Chapter 4

A week before the citywide joint exam, Mingde's parents' committee filed a signed challenge out of nowhere.

They claimed Class 5's scores were faked and demanded the whole class come to Mingde to test.

Separate testing room, full surveillance, answer sheets sealed and graded by the city education research institute.

Every teacher at our school was furious.

"This isn't a review. It's a deliberate humiliation!"

Principal James was ready to file a formal protest, but I stopped him.

"Let the kids go. If they don't believe it, then we score high enough that they have no choice but to."

On exam day, Class 5 took the old bus over to Mingde.

Glenda's eyes swept over the students' washed-thin uniforms, and she sneered.

"You can rig a school exam. A citywide one, not so easy. Drop out now and you can at least keep some scrap of face."

The students bristled and held up their clear plastic supply bags, one after another.

"Don't worry. We won't even use our own scratch paper."

"And if we win, we'd appreciate it if you stopped saying Ms. Pruitt cheated."

Three days of testing, dual-camera surveillance the whole time, proctors swapped at random, answer sheets sealed on the spot.

The day the scores posted, Principal James was too nervous to open his eyes.

I pulled up the page.

Senior Class 5, forty-two students, forty over the college-track cutoff, twelve over the top-tier cutoff.

Class average, tenth in the city.

And Mingde's elite class, second in the city just three months ago, had dropped to eleventh.

The office erupted.

West River No. 3, which hadn't produced a single top-tier student in five straight years, had just produced twelve at once.

The complete surveillance footage turned every doubt into a joke.

The state department of education sent people out overnight to look into it, and the media packed the school gates.

Meanwhile, Mingde's parent chat had completely blown up.

"Didn't Mr. Whitney guarantee first in the city?"

"Why did Paddy only get an 82 in math?"

"When Ms. Pruitt left, the elite class was second in the city!"

Patrick Whitney resigned overnight and pinned the blame on the students' shaky foundations.

But the parents finally understood that the so-called foundation was exactly the knowledge gaps I'd once patched, one student at a time, for all forty of them.

The next afternoon, I was working through a problem with the class when the classroom door swung open.

Principal Dickerson, Glenda, and a dozen or so Mingde parents stood outside, faces grim.

"Ms. Pruitt, just come back and your salary goes up tenfold. You'll head all senior-year teaching, and the school will set up an independent research office just for you."

I didn't answer.

"Weren't you the one who said Mingde couldn't offend the parents' committee over me?"

Principal Dickerson's face went red.

"The school misjudged it. The elite class was yours, after all. You can't just watch them keep sliding."

I laughed.

"When they scored first, none of the credit was mine. Now they've fallen out of the top ten, and suddenly they're my students?"

Glenda's face went white.

Three months ago, when she'd forced me to resign, she'd promised me herself.

If the elite class ever fell out of the city's top three, she'd apologize publicly and come ask me back in person.

Now the hallway was full of students and teachers.

And the media had caught wind and rushed over, every camera trained on her.

After a long silence, Glenda finally lowered her head.

"Ms. Pruitt, we were wrong. Please come back to Mingde and take over the elite class again."

Seeing that I wasn't moved, she clenched her fingers and let go of the last shred of her dignity.

"If you won't come back… then let the whole elite class transfer to West River No. 3 and study under you!"