On the other side, the mathematics teacher caught hold of Carmen when she entered the class. “Carmen, not only are you late, but you didn’t even hand in your assignment. I want you to stand outside now!”
She looked at her mathematics teacher with a confused expression. I admit that I’m late, but when did I not submit my assignment? I remember that I already handed it in.
Usually, the carefree Carmen would render the mathematics teacher speechless by refuting him. Since he was furious and she did not want to argue with him, she decided to stand outside as instructed.
As she calmly stood outside, she was met with many gloating eyes from the class.
Then, the mathematics teacher continued to explain the questions, which the class did during the day. While feeling proud, he suddenly announced halfway through his lecture, “Today, I want to praise two students—Flynn and Kimberly. These last two questions were taken from a college entrance exam a few years ago. Back then, only a few people could answer the question. I only changed the numbers in the questions, so it is still difficult, but I’m surprised that they both were able to perfectly answer it! All their answers are absolutely correct! They are the only two students in the class who solved the question! Give them a round of applause!”
The whole class clapped their hands while Kimberly and Flynn gave a proud smile without maintaining any modesty.
After the loud applause, Carmen, who was listening to class outside the door, casually said, “Oh, they are so brilliant. Why don’t they come up and explain their answers to the class?”
The mathematics teacher quickly clapped his hands. “That’s right. Come up! Kimberly, you can explain the first question, and Flynn, you can explain the second one! Everyone, give them another round of applause!”
Again, a loud applause was heard from the class, but this time, Kimberly and Flynn could not smile as arrogantly as before. Quickly, their smiles faded while they became extremely embarrassed.
“Teacher, m-my throat is feeling a little uncomfortable…” she stuttered as she tried to swindle her way out of the situation. “I may not be able to speak…”
“I bet you copied the answers from somewhere!” Standing outside the door, Carmen spoke directly. “How could two slackers like them answer such a difficult question? I really can’t believe it.”
Flynn immediately stood up and refuted, “Carmen, don’t you accuse us!”
She sneered in return. “Then, why don’t you go up and explain? Flynn, didn’t you just win the national mathematics competition for senior year high schoolers? Come—everyone, please give a round of applause to the champion as he goes up the stage to explain the question to everyone! I bet you have two ways to solve this question, so why don’t you explain both?”
Carmen led everyone to clap their hands and stirred up the whole class. The math teacher even stepped down from his position and said enthusiastically, “Come and explain. You must have done something like this in the competition last time, so it must be easy for you. Come up. I’ll let you stand at my position. Kimberly has a sore throat, so why don’t you explain her question as well?”
Flynn did not even dare to move.
Only he knew how he won the competition. It was she who used a pinhole robot to take pictures of the questions during the competition, so she could answer them outside the venue before transmitting it inside to him by using high-tech communications. He even copied the answers for the two questions today, which meant he knew nothing.
Amidst everyone’s applause, his face was visibly and rapidly getting darker.
In the end, there were three people standing in class for the whole evening study from 7.30PM to 9.30PM—one was punished for being late and not handing in her assignment while the other two were punished for plagiarizing other people’s work.
The three of them stood outside class and enjoyed the gaze of the people walking past by.
At first, Flynn was still waiting for Carmen to talk to him on her own accord, but she kept on standing in a daze—as if she did not want to talk to him at all. Her behavior was beginning to make him feel anxious.
For her whole life, Kimberly had never been embarrassed like that before, so she felt ashamed and angry as she gave Carmen a furious stare.
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