Free Schooled by Gordon Korman Page B

bracelet back from the engraver. Who knew if she’d ever see it again? But, of course, it was a lot more than losing a silver bangle that upset her.
    Life certainly gets complicated when you know more than one person. I could only imagine what it would be like when I knew eleven hundred.
    On Trigonometry and Tears , there was a character named Rishon, who really bothered me. He didn’t cheat on his girlfriend like Nick, or spread computer viruses just for fun like Aurora. But his irresponsible behavior was almost impossible to bear.
    Sophie definitely didn’t agree. “What do you care? It’s a TV show.” Her mood had been in free fall since Mr. Donnelly’s departure.
    “But if he doesn’t retake the SAT to bring up his score, the University of Florida is going to withdraw his acceptance!” I exclaimed.
    She looked at me pityingly. “So?”
    “He hasn’t even started studying! And he overslept and missed the practice test!”
    “That’s what they do on T & T ,” she explained. “They take perfectly normal people and turn their lives into pond scum. That’s why it’s fun to watch. If everything was perfect, there’d be no story.”
    “But what’s Rishon going to do next year?” I persisted.
    “Probably find a part on a different show. He’s an actor.”
    Because Sophie had been watching TV her whole life, and not just a few weeks like me, it was easier for her to watch Rishon throw his whole future away. For me it was agony.
    Rain always said that when we judge others, we’re really judging ourselves. That was the real reason Rishon upset me. How could he think his SAT scores were going to go up by themselves? How could he ignore the fact that he was about to lose his spot in college?
    It was all too familiar. As eighth grade president, I was in charge of the Halloween dance, and I was giving it the Rishon treatment. I was ignoring the whole thing, almost as if I thought it might go away.
    Then, on T & T , it all worked out for Rishon. One of Aurora’s viruses found its way into the admissions department computer at the University of Florida, wiping out half their records. All that were left indicated that Rishon was accepted. He ignored his problem—and the problem just sort of melted away.
    With a growing sense of wonder, I realized that the same thing was happening with the dance. I was still doing nothing, yet somehow, the arrangements were being made. Students would come up to me in the halls; they would sing along when I played guitar in the music room; they would join in my morning tai chi routine—and then they would volunteer to help. So many people were working on the party that I was beginning to think we were actually going to have one.
    No wonder T & T was such a popular show. It was practically an instruction manual for life.
    Garland Farm followed simple logic: you plant tomato seeds, you get tomato plants. No seeds, no tomatoes. Cause and effect. But a real school was so messy and random that solutions sometimes fell into place by sheer luck. It was almost like getting tomatoes without first planting seeds.
    I thought I’d never get used to the outside world, with its chaos and clutter. But with millions of puzzle pieces being tossed up into the air, it really did stand to reason that the occasional one would come down in the right place. That was why Rishon would go to college, and C Average would have its Halloween dance.
    Even Rain would have to admit that there was something kind of impressive about that.
    “Anderson—come over here! I need a word with you.” The words jolted me out of deep meditation. I looked up to see Mr. Kasigi glaring down at me.
    “Why haven’t you come to meet with me yet?”
    I was floored. “I did—the day I registered.”
    “Don’t play dumb with me, mister! I’m hearing talk of deejays and pizza ovens on wheels! How were you going to pay for all that?”
    “I don’t have any money.”
    He was getting red in the face. “Nobody expects you