Chapter 0 Background, Last Weeks of Summer

Chapter 1 Background, last weeks of Summer

Marconi Alexander Phillips is breathing in his last breaths of air as a fifth grader. In five weeks he will enter The Opportunity Academy of Everything, a private school where they teach the best and brightest. Marconi has been an average student all his life, he's been a straight B+, A- student and has lived his entire life in the United States. His mother is a second generation chinese parent and his father is an American. Currently he's in Michigan catching polliwogs at the local pond. In his head he's thinking about the cartoon show marathon about school and patrol guards. Around 5:00 he starts heading home as it's getting dark.

"Hey Marconi, dinner's ready in an hour" his mother says.

Marconi runs up the stairs and without looking back, he yells "Thanks Mom".

Marconi's room is filled with video game memorabilia, in one corner of the room is covered with 6-bit video games and an old NES controller. His open closet shows a slight sliver of a fake swashbuckler. On his ceiling is covered with half finished models of aircraft and the solar system. Marconi opens his drawer and pulls out his reliable Winnie the Pooh Pjs.

Summer's almost gone but Marconi isn't thinking about that, he's looking forward to playing some video games on his computer and watching a few gaming videos.

Marconi boots up his old PC and in a spot of boredom decides to open up his email. He's scrolling through and an unread email with the subject line "Class Enrollment, First Come First Serve" pops up. Luckily he's only late by three hours, it was sent around 2:30.

Marconi quickly opens it up, and to his surprise he's been enrolled in the Opportunity Academy of Everything. It's his local private school, somehow his parents got him in and he got really lucky in the school lottery. The cost is 8,000 dollars a month, a large amount of money for his middle class family.

Luckily Marconi is an only child and both his parents are working. His mom is a software engineer and his father is an electrical engineer. They are both liberal parents and they make a decent amount of money. Marconi clicks on the link to the google form and out pops a class selection, the instructions are (choose wisely because the classes you take can't be changed, you must take four years of English and math as well as two arts classes + one Sport) and out pops a giant spreadsheet of classes.

Advanced Math, Regular Math, College Math pops up for 9th graders. Marconi is an average student and he's been average all his life so he chooses Advanced Math, his B+, A- requirements are too low for College Math for ninth graders and too high for Regular Math. He finally chooses all the regular courses for an average ninth grader and clicks submit. He doesn't think about it and goes back to playing a 6-bit video game and looking at walkthroughs.

45 minutes pass