I sat outside the building with my backpack on as the bus drove around the corner and stopped for me. I got on, the bus driver greeted me.

"Good morning young lady."

"Good morning sir," I said.

I sat where there was an empty seat. But, that didn't really help at all on account of a couple boys behind me looking like they wanna fuck me. I laid my head against the window.

"Hey how you doing?" I heard one of the boys say.

"Other than being tired I'm fine," I said emotionlessly.

"You're funny, I like that in a girl."

I turned to them as they giggled.

"You heard what I just said, I'm tired."

An emo girl across from them butted in.

"Dude leave her alone, she's new."

"What do you know, you metal stud pierced bitch?"

The girl quickly moved to my seat.

"That we're capable of more than you bozos think."

"Oh we're so scared, I-"

I put my middle finger up.

"Yeah," the girl whispered loudly.

She gave me a high five.

"You go girl."

"Ok then, if that's how you want it."

They finally stopped. 

"Thanks for having my back," I said.

"You're welcome. You must be Katherine Griffin."

"Yeah, how do you know?"

"The whole freshman grade knows you're new here. I'm Kyle by the way."

I shook her hand.

"You looked like you could really use a friend."

"I'm not a social person but ok."

We laughed.

"Me either."

Turned out we shared the same homeroom and first period teacher together.

"Before we start class this morning, we have a few announcements: the gifted and talented program will have their randomly selected students tested today during lunch time. Second announcement, the school's costume party will be held next Friday from 7 to 11pm, the tickets will be ten dollars, and dress as anything as long as it's school appropriate. Final announcement, we have a new student joining us, Katherine Griffin, would you care to stand up?"

"I'd rather not," I said without missing a beat.

"Too shy?"

"Nope, I just rather not."

"Well, you can still tell us about yourself?"

"Ok, I'm Katherine, I moved here from California with my dad, I'm an avid fan of learning and rock music. My favorite subject is math, I'm not really good in any other subjects but I'm eager to give it my best effort."

"Well that's amazing Miss. Griffin, I appreciate your honesty. My name is Ms. Tilly."

I nodded and smirked.

At lunch, me and Kyle sat together.

"You said you're a fan of rock music, who do you like?" She asked.

"I like many bands, I've been listening to Rush and uh...The Rolling Stones, stuff my dad grew up listening to, we share the same taste."

"How old is he out of curiosity?"

"36."

"My dad's boomer hell man."

"Traditional?"

"Yeah, he says I have no future if I wear what I wear and listen to what I listen to, Green Day."

"Is your dad like 50?"

"Older than that man. He said he didn't spend his days in Saigon for me to be a slacking metalhead."

"Ok old fuck."

We laughed. The principal got on the podium and shouted in the mic.

"I'd like the following to report to the front office for gifted and talented testing: Robert Malden, Sarah Chaney, Fabian Lewinski..."

"Fabian?" I smiled.

"...Katherine Griffin."

What the fuck!

"Me? I'm no genius."

"Go on girl, get tested!"

I went to the front office. The waiting area was crowded with the kids they called.

"I had a goddamn mouthful of mashed taters when they called me. During lunch my ass!" One of the kids blurted out in a heavy Southern accent.

"I'm weirded out that they even called you Bobby," Sarah said.

"Tell me about it, what about this Asian girl over there?"

"What about me?" I asked.

"This doesn't concern you."

Robert turned back to Sarah.

"She could pass for a genius, look at her," he whispered.

"You know, saying stuff about people behind their backs is worse than saying it to their faces. I may not be a genius."

"Like the rest of us, we never know," Sarah said.

"Thank you Sarah."

"Careful she'll kung fu ya."

"Why don't you shut your mouth if you know what's good for you, you inbred cock sucker."

The rest of the kids clapped for me. A teacher walked out followed by Fabian who was just tested.

"What's all the excitement about?"

"I just burned his ass," I said.

"Katherine Griffin, you're next."

I got up and turned to Bobby.

"By the way, I'm not even Asian per say, I'm part Hawaiian."

As I started walking, I did the shaka gesture.

"Aloha."

I smiled very big as I walked away.

In the school's conference room, the teacher lifted up a inkblot sheet, the third one in a row.

"What's the first thing that you see?"

"An extraterrestrial being I'd expect to see on an Alfred Hitchcock movie."

"Ok, good. Next up is a set of math problems, I have blank paper for you and you can take your time to solve them. First one is one of the trickiest order of operation problem I ever had to give to my math students: (22/2-2x5) squared +( 4-6/6) squared."

She wrote down the problem and gave it to me to solve. I solved it within twenty seconds flat.

"Done."

I handed it to her.

"There is no way you could've finished it that fast...no way," she said sternly.

"Just look at the paper."

She looked.

"...Holy moly you got it right!"

She was shocked.

"And all work is shown! How did you do that?"

"I was told by my eight grade math teacher that I learn faster than the other kids the same grade. Bring on the second please."

"Ok, the next problem is ordering this set of numbers from least to greatest."

She handed me the paper of numbers. I already knew what it was.

"1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144,233,377."

"Good job Miss. Griffin-"

"And you know what else, that's the Fibonacci sequence!"

"Exactly, what is it!?"

"Those numbers are the sum of the two preceding numbers starting with 0 and 1."

"Oh my God, Fabian had so much trouble with the math portion. Wow, you're smart. I don't think we need to continue any further, I can tell you have an above average IQ. You may go back to lunch or if your teacher has called your class already."

I got up and left.

On the bus ride home, me and Kyle sat together once again.

"What was on the test?"

"Fucking psychology inkblot tests and math, the math part was easy for me."

"What problems?"

"Order of operations I solved in twenty seconds flat and ordering numbers from least to greatest...I knew it was the Fibonacci sequence before I even looked at it."

We burst out laughing.

"I guess you have a high IQ Katherine, you could be picked for gifted and talented."

"I'd rather bury myself alive then go on those Family Feud looking ass math competitions."

"I know right, I'd puke."

The bus stopped at my apartment.

"Give me a call sometime since we exchanged numbers."

"You got it, see ya."

I got off the bus and went in the apartment.