Turtle took a guess that was probably wrong and said that the longest side was five and ignored the show your work section underneath. Turtle made similar guesses on the rest of the test. He was sure he'd done badly, but he forced himself to return Hawthorn's smile as he handed the teacher back his test.
"I'm sure you all did great," Hawthorn said cheerfully. "You're dismissed!"
Turtle sighed as he gathered up his things. Hawthorn was wrong. He had not done great. In fact, he'd done horribly, and Turtle suspected that he would do equally horribly on every test for the rest of the year.
Jade Preparatory Academy was not all it was cracked up to be.
