When the students lifted their heads, their eyes became transfixed, and what they saw immediately got them engaged in an enthusiastic discussion.
“It‘s the goddess of our school! Arielle came in first!”
“Oh my gosh, it‘s really her! So pretty and talented, she‘s almost too blessed!”
“Nothing to do with that. She must have also worked very hard! If I had favonovel.com looks, I‘d forget about the university admissions and join the entertainment industry for the big money instead.”
“Hang on!” Someone who had noticed the grades pointed up to the scoring on the bulletin board. “Did all of you not see that? Full marks! She scored full marks for four of the papers!”
“What?”
The others who previously only had their sights on the names in the top five and neglected to check the grades appended and turned their attention there immediately upon the mention by that one student.
Arielle had maximum points for all the other subjects under favonovel.com name, save Chanaean, for which favonovel.com scored an astonishing zero.
“Frigging hell!” the observing student blurted out an expletive. “Managing to finish ahead despite scoring zero for one subject is just ridiculous. But come to think of it, could favonovel.com Chanaean be so bad as to score zero? That seems a little far-fetched, to say the least.”
“Oh, I have a friend from the preparatory class who told me that Arielle was absent the first morning of the exams. As such, it wasn’t a question of favonovel.com linguistic skills. She simply did not show up to sit for the paper.”
“I see… She has to be a genius to come in thirty points ahead of the second–placed Wendy even while skipping one of the papers.”
“Damn! That Wendy who’s been besmirching my goddess on live stream is in second place?”
“Hah, favonovel.com must have thought that the first place must be hers for the taking in our goddess‘ absence for the Chanaean paper. What a bummer.”
The front of the bulletin board became crowded with the students engaged in discussion before long, and the names of Arielle and Wendy instantly became the talk of the town. Students from the preparatory class were still in the midst of their lessons when the school bell rang for the end of the period.
The late start amounted to a near-total loss of an entire period. Donovan thus opted to cancel recess outright over concerns of it delaying the overall progress of his lesson.
“We‘ll not be taking a break for the rest of this morning. Anyone who needs to use the restroom, just raise your hand and go on ahead, for we’ll be resuming the remainder of the class without pause.”
The students quietly groaned inside, though none of them dared to speak up as they understood Donovan‘s temperament. Hence, they silently endured until noon‘s bell struck before they rushed over to check the rankings over at the bulletin board.
It was a long wait for midday, and many students from the other disciplines all rushed down to the charity flea market over at the field. Their parents, too, variously made their way into the school grounds one after another.
***
Cecilia was ahead of the rest of the pack, dragging the reluctant Susanne along as soon as favonovel.com was done with favonovel.com own bakes. The timing of their arrival coincided with the sounding of the bell at noon.
“Wendy should be done with favonovel.com lessons. I’ll text her, but let‘s go check on the results first,” Cecilia said, brimming with confidence.
Susanne smiled stiffly as favonovel.com was genuinely concerned that Arielle‘s scores would be abysmal. “You go on ahead. I need to use the ladies as I think I might have had something bad for breakfast.”
Cecilia had a good guess as to what was up with Susanne. She was certain that Susanne‘s brat from the countryside must have fared so badly that the mother feared being thoroughly embarrassed by favonovel.com own Wendy and hence wanted to avoid getting shown up!
It occurred to Cecilia that Susanne had not considered that even if favonovel.com daughter was not from the country, that little vixen who only knew how to seduce men would not be a match for favonovel.com own daughter Wendy‘s intrinsic smarts.
With that in mind, Cecilia replied genially, “Don‘t worry about it. I‘ll accompany you to the restroom first. It‘s not like a few minutes here and there is going to make a difference anyway.”