“Yes, my 1,032nd A in a row!” I declared. The class groaned in reply.
One student with a big mouth yelled, “Nothing’s new then!”
His friends snickered along with him in response to his snide remark. These little actions don’t faze me. I just consider them the side effects of being a genius. Oh yes, you heard me right, I Aurora Anderson, as a junior in high school has an IQ higher than Albert Einstein’s. You would think that geniuses only existed in those TV shows with the spies and criminals, but no they exist and they don’t go on undercover missions for the Unites States government. I just have to figure out how to survive high school before I can be called into the CIA or FBI.
  My next four hours were the usual: I intently listened to my teachers, answered any questions I was called on for, and corrected any mistakes my teachers made. The rest of the day went by quickly and the second I got home I told my mom all about my day, it was tradition. “Mom I’m home,” I announced.
“How was school?” My mom asked.
“Great! I got 3 more A’s. I can literally feel that perfect score on the ACT coming my way!”
“I know I know I have heard it all,” she replied jokingly. “I just want you to remember that you can’t be sad if you don’t always reach your goal sometimes you have to make mistakes,” my mom warned.
“Pshhhh… I don’t make mistakes!” I said. Aurora needed to remember at this very moment that making mistakes happens to everyone even the smartest people.
The next day, I walked into Chemistry class and I received my essay back. I knew I had aced it even from the little studying I had done earlier. Before I put my stellar essay into my folder, I pulled it back out so I could bathe in the glory of having another good grade, then the realization hit me I didn’t get an A. I got a C! I was infuriated, thoughts flew through my head, what did I do wrong? I put my best work into that essay! What happens now since I don’t have a perfect GPA? It’s probably just a mistake on the teachers part. While I was busy in my thoughts, a girl in my class who I didn’t know too well named Nicole asked me what I got, Nicole and I are the two highest scoring kids in our grade and I never gave her a second glance, she was my competition. But it wasn’t really a competition because I always won, except for today.
A kid told her “Probably an A.”
I whipped around and lowered my voice, but I put as much fire and attitude as I could in one little phrase,“Mind your own business! It’s not like you would’ve done any better!”
The “Oooohs” came from all of the bystanders who had nothing better to do. I have never risen my voice before and I have never been mean to people I just don’t know what got into me I felt betrayed by my essay and my teacher. That’s when I decided I was going to stop moping around about this and do something to fix it. My future was riding on this. I marched up to the new teacher’s desk.
“Excuse me, I want to know why I was given such a bad score on this essay, I thought I did really well? Is there anyway I can make it up?” I stated.
“I apologize Mrs. Anderson for your bad grade, but I give students the grade they deserve. I looked at the content in your essay and it didn’t meet my expectations. I also don’t give retakes because if I give you a retake then I have to give the entire class a retake.”
I mumbled a thank you and sadly and slowly trudged to my desk, I felt hot tears threatening to fall down my face, but I held them back all eyes were on me. Even though our teacher was discussing something about our homework I highly doubt anyone was paying attention. They were too busy whispering to each other and taking small glances at me here and there.It felt like years before the bell rang and my face had already become as red as a tomato.While I was walking through the halls it seemed as if everyones’ eyes bore into my back.
“I heard he was making her retake the class,” one brunette gossiped to her friend by their lockers.
“Well I heard that he yelled at her and made her sit in the hallway!” her blonde friend declared.
I knew all of these accusations were false, but I felt like they were real and I can’t believe the student body turned on me so quickly. I went to elementary school with these people! All it took was one bad grade and my world was changed and not for the better. I could slowly feel the valedictorian title moving farther and farther out of my grasp and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
In my next hour, Math, my teacher handed back tests and I got another C. This time one or two tears fell and I quickly wiped them away so no one could see my pain. I checked my work and I had made the dumbest mistakes ever I was slowly losing confidence in myself and my smarts. I had a reality check and I wasn’t happy because I knew it would take a lot of work to go back to where I was and that was a lot of steps to retrace.
When I finally arrived home I just walked into my mom’s arms and cried and cried until I had no tears left. She didn’t push me for answers she just let me let it all out. She already knew what happened from the email sent by my Chemistry and Math teachers and the mediocre grades in the grade book. My mom being the person who always had a solution had called me a tutor.
“ But mommmmm tutors are for average people, I am not average!” I defiantly replied.
“Do you have a better solution?” She responded.
“No,” I muttered.
I, Aurora Anderson, was going to be tutored and I didn’t like it one bit.
The next day my mom dragged me to the library against my will and I met my tutor and it was the really smart girl, Nicole, in my chemistry class she walked me through step by step on everything and I realized that I was memorizing stuff I wasn’t learning anything from the way I had studied. Nicole told me that failure is bound to happen to everyone its how you stand back up that determines the type of person you are. Never had I ever paid attention to Nicole besides when she occasionally talked to me. That’s when it hit me “A perfect person is the one who works daily on self-improvement and self-realization.” and that’s the type of person I realized I needed to be.