Juliana Taylor said in a cold voice, "Speaking of Cara Preston’s essay, I was truly disappointed. Both its central idea and its arguntation were rely average."
She then looked at Vera Xavier and said, "Vera Xavier’s essay, however, was a breath of fresh air. It had a clear concept, a distinct the, a logical structure, and concise, polished language. The teacher who graded it, Cooper, originally wanted to give her a perfect score. He only deducted two points to keep her from getting arrogant."
She looked at the entire class and said, "If any of you are interested in their essays, I’ll post them next to the blackboard after class. You can read them for yourselves."
Elise Langdon pouted at Cara Preston. "With that dumb look of hers, there’s no way Vera Xavier could write a decent essay. What a joke!"
Cara Preston had been slapped in the face twice in a row today, so she didn’t dare speak out of turn. She even tugged on Elise Langdon’s sleeve. "Elise, stop."
Cara Preston stared at her test, completely dejected. She had only scored an eighty-one in Language Arts this ti. If the total score was calculated the way Juliana Taylor had ntioned before, her grades in the other subjects would look terrible.
She turned her head to glance at Vera Xavier. Vera was sitting there, calm and composed. When she saw Cara looking, she offered her a faint smile.
To Cara, however, that smile felt incredibly mocking, and she imdiately whipped her head away.
Vera wasn’t surprised by Cara’s reaction in the slightest. Watching Cara’s evasive, resentful gaze, the corners of her lips curved up. ’She can’t take this already?’
’This is just the first step in surpassing her. From now on, the gap between us will only grow wider. I certainly hope Cara has better ntal fortitude, or this won’t be any fun later on.’
After class, Juliana Taylor posted both Vera’s and Cara’s tests at the front of the classroom. Then she said to Vera, "Co with to my office."
Vera acknowledged and followed her.
As soon as they left, several students rushed over to look at Vera’s essay, one of them muttering, "I want to see for myself just how good the highest-scoring essay in our class actually is!"
Elise Langdon said with a look of contempt, "How good could it be? It’s probably as trashy as it gets. I don’t know what’s gotten into Ms. Taylor, protecting Vera like this."
Cara’s face was cold and she said nothing, but her hands were clenched into fists.
The students, who had harbored all sorts of complaints about Vera, quieted down after reading her essay.
They were high school seniors and had the ability to properly judge the quality of an essay. Whether they could write a good one themselves was another matter, but they could certainly recognize good writing when they saw it.
After reading Vera’s essay, Shirley Forrest walked over to Cara Preston. "I think you should go take a look at your sister’s essay."
That was all she said. But another girl, one who didn’t get along with Cara, deliberately walked up to her and said, "Vera and a certain soone are sisters, but they’re worlds apart. I have no idea how Vera can stand having such an underachiever for a sister."
The taunt was practically a carbon copy of the words Elise had used to mock Vera earlier.
Cara’s expression darkened even further. However, she had always prided herself on having class and wasn’t the type to get red in the face arguing with people.
Elise, sitting next to her, couldn’t stay quiet. "What’s that supposed to an?"
Everything that had happened today had completely blindsided them. In truth, they were both on edge.
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