Chapter 30 Rachel's Unsolicited Kindness
[Amelia's Room]
Before long, there was a knock at the door.
Amelia walked over and opened it, finding Rachel standing there with a stack of papers in her arms and a friendly smile on her face. "Hey Amelia, I brought you the key points for tomorrow's Prestige High School entrance exam. I printed everything out for you."
"Thanks, Rachel," Amelia replied with a slight smile. "I didn't expect you to go through all this trouble for my admission. Come on in."
"No problem at all, Amelia," Rachel said warmly. "Mom told me you talked to Mr. Williams about not pressuring me and Quentin to break up, so we could stay together. I misjudged you before."
"Now that you're part of the Martinez family, we're like sisters and should get along well. If you get into Prestige High School, we can go to school together. I'm really looking forward to it."
Her sincere tone might have convinced a more naive Amelia. But Amelia just smiled and responded, "Yeah, I'm looking forward to it too."
Rachel walked over to the desk, ready to set down the papers, when suddenly a cat's meow echoed from behind her.
Startled, she turned around just in time to see a dark blur leap toward her, causing her to scream and jump back in fright.
Shadow, the black cat, stood on the carpet in front of Rachel, its back arched in a defensive posture, glaring at her with hostile green eyes.
"Shadow, stop it."
Seeing Rachel's panicked reaction, Amelia called out to Shadow. The cat relaxed and, with another meow, jumped back onto the bed.
"Amelia, you—you—you actually have a cat in your room? Where did it come from?" Rachel stammered, still shaken.
"It's a cat I used to have back in the countryside. I found it by the window yesterday. I didn't expect it to follow me all the way to River City."
"What?" Rachel's eyes widened. "You mean this cat came all the way from the countryside to River City and found you? How is that even possible?"
"I was surprised too, but it's true." Amelia looked innocent.
Rachel took a deep breath, about to mention that Jenny was allergic to cat fur and pets weren't allowed in the house, when Amelia said, "Don't worry, Rachel. Shadow won't leave the room. It won't cause any trouble for you. It was just startled by a stranger coming in."
"I don't know if pets are allowed here, but if not, please keep this a secret for me," Amelia looked up, "after all, we're like sisters. You wouldn't tell Mom, right?"
"Of course," Rachel forced a smile, swallowing her words. "I won't tell Mom, Amelia. Don't worry."
But Rachel had more pressing matters to attend to than the cat.
She pulled Amelia over to the desk and began explaining about Prestige High School.
"Amelia, you don't know, but Prestige High School is the top private school in all of River City. The students there either come from very wealthy families or are exceptionally bright and get in on scholarships."
"But even if you're wealthy, you still need to pass the entrance exam to get in."
"Every year, Prestige High School holds an entrance exam for new and transfer students, with a total score of 750 points."
"You need at least 500 points to get in, and the school places new students into classes based on their scores."
"Scoring 500-549 gets you into Class E, 550-599 into Class D, 600-649 into Class C, 650-699 into Class B, and 700 and above into Class A."
Amelia looked up, curious. "So Class A is the best in the grade, with the top students?"
"Exactly," Rachel said proudly. "I was the second-highest scorer in my entrance exam year, with 729 points. The top scorer was Zander, who got perfect scores in all subjects."
Both Kevin and Rachel spoke about Zander with admiration, piquing Amelia's interest in this unseen figure.
Amelia didn't say anything, and Rachel assumed she felt inferior due to the gap between them. Trying to be kind, she said, "It's okay, Amelia."
"I heard from Kevin that your best score in your countryside high school was just over 500, and the questions there aren't on the same level as Prestige High School's. But don't worry."
"These are sample questions from the Prestige High School question bank," Rachel said, picking up the stack of papers. "I printed out the question bank for you. If you review and memorize these, you'll be fine for tomorrow's exam."
Amelia glanced at the papers.
Whether Rachel was genuinely trying to help or not, just flipping through this thick stack would take at least a day or two.
If she wanted to memorize it all, even staying up all night wouldn't be enough.
Seeing her look, Rachel quickly said, "These questions are a lot, and you probably can't review them all in a day. How about this: just go through the multiple-choice questions. For the long questions, you can improvise."
Rachel added thoughtfully, "The multiple-choice questions on the entrance exam mostly come from the question bank. If you memorize the answers, you'll easily get 300 points, and 500 points will be a breeze."
Amelia nodded sincerely. "That makes sense. How about you help me sort out the multiple-choice questions while I get you a glass of juice?"
"Sure," Rachel agreed readily.
Amelia left the room and returned ten minutes later with two glasses of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice.
Rachel took one and drank half of it in one gulp, then focused on marking the papers.
Standing beside her, Amelia glanced at a page of math multiple-choice questions and realized why Rachel was being so helpful today.
All the marked correct answers were wrong.
Rachel had certainly gone to great lengths.
Afraid that Amelia might score 500 points on her own, Rachel had deliberately marked the wrong answers to mislead her, ensuring she wouldn't even get the multiple-choice points.
This way, she definitely wouldn't reach 500 points.
Unfortunately for Rachel, these questions were as simple as one plus one to Amelia. She could see the correct answers at a glance.
But Amelia kept smiling. "Thank you, Rachel. Don't worry, I'll memorize these answers well tonight."