Dreams of Genius scholar

Underneath the Surface

Let us rewind the relentless march of time by a solid two hours, to that precise moment just after the final bell had rung, signaling the end of what was supposed to be a typical, mundane math class. But nothing about this day was typical, especially once Mr. Harris, with his habitual blend of dry sarcasm and thinly veiled curiosity, addressed the class with an uncharacteristic spark in his voice.

“Students, do you realize what unfolded before our very eyes today?” he began, the corners of his mouth twitching in bemusement as he let the words hang in the air. “Leo Archer has been answering every single one of my questions with startling accuracy.”

A ripple of whispered astonishment moved through the rows of desks. Ryan Cole, who had been leaning back in his chair with an air of casual detachment, finally spoke up, his voice laced with disbelief, “All I know is that he was buried in that ‘PreCalculus’ book all day yesterday, like some kind of math monk.”

Charlotte Turner, the class monitor whose tone always carried a razor-edged blend of authority and skepticism, chimed in with no small amount of incredulity, “Exactly! One day of cramming can’t possibly transform him into some overnight prodigy. This guy has been the anchor dragging down our class’s average grade for semesters. There’s no way he just pulled this out of thin air. Maybe he’s got some secret headphones pumping answers directly into his brain.”

Alex gave a dismissive shrug, clearly uninterested in entertaining Charlotte’s conjectures, his gaze already drifting back to the scribbles in his notebook.

Meanwhile, Dylan, sitting quietly with a sly grin playing at the edges of his mouth, muttered something just loud enough for the teacher’s ears to catch, “Yo, maybe we beat the crap out of him so bad, he had no choice but to get all brainy, you know what I’m saying?”

Mr. Harris paused, narrowing his eyes, and asked, “What was that, Dylan?”

“Nothing, Mr. Harris. Maybe he borrowed that same book you use for the test questions, from the library,” Dylan answered smoothly, steering the conversation away with the practiced ease of a seasoned mischief-maker.

Mr. Harris held the algebra and calculus tome in his hands for a long moment, his brow furrowed deeply as he considered the possibility. After all, the sudden and drastic shift in Archer’s performance within a mere two days since their last class was nothing short of baffling, an enigma that refused to fit the logical patterns he had always relied on.

With a sharp shake of his head and a barely concealed sigh, Mr. Harris abruptly exited the room without so much as a farewell to the students he likely would never teach again, his steps echoing down the hallway like the closing of a chapter.

As the door clicked shut behind him, Chloe Bennett rose from her seat, a purpose in her stride as she crossed over to Ryan. Her expression was a blend of hesitancy and determination, as if she was summoning courage for a question that had been gnawing at her.

Ryan looked up at her, stunned by the sudden attention.

Chloe was the kind of girl whose presence turned heads without effort. Her slim figure moved with effortless grace, her skin glowing softly in the filtered classroom light, and her perfectly sculpted nose gave her an air of aristocratic elegance. Her piercing blue eyes locked onto Ryan’s with a quiet intensity, fluttering beneath thick, velvet-black lashes as she finally spoke, “Ryan, do you happen to know Leo Archer well?”

Ryan’s heart skipped a beat, a wave of unexpected disappointment washing over him as he thought, Damn, she’s incredibly adorable.

---

Meanwhile, in the sanctuary of the library, the afternoon sun cast long, warm shafts of light across the rows of dusty bookshelves, where Maya Rivers had just joined me, her confident presence punctuating the quiet hum of whispered pages and turning leaves.

“So... have you started tackling Calculus yet?” she asked, pulling a heavy, worn textbook from her own bag, its spine cracked from countless hours of study.

“Nope,” I replied, shaking my head with a grin. “I haven’t dabbled in any extra math courses beyond what’s necessary. I’m deep into this Algebra book, and honestly, it’s turning out to be pretty incredible.”

Maya groaned, her tone a mixture of frustration and humor. “Oh, hell no, that’s not true. I had Algebra last year, and it was a total nightmare that I barely survived.”

“Yeah, my plan is to absolutely crush the SAT so I don’t have to rely on those extra points for college admissions,” I said firmly, determination fueling my words.

She smirked, eyes narrowing slightly as she warned, “Good luck with that. You know, some people with perfect scores still don’t make it into the universities of their dreams. Without those extra points, or solid recommendations from professors, nothing is guaranteed.”

Our conversation gradually drifted into silence as I buried myself in the Algebra text, tearing through the pages with relentless focus, flipping through about a page every minute or so.

Then Maya stumbled, her brow furrowed over a Calculus problem that had clearly been gnawing at her confidence. She handed me her Calculus textbook, the page dog-eared and smudged from frequent study, pointing to a particularly thorny limit problem.

“Try cracking this one, Leo,” she challenged, eyes gleaming with a mixture of hope and disbelief. “I’ve been stuck on it for ages.”

I squinted at the complex expression before me, a mixture of polynomials and infinite limits. “I haven’t formally studied this stuff yet,” I admitted honestly, “but I’ll give it a shot.”

The problem read like a riddle demanding careful dissection:

Find the limit as x approaches infinity of the expression:

lim x→∞ (5x³ − 2x² + 3) / (2x³ + 4x² − 1)

I leaned in, breaking it down systematically. “Focus on the highest powers of x in both numerator and denominator, which is x cubed. We can rewrite the expression by dividing everything by x cubed to simplify it.”

“As x approaches infinity,” I explained, “all the lower degree terms over x cubed tend to zero, so the expression simplifies to: (5 − 0 + 0) / (2 + 0 − 0).”

I concluded confidently, “Therefore, the limit is just 5 over 2.”

Maya’s eyes widened, clearly impressed. “Damn, Leo, that was solid. Seriously, have you really never seen this stuff before? I don’t believe you.”

I shrugged, smiling. “Sometimes breaking the problem down into simple steps is all it takes, even if you haven’t encountered the exact problem before. It’s all about recognizing the patterns and keeping it simple.”

Despite the fact that Calculus had always seemed like an intimidating mountain of abstract concepts, today, all those layers suddenly peeled away. It felt as though I had been transported back to the kindergarten of mathematics, where addition and subtraction were the only challenges, and everything else was just an exciting new game.

As I immersed myself in the Algebra book, nearly finishing the last chapters, even those abstract topics such as orthogonality and linear transformations in vector spaces, which had initially left me scratching my head in confusion, began to reveal their secrets.

The growing confidence blossomed inside me like a quiet flame, promising that I might very well conquer the entirety of this challenging book before the day’s end.

“Hey Leo,” Maya’s voice interrupted my thoughts with a teasing lilt, “how about hitting up a karaoke party the night before the SAT?”

“You mean just the two of us?” I asked, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Nope,” she answered with a sly smile. “I’ve got a friend I want to invite as well. And if you want, feel free to bring someone too.”

“Sounds good,” I replied, thinking ahead. “I’ll bring a buddy I share my place with. He’s hella outgoing, and I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to join.”

After a while, we wrapped up our study session and parted ways. On my way home, I stopped by the grocery store, grabbing the cheapest food I could find to stretch my dwindling funds. Money was tight, dangerously so, and I knew I’d have to figure out some way to earn more soon enough. But for now, the SAT was priority one, so I shoved that worry to the back of my mind.

Back at the apartment, I was surprised not to find Lucas around—a rare occurrence indeed.

“Yo, Leo!” came a familiar voice.

Fortunately, Ryan was around to keep me company, a welcome distraction from the creeping silence.

I had borrowed three hefty textbooks from the library: Algebra, Calculus I, and Calculus II. Judging by the breakneck pace at which I was consuming their dense, complex pages, I had an unshakable feeling that I could master them all before the SAT arrived.

Opening the Algebra book once more, I noticed that the only section left was the questions at the back—the most time-consuming part of all, demanding patience and careful thought.

Sometime during the afternoon, Ryan had to dash off to his professional tryouts, leaving me alone with my books and the stillness of the apartment.

With the peace and quiet enveloping me like a cocoon, time seemed to slip away unnoticed as I powered through every question, my mind swelling with new knowledge that filled every corner of my consciousness.

A sudden thought sparked in my somewhat scatterbrained mind: maybe starting a blog to document this journey wasn’t such a bad idea after all, especially now that my mental gears seemed to be firing on all cylinders like never before.

If this transformation was thanks in some mysterious way to Dylan and his crew, then I owed them a massive, genuine thanks.

Curious, I flipped open my laptop and checked my messages.

The chat group was titled Karaoke Group, and the members listed were Maya Rivers and Chloe Bennett.

“Chloe Bennett?!” I muttered under my breath, stunned. “She was the friend Maya talked about?”

For a moment, I was thrown off balance, but then I shrugged it off, thinking, “Screw it.”

I quickly added Ryan to the group and dove into learning more Python for the rest of the evening.

Today, programming felt like a gentle breeze rather than an uphill battle; Python was cooperating smoothly, its syntax crisp and straightforward like a well-crafted language of logic.

At last, exhaustion claimed me, and I finally surrendered to sleep, drifting into a dream not unlike the one that had haunted me before, but this time, the familiar blazing blue comet was joined by a smaller, vividly green one trailing closely behind it, its radiant glow casting ethereal shadows across the midnight sky.