Unexpected Consequences

4. Lex

ALTHOUGH THE COMPETITION at Canary High was meant to be friendly, the teams still gave each other the stink eye. Canary High's team was especially insufferable. They clearly thought that because their school hosted a majority of the competitions, they were the best. Their supporters always made up most of the audience, too, and that only boosted their ego.

I barely said a word during the entire thing and instead made a very, very long mental list of all the subjects I needed to study. I only knew the answers to twenty-seven out of the fifty questions, and that was okay for a friendly competition but not for a real one. I'd been around this team for so long, but only now did I understand their competitive streak; I was turning into Ben.

The judges didn't dare declare winners, since this was friendly, but they were willing to declare the scores after the last round. We were ten points behind Canary, who was ten points behind Hargrave, who had the most points. Hargrave looked happy, Canary looked miffed, and we were just amused that Canary was upset.

On the bus ride back to our school, I was sitting by a window, slumped down with my knees against the seat in front of me. "World War II," I said. "European theater."

Ben, who was sitting next to me, wrote it on a Post-It. "Anything else?"

I twisted my lips in thought. "FDR and the New Deal. That's all for history."

Ben wrote that down and capped his pen, holding up the Post-It full of random topics from all different subjects. The writing was cramped and barely readable at the bottom. "This is a long list. You're sure you want to study it all?"

I nodded.

"You're turning into me."

I scrunched up my nose. "Ew. I'm turning into an Irrelevant Goose."

"I'm serious, Peter." He lowered his voice. "Between everything you're doing, are you sure you want to be studying extra? The practices we have together should be good enough."

"If they are, then I'll drop it," I replied, rubbing my eyes. "But just because I'm running around in a costume doesn't mean I don't have other responsibilities to stick to. I joined this team, and I want to be good for it."

"Running around in a costume?" He shook his head. "That's a crude way to put it, but okay. It's up to you. If you need help, let me know."

"Of course."

☆

When Ben told me that I was putting too much on my plate, I thought he'd been exaggerating. Then I got home, went on my one-hour day patrol, went back home, and realized I had only two hours to do my homework before I had to go on night-patrol. After two months of summer freedom, I now sadly remembered the massive amount of time that school took out of my day.

The patrols were choices, made only by me. I was responsible for making my schedule, and I was stubborn when it came to altering it. Making changes as necessary and doing things on the fly would mean that I had no idea what I was doing, and how could I consider myself responsible if I couldn't even manage my time properly? I was going to stick to the schedule that I had set, even if it meant doing homework after the night patrol and going to school looking like a zombie.

I stretched a little and then stared at my computer screen, about to start my English essay on our summer reading book, Brave New World. My fingers hovered over the keys. They say the first words are the hardest to write. I knew that was true because it took me half an hour to write the first sentence.