Ms. Victoria led Mike into the eleventh-grade classroom right in the middle of math class.
The second Mike walked through the door, every girl in the room let out a collective gasp.
"Quiet down, everyone," Ms. Victoria said. "This is your new classmate, Mike..." She trailed off, turning to him. "Oh, right—what's your full name again?"
"Mike Quinn," he answered with a easy smile.
"Perfect. Mike Quinn. Go ahead and find yourself a seat."
With that, Ms. Victoria gave a quick nod to the math teacher at the front—Ms. Ingram—and headed out just as casually as she'd come in.
At Medford High, nobody had assigned seats. The kids who were just coasting through school naturally claimed the back rows. Average students stuck to the middle—safe, low-key spots. The ones who actually wanted to learn sat closer to the front.
And then there was Sheldon Cooper, the one-of-a-kind kid who parked himself dead center in the very first row, all by his lonesome. Thanks to his... personality, the seats around him were basically a no-man's-land.
Mike scanned the room real quick. Amid all the girls sitting up straighter and giving him hopeful looks, he strolled over and dropped into the seat right next to Sheldon—on his left.
That move earned a dramatic chorus of disappointed groans from the girls.
Ms. Ingram was a pleasantly plump woman in her mid-thirties with a super gentle vibe. Once the class settled down, she gave Mike a warm verbal welcome, then turned back to the chalkboard to keep teaching trig functions.
Mike's IQ was now north of 140—top 1% genius territory. Staring at those trig formulas and example problems on the board? Child's play. After grinding through endless practice tests back in the day, he could spot three or four different ways to solve any of them without breaking a sweat.
Just then, Ms. Ingram finished explaining a classic example problem. She wrote up a tougher one that used the same concepts—basically college-level—and asked, "Anyone want to tell me how we'd tackle this?"
Sheldon, ramrod straight in the front row, had been waiting for this moment. A smug little glow lit up his face as he shot his hand into the air.
With an IQ of 187, high school stuff was a total breeze for him. Answering questions—and pointing out any tiny mistake the teacher might make—was basically his favorite hobby.
Ms. Ingram was just about to call on Sheldon (the only kid with his hand up) when another hand slowly rose beside him.
...
"Wow," Ms. Ingram said, her eyes landing on Mike with a playful grin. "Looks like our new guy's not just easy on the eyes—he's got the brains to match. Alright, Mike, why don't you walk us through it?"
[Intelligence +2]
Mike picked up a glowing attribute orb that dropped from a seriously annoyed Sheldon.
A small smirk tugged at Mike's lips as he stood up and smoothly laid out not one, but two completely different ways to solve the problem.
"Excellent job, Mike—that was spot-on," Ms. Ingram praised without holding back. "And you even gave us a brand-new approach none of us had seen before."
Over on the side, Sheldon watched Mike sit back down and felt like someone had just snatched his favorite toy.
Desperate to get it back, he zeroed in on the problem again. Formulas flashed through his brain, breaking apart, recombining, evolving... until—bam—he hit on yet another method.
With full-on smug mode activated, Sheldon raised his hand again.
"Sheldon, something else?" Ms. Ingram asked.
"Yes, ma'am," he said, standing up straight and proud. "I came up with another way to solve that function problem."
"Really? That's great, Sheldon," she replied in that automatic kid-praising tone. "But for this class, we really just need everyone to master the basic method from the textbook..."
Seeing the disappointment on his face, she added kindly, "If you're into finding new approaches, maybe chat with Mike after class about it."
She thought she was being helpful. What she didn't realize was that her "comforting" words made another little orb drop off Sheldon.
[Intelligence +1]
Man, Sheldon was turning into prime "attribute farming" material—he was basically growing his own wool now.
Mike happily scooped it up.
From there, Sheldon fell into a full-on vicious cycle. Every time Ms. Ingram asked a question, his hand was first in the air... but she always called on Mike instead.
It wasn't that weird on the surface—Mike was the hot new kid who was super engaged. Of course the teacher wanted to give him a chance to shine.
Ms. Ingram could swear on a stack of Bibles that she wasn't holding a grudge because Sheldon had "corrected" her a million times before.
But Sheldon? He was convinced this was straight-up favoritism. Tyranny, even. He raised his hand first, after all.
Finally, when the bell rang, Sheldon—having gotten zero chances to answer all period—dropped a big glowing orb in a huff of frustration.
He stormed out after Ms. Ingram, fuming.
...
Thanks to Sheldon's stubborn arguing, Ms. Ingram finally agreed to a new rule: from now on, math class would be first-come, first-served—pure speed answering.
Meanwhile, Mike casually snagged the big orb.
[Intelligence +5]
Feeling pretty great about the haul, Mike was already thinking about where to grab a solid lunch to celebrate.
He looked up—and there was Sheldon again, back in the classroom, staring at him stone-faced.
"Something on your mind, Sheldon?" Mike asked.
"I'm here to inform you," Sheldon declared seriously, "that from now on in math class, you won't steal a single answering opportunity from me again."
"Is that so?" Mike chuckled, giving Sheldon's shoulder a light pat. "Well, good luck with that."
This time, though, Sheldon didn't drop any more attributes.
Mike shook his head with a grin as the kid marched off, then headed for the door himself.
He barely made it into the hallway before a pack of girls who'd been keeping tabs on him the whole time hurried to catch up.
Birds of a feather flock together—money, status, personality, even looks can sort people into different groups.
Those groups turn into little cliques.
In a lot of ways, high school is just a mini version of the real world.