Nobody Likes Megan McGowen

5. Even Teachers Like Her?

Megan sat down to first period just as the bell rang. Mr. Wilson walked up and down the rows, placing half-sheets of paper face down on each desk as he passed. Megan looked over at the kid next to her – it was that stupid pop quiz she'd taken last week. They were getting it back already? Why now? Her heart sank; she'd been sure she'd have a few more days before she had to acknowledge that grade. And to think she'd actually been kind of looking forward to school for once – why did she have to get this back on only her second day of popularity?

Megan glumly flipped the paper over, hoping she'd at least managed to bluff her way into a D. But when she saw the red mark at the top, she couldn't believe it: A-. How was that even possible? She'd left two answers blank and she knew for a fact that at least one of the answers she did give was wrong. That meant the best she should have been able to get was a 70. Did Mr. Wilson make a mistake?

As soon as class was over, Megan made her way to his desk. She really didn't want to ask him about her quiz, but she had to know if he'd seriously meant to mark it down as an A. She didn't want to be counting on those extra points only to have them disappear at the end of the year. Now all she had to do was hope he didn't realize his mistake and mark her down for coming forward.

"Mr. Wilson?" she asked tentatively. She rested her fingers on the edge of the desk, as if to brace herself.

"Megan, how are you?" Mr. Wilson said, smiling. Megan tried not to be worried – he never smiled.

"I just had a question about my quiz." she told him.

"You did very well." He nodded at her approvingly.

"I just wanted to make sure. I mean, I didn't actually finish it."

"I know. But the answers you did give were very good – very insightful."

"Really?" It was a fill-in-the-blanks paper. How insightful could she have been?

"Some of your answers were a little...unorthodox." he admitted. "But rest assured, you earned your A."

"Thank you." Megan said a little stiffly.

She was still pretty sure something was wrong, but there didn't seem to be much she could do. She'd already tried to ask her teacher, what else was there? If Mr. Wilson was sure it was ok, she might as well go with it. Besides, she really couldn't afford to be wasting time trying to talk herself out of an A – how stupid was that? Instead, she left the class and headed to math.

"You're late, Miss McGowen." Mr. Lowell said when she walked into the room.

"Sorry, I was talking to Mr. Wilson." Megan said somewhat distractedly.

She pointed vaguely over her shoulder, as if somehow that would help. Mr. Lowell didn't say anything, which she guessed was good.

She sat down and got out her book, checking the kid next to her for the page number.

"Any questions on the homework?" Mr. Lowell asked. A hand shot up in the back.

"Number twenty-three?" someone asked. Mr. Lowell wrote it on the board.

"Fifteen." someone else said.

"Twenty-six."

There were six questions in total. Mr. Lowell wrote down each problem on the whiteboard. Then, he turned and picked students to go up and solve them. Of course, Megan was chosen to go up there.

She looked at her problem for a minute: 8z + 4x - 6 = 18. Solve for x. She was pretty sure she knew how to do that. Add six to both sides, move the z part to the other side, and divide. Simple, right?