I want to throw up. There is no reason to make small talk unless I have failed. Is he going to tell me to stay there? Why does he want to know this?

“Yes, I was planning on it. See family and friends, you know.”

“Well, you can tell them you aced your calculus exam.”

He hands the paper to me.

“I’m not often impressed, but I’m blown away by what you were able to do in a week. Well done. I hope you are proud of yourself. Get out of here and enjoy your break. You’ve earned it. Now I’ve got a dinner to get to. I swear, ninety percent of my job is going to fancy college dinners.”

He packs his briefcase and rushes out. I try to get up, but I can’t move. I watch as tears rain down on the paper, smearing the black ink and my pencil markings. Me, I got an A on a calculus exam? I thought this was not possible. I imagined failure even as the Defiance spoke of victory. I wonder what else I can do that I thought was not possible? I reach down into my well of memories and remember all the times I thought I couldn’t but did anyways. Just like now. I never fail when I try.

I begin to allow the possibility that it could be me. That I might be a Chosen One. If I’m capable of this, what else could I be capable of? Me? A poor Black girl from Cleveland? They never make heroes that look like me, but maybe it’s time for a new legend.

I rise triumphantly, stuff the exam and pencils into my backpack. A Chosen One, I say to myself. I like the sound of that.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The final six weeks of the semester bow to my newfound mastery of collegiate subjects. Tray Tray specializes in math, but she has enough knowledge to guide me through all my classes. If she doesn’t know something, she figures it out and comes back with the answer. I thought about getting another tutor, like Yoda suggested, but she’s the only one I trust. By the time finals arrive, I have been training in Tray Tray’s secret library lair for weeks.

She quizzes me like we are on a game show with everything at stake. “Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the federal government. What are those powers?” I answer: “The go’ment, like my parents call it, can coin money, regulate commerce, declare war, raise and maintain armed forces, and establish a post office.”

“You just won a hundred thousand dollars!” she exclaims excitedly. “Which author won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining sympathetic humor and keen social perception?”

“Uh, I’ll take the hottie known as John Ernest Steinbeck for two thousand, Alex.”