I have a childhood friend I purely, wholeheartedly hate.

The moment the other one scored higher than me, my whole body felt wrong.

To defend our respective spots at number one, the two of us had been at war since grade school.

He grinds through ten practice tests a day, so I do twenty.

He spends gym class hunched over a little notebook memorizing IELTS vocab.

So I put in my earbuds and drill TOEFL.

Then two show-offs transferred into our class.

Every day they never opened a textbook, treating college-level calculus like light bedtime reading.

They stood in front of the grade rankings, looking at my name and Norman's.

"Time we gave these two bookworms a little shock."

"Bro, you beat this girl by thirty points, I'll beat this guy by fifty. Deal?"

"Please. I'll beat this girl by sixty. You beat this guy by ten and I'll call it a win for you."

Norman and I exchanged one look.

Good.

Civil war, suspended.

United against the outsiders.

...

"This math test was hard. That last multiple-choice problem, only five people in the whole class got it right."

The math teacher looked at the chubby boy sitting in the corner.

"Clive Finch, tell us how you did it."

Clive stood up.

Scratched his head and grinned.

"I guessed it..."

The class burst out laughing.

The teacher gave a helpless smile too.

He waved Clive back into his seat.

"Aside from this very lucky young man, one of the rest is our class's former number one and number two.

"Norman Gilbert and Vivienne Larkin.

"And the other two are our new transfer students.

"Percival Dickerson and Winston Simmons!"

A collective gasp went through the class as everyone turned to look at the two boys in the back row.

Percival and Winston looked at Norman and me in the front row.

Then scoffed.

"Textbook cram-champion seats, huh."

Norman and I gritted our teeth at the same time.

"It's over~ These two big shots are the real deal. Norman and Vivienne, our two grind kings, are about to get smacked flat on the beach~"

Percival glanced at the test.

Gave a low laugh.

"Can't even get a test this easy right. Looks like there aren't many worth fighting at this school."

The teacher smiled and looked at me. "Vivienne, how did you do the last one? Come up and walk everyone through it."

I nodded.

Picked up the chalk.

"First, construct a trigonometric identity to get equation one, then substitute the values of A and B, and we get R equals one-half x.

"Plug equation one into equation two to find coefficient c, take the derivative..."

Line after line, the working filled half the board.

The class watched and rushed to copy my work off the board onto their tests.

"So in the end we get G equals 0.5."

"Oh my god, her thinking's so fast, I can't keep up copying!"

"Weird thing is, it's all stuff we've learned. But how did she think to use it like that?"

"That construction step is so slick. Why didn't I think of it?"

I looked at the teacher. "Done, sir."

The teacher smiled and turned to Norman. "And you? Same approach?"

"Same as her, sir."

A scoff came from the back row.

The teacher looked at the two transfer students. "Way too much work."

Percival walked straight up.

Took the chalk out of my hand.

With one stroke he crossed out half a board of my derivation.

Drew an equals sign under the original problem's expression.

Wrote three words above it:

【Fourier transform】

Then produced a single expression.

Above that he wrote another word: 【L'Hôpital】.

And landed straight on the answer.

"There. One step and you're done."

The whole classroom went silent.

Someone's grip slipped and a pen clattered to the floor.

"Vivienne filled half the board.

"He got it in two lines?"

Even the math teacher looked at the board, a little startled.

"Percy, this is beyond the syllabus."

"I know, sir."

Percival grinned, teeth white and easy.

"But on a multiple-choice question, I say faster is better. High schoolers shouldn't turn their noses up at college-level knowledge."

The math teacher smiled.

"Everyone, Vivienne's derivation was completely correct, but to save time in an exam, you might all want to hear how Percival explains it."

"Eh, no need to make it complicated."

Percival tossed the chalk down carelessly.

"Anyone interested can go read the Princeton Companion to Mathematics. I've got the original English edition—come borrow it from me after class."

"No way… he's even read that?"

"Norman and Vivienne are finished now."

Percival listened to the low murmurs around him.

Then he smiled and cocked an eyebrow at me.

"Grinding away like a bookworm gets you nowhere. Save your energy."

I smiled.

"Your steps do give the right answer, but only because the function in this problem is continuous at the zero point."

Norman propped his chin on his hand too.

"Right. Take a different problem, plug in the Fourier transform and L'Hôpital's rule, and you won't necessarily get the right answer."

Percival's eyes finally sharpened a little as he looked at us.

But the mockery was still there.

"Have you two even studied higher mathematics?"

"A little."

"Then why run your mouths? Isn't college knowledge more useful than all your dead memorization?"

"It's not dead memorization. College formulas have their limits, and high school methods are safer for everyone."

"Come argue with me after you've finished linear algebra and complex analysis!"

Percival strolled back to his seat.

He slouched against the backrest.

He traded a glance with Winston.

But the other students were left completely lost.

"I've heard of linear algebra, but what's this complex thing?"

"Functions can be complex now?"

"So advanced. I'm gonna grow a brain cell."

The math teacher's gaze held a new note of admiration.

"You'd all do well to learn from the methods of our two transfer students, Percival and Winston. They're useful on multiple-choice questions."

When class let out, the same students who used to crowd around Norman and me, begging us to explain problems, swarmed to Percival and Winston's desks instead.

The two of them worked one on each side, walking everyone through multiple-choice questions.

"This one? L'Hôpital's rule, instant kill."

"High school methods make this one a pain. This one gets into signal processing."

"Newton-Leibniz works, but if you want it faster, just memorize this."

The other students couldn't help sucking in a breath.

"Geniuses really are geniuses! If you sent those two bookworms up here, one page of paper wouldn't be enough for them to write it all out."

Leaning by the door, Norman and I looked at each other at the same moment.

"You hear what they're teaching?"

I asked.

Norman watched them. "I heard it."

"Ridiculous or what?"

"A little too ridiculous."

I really couldn't hold back.

"Ease up on the lessons.

"When the function tends to infinity the whole model falls apart, and force your formulas onto it then and the answer's guaranteed wrong."

Percival and Winston turned to look.

They smiled.

"What, the grind champ can't stand to watch?"

I gave a scoff. "Tch!"

"You two are leading them astray. When they get it wrong later, are you going to take responsibility?"

"You two—jealous, is that it?"

The class president planted himself in front of us, hands on his hips.

"If you can't even follow college-level material, maybe keep your mouths shut, yeah?"

"Right, learn to understand it before you start yapping."

"What, it takes you all day to work out what they get in two lines, and now you're rattled?"

Norman and I laughed, the kind of laugh that comes from pure disbelief.

"Look how touchy they are."

"Whole face just changed color."

"That's the sad little ego of a couple of grind-kings for you."

I'd had enough.

"Not every piece of college math actually works here. Before you go reaching for a Monte Carlo transform, how about checking your boundary conditions first?"

"Vivienne, since you're so worked up, why don't we make a bet?"

Percival shoved the class president aside.

"A bet on what?"

A flyer for the mathematical modeling competition slapped down onto the desk.

"The National Mathematical Modeling Competition. High schoolers can enter too. You game?"

Norman and I traded a glance.

"We're game. What's the wager?"

"Whoever wins the higher award. The losers give up college admissions."

Percival and Winston Simmons laid their exam registration slips on the desk.

"You in?"

"Mathematical modeling?

"Oh man, you have to write code for this! Percy, Winston, you guys can code too? Is this... C language?"

"No, we usually use MATLAB."

"Mattress? Like a store?"

Percival and Winston looked at each other.

Then burst out laughing.

"Forget it. The software you need for modeling—you wouldn't get it even if we told you."

"Man, what do Vivienne and Norman even have to bring to this?"

"Two grind-kings, what's there to compare? They're big shots at school, sure, but against Percy and Winston they don't stand a chance!"

Norman and I looked at each other.

We each took out our exam registration.

"Then it's settled. The losers give up college admissions."

Word got out that the four of us were entering the modeling competition.

The whole school went wild.

Given the four of us and where we stood academically.

And since some colleges counted an award like this toward admissions.

The school didn't step in.

A modeling team was three people to a group.

Everyone was clawing to get onto Percival and Winston's team.

Nobody needed to be told what admissions credit meant.

But when it came to Norman and me.

Not a single person was willing to round us out into a three-person team.

In the end I had to strong-arm a humanities-track girl from the class next door into joining us.

"How about we call our team Everstride? What do you think!"

"Whoa—as in surpassing Norman Gilbert and Vivienne Larkin! I can already see those two rising to greatness!"

Percival and Winston high-fived.

Then arched an eyebrow at Norman and me.

I really couldn't take it.

"Hey, Norman, let's put the old stuff aside for now. If we can't beat them this time, the two of us are in for some serious humiliation!"

"Relax."

Norman slung on his backpack, the one far heavier than mine.

"Just don't drag me down and we're fine."

The competition started soon after.

The school cleared out a computer lab specifically for us.

At Percival and Winston's request.

Spectators were allowed in.

And it was livestreamed to the entire student body to watch and learn from.

The humanities girl on our team stared at the dense wall of problem text.

Then looked up, ready to cry.

"What do I do? I'm a humanities student, I can't make heads or tails of these giant blocks of text."

"Heh. Quantitative stock market analysis."

Across from us.

Winston let out a scornful little laugh.

He shot me a glance.

Then yanked his keyboard over and started coding.