The whole crowd turned lively almost instantly.The retirees, hearing this good news, lit up, eyes widening. A few hesitated before asking, "Can my granddaughter come too?""My grandson's been playing trumpet since he was little, can he perform?"Anyone with a kid or grandkid at home suddenly had something to say the second television got mentioned."I've got a kid too...""What can your kid actually do?""...Nothing.""Well, then you're out of luck!" The group shook their heads, looking genuinely disappointed for him.This was the last real glow of television's old glory days. Getting your name in the paper made you a minor celebrity. Getting on TV? That practically made you a star."Everyone, listen up, listen up!" Ethan waved them quiet again. This had turned into a full-blown market scene before they'd even handed out a single flyer.At the end of the day, he was the one paying them, so even though he was clearly a kid, everyone just went with it. He'd already framed himself as pa

Up close, Vanessa Shaw, that poised, polished host everyone saw on Riverton TV, dressed down now in a plain white shirt and slacks, definitely came across more down-to-earth."What's been going on with you lately? I heard you and Richard Callahan got into it..." Vanessa said, glancing up at Walter between bites.Ethan and Danny both looked over at Walter too.Walter knew exactly how bitter this particular pill was. The station operated like a public institution run with corporate logic, and the executive VP, Richard Callahan, had been entrenched there since the '90s. It was right around then that Walter's own show got canceled and he got reassigned. Everyone at the station knew the real reason: he'd crossed Richard at some point and gotten sidelined for it ever since. Word was, once his wife saw the washed-up host had no real future left, she'd run off with someone more promising.If the old station director hadn't still had a soft spot for Walter, he probably wouldn't have gotten any

The four of them headed back toward Class 5. Danny and Jenna were already there, and once everyone started talking, the energy picked up fast.No classes today, just waiting on mock exam results before the awards ceremony, then heading home.Which meant the classroom was pure chaos, playful shrieking and chasing echoing from down the hall.Jenna and Nora were deep in a recap of their three days off, which farm they'd visited, what animals they'd seen, what they'd eaten. Right as they walked in, some troublemaker grabbed Jenna's braid and took off running. "You're dead!" she yelled, and took off after him.Danny peeled off toward his own desk the moment they stepped inside. Ethan and Nora lagged a step behind, and he suddenly spoke up. "So... today. Was that you trying to bail me out?"Nora's eye twitched. A wave of flustered panic hit her out of nowhere.Because moments like this called for careful handling, poke at someone's pride wrong and it could easily blow up in your face.She'd

Ethan?So Danny's first real question was, "How'd you cheat?""The answer key was just sitting right there on the table," Ethan said.Danny scoffed, figuring Ethan just didn't want to tell him the real method.The English exam had been part of the district assessment, proctored by teachers bused in from other schools, nothing like their usual classroom setup. Everyone sat spaced far apart, two proctors per room, with extra staff making unpredictable rounds through the hall the whole time.How exactly was anyone supposed to cheat on that?Fudging a number on a regular school final, sure, maybe. But pulling off a score like this on a district assessment? That basically meant someone had swapped papers with him.Emily felt exactly the same way Danny did.How. How was this even possible. Scoring the exact same as her?!For Emily, the whole thing felt like a slap. She'd already been thoroughly outdone by Nora, her usual standing shaken.And now Ethan had somehow wedged his way in too.This

Hartwell High, a nationally recognized powerhouse school, arguably one of the best in the entire city.So these were students who'd seen everything.There's no clean "first place" in literature, but in competitive academics, there's always someone claiming the top spot. Especially at that age, when everyone's convinced they're the smartest person in the room, someone casually claiming a perfect score on an essay was bound to rub people the wrong way. Oh, you think you're that good?Plenty of genuinely talented students went to this school too, Owen, Jordan, Sarah Whitlock, Claire, all well-known names, and even their writing got picked apart by classmates constantly. So the second "perfect score" got mentioned, the discussion down in the crowd exploded."Please, what's even the point of reading it out loud? A perfect-score essay is basically just a 'formal essay,' write one of those well enough and the examiners eat it right up!"A formal essay meant argumentative. Argumentative essay