It was an ordinary day at Geiger Elementary School, a stately, beige-brick building. The school was bustling with activity. Shaped in an U on its side, it’s Upper and Lower halls were calm and quiet, as usual. The smells of the day’s lunch filled the halls. Cheers from the children playing on the playground could be heard through the window. All was right in the world.

One day in August 2017, my math teacher, Ms. Brown, announced we’d have a test. “Be sure to study for the test!” she said. Boy, I wished I’d listened to her advice!

-Test Tomorrow

-STUDY!

When I got home, I said hello to my mom and told her about the test tomorrow. The whole time from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM, I was playing on a very realism-centered Minecraft server. I should’ve known that being able to play that long, or, really, at all, on a day other than Friday, Saturday, or Sunday was too good to be true. “Studying will be a piece of cake!” I thought that easy studying would work in sixth grade. Needless to say, it did not. “I just gotta do the same thing I’ve been doing for the past six years; skimming my notes. The only difference is that I just gotta do it with a textbook. I can speed through and get back right back on that server!” It’s a good thing I play on single player now instead of that server. I can build what I want, when I want, but that’s another story.

The next day, as I walked into Science class, I remembered that test! “I should’ve studied harder,” I thought. “That dumb server can wait!” As I took that test, I felt nervous. Thoughts raced through my head at the speed of light. “There wasn’t anything about a barrier between the troposphere and the stratosphere, I think. Was there?” “Well, let’s think. This can’t be the right answer. This...can? No, wait. That can’t...” Another self-conversation snippet: “This and this are completely different, so one of them must be right.  No, they aren’t! The ionosphere and thermosphere are completely different! IT’S THE SAME THING! NO, IT’S NOT!” Man, I dropped the ball!