9

Jane made up her mind to stick to her rules. After making a list of her dream goals, she made it her life mission to cross each one of them.

But the hard part was crossing them.

She felt a sense of optimism, almost excitement flooding through her. She was also slightly overwhelmed by the things she had to commit to. Things that were mostly her least favorite things, like studying instead of watching her TV shows or hanging out with Emily.

But she believed that every great man and woman had to sacrifice a lot to reach their goals, so no more whining. She would have to do the same or die trying. That was how serious she was.

Jane had been shooting baskets from five until seven. She only made 30 baskets out of 100. Compared to her usual performance, she had improved by five percent. A small result, but still a result.

Jane tried lay-up after lay-up until the muscles in her arms and shoulders began to ache. But this time, it was a good kind of ache. It wasn't something that was forced upon her like before. It was the satisfying soreness of muscles training themselves to do what they were supposed to do.

She dribbled up and down the driveway as fast and hard as if she were driving down the court with other team's guards in hot pursuit. The impact of her hands against the ball, the rhythm of the ball rebounding from the pavement, the tingling warmth in her forearms...it all felt great.

The basketball bounced obediently under her hands as if some force in the ball were responding directly to the force in her cupped fingers.

Bounce.

Bounce.

Bounce.

Jane felt like a bouncing machine, programmed to keep on bouncing the ball in the same unchanging rhythm forever.

Bounce.

Bounce.

Bounce.

What made a basketball bounce the way it did? Why was it bouncier than a soccer ball, even though both were about the same size and shape? And those tiny little super-balls. Why did they bounce so hard and so high?

Jane caught the ball on its next up-bounce. She had it!

She had the question of the physical world! She had found the idea for her science fair project.

She would test all different kinds of balls, bouncing on all different kinds of surfaces, to try to find out which balls bounced the highest and why. She knew it wouldn't win a Nobel Prize, but she had thought it up all by herself, and it had come out of a real question that really mattered to her, just Ms. Anderson had said it should.

She could hear her voice right now, telling her, "Why, Jane, what an original idea! I knew you'd come up with something wonderful!"

Wonderful.

She loved the sound of that word coming from her vermilion lips.

~*~

Friday morning, they didn't have class time to work on their projects, but Jane made herself go up to her after class. She was wearing a tight-fitting top, the kind that dancers wear, and the same skirt she had worn on the first day. Her hair was down, held back from her face by two glistening silver barrettes.

"Ms. Anderson," Jane said. "Um...I have kind of an idea for my project."

"Oh, what is it, Jane?" she asked as if there was nothing in the world she wanted to know more than Jane's half-baked idea.

She tried not to blush and when she told her, sure enough, Ms. Anderson said, "Jane! It's perfect for you! I knew your interest in sports would lead you to something wonderful!"

Even Peer-Teaching in math class couldn't spoil Jane's happiness. She felt so good that she didn't notice when Lucy had slid next her chair.

They both didn't talk for a moment. Then Jane wheeled around to look at Lucy.

"It's $46.75," she said.

Lucy snapped her head to her with a raised brow.

"What?"

"15% equals $8.25, so I would have to pay $46.75 for a pricey $55 shirt," Jane said.

For a moment, she thought Lucy was going to smile, but she turned away with a shrug.

"It's an easy math."

"Easy?" Jane said. "For you yes, but not for me. I had to Google how to do it."

"How long have you been struggling with math?" Lucy asked, and she looked genuinely curious. Jane realized the girl actually took her Peer-Teaching more seriously than she thought.

"Well," Jane said, trying not to sound embarrassed. "As long as I could remember. Elementary school was okay but when I started junior high school, it all got crazy from there."

Lucy asked her a few more questions. Jane felt like she was being diagnosed by a math doctor.

"I see," Lucy breathed with a nod afterward. "I guess the reason why you're struggling is that you only know 40% of multiplication facts. It's holding you back. It's like trying to read knowing only ten alphabets."

Jane blushed. But she was also relieved that she opened up to Lucy about her problems and strangely she felt understood.

"I guess so," Jane murmured. Lucy was right. She had no confidence in her learning ability, and as a result, she had no confidence in herself. Maybe this was the reason why she came to accept that she was a loser. If only she was good at one thing, anything.

"Are you okay?" Lucy asked when she noticed her quietness. "It's alright. Nobody born with a math brain or a history brain. You just have to start it over."

Jane looked back at her partner again. Then she did something she never thought she would do. She mustered the courage to ask Lucy Adams for help.

"Lucy, I...er...I wonder if...you know, you can help me with math after school?" she said hesitantly.

Lucy was staring at her in silence. Jane thought she was going to refuse, and she almost backed out when Lucy nodded, a bit vigorously.

"Sure," she said.

For the first time, Jane and Lucy smiled at each other.

That day, Jane tried to pay attention to Lucy's long, breathless explanations of the day's new batch of equations.

During study hall that day, Jane actually studied. She wasn't going to be able to finish all 422 pages of A Tale of Two Cities in fourteen days unless she forced herself to read at least 30 pages – 30 whole entire pages – every single day, including weekends. She was up to page 90 so far. If she had picked the 103-page book about a dog that Emily had found for her, she would be almost finished by now. Except that she wouldn't have started it yet. She and Emily always put off reading their book-report books until the night before the book reports were due.

A Tale of Two Cities wasn't the best book Jane had ever read, but it wasn't the worst, either. It took place during the French Revolution, in the 1700s. Once Jane realized that Madame Guillotine was a special machine for cutting off heads, the story became considerably more interesting. They were a pretty bloodthirsty bunch, those French Revolutionaries.

Jane could tell that this reading during study hall annoyed Emily. Sitting next to her, Emily fidgeted. She started another page of doodles of Ms. Anderson. The point on her pencil broke. She sighed heavily. Then she trudged off to sharpen it.

When Emily returned to their table, she whispered to Jane, "You're really going to read the whole thing?"

Jane nodded. She was going to read the whole thing, every single, solitary made-from-tree page in the book. She didn't know how to explain her determination to Emily.

"I have to." She heard Ms. Reeds' voice again in her head: "I have to say that it is very disturbing..." But she didn't feel like letting Emily see how much the teacher's comments had bothered her. Instead, she said, "It's my revenge."

"It's not worth it," Emily said. "I wouldn't read 400 plus pages to stop someone from blowing up the world."

Then she wandered off to check her phone.

Jane wasn't sure if her best friend had noticed she hadn't been true to her duty as the vice president of Loser Club. But she had to finish the book. Jane read for a few more minutes. When she looked up, she saw Lucy, at the next table, watching her.

Lucy blinked and looked back down to her own book again.

Jane wondered if it was a good or a bad idea to have Lucy Adams as her math tutor.