Chapter 3
As soon as we got home with our test results, Mom eagerly snatched my score report to examine it closely.
The more she looked, the wider her eyes got. By the end, her voice had risen to a shriek:
“How is this possible?! Your sister should have been first in the school!”
I pushed up my glasses and stared at her expressionlessly:
“Emma is first in the school. First from the bottom, that is.”
Just as I finished speaking, Emma came bursting through the front door and threw herself into Mom’s arms, wailing:
“Mom! How could this happen?! How?! Wasn’t the white cat supposed to tell me which answers were right? Why did I still end up last in the school?!”
I couldn’t help but laugh coldly:
“You’re really stupid, aren’t you? The most important part of the SAT is the essay section. Even if the white cat helped you ace the multiple choice, what good does that do if you can’t write a single coherent sentence?”
In my past life, my weakness had been the multiple choice section. I always lost points I shouldn’t have there.
That’s why I had chosen the white cat to help me identify the correct answers.
But for Emma, who couldn’t even string a sentence together, the white cat was clearly useless.
Mom didn’t have much education herself, so she couldn’t follow all this back-and-forth.
She just defaulted to defending Emma as usual:
“Did you steal your sister’s score? Haven’t I told you before that as the older sister, you need to let your sister win sometimes?”
Right, let my sister win.
Mom had been drilling this idea into my head since I was little.
All the good food and drinks had to go to Emma. Emma got to wear the pretty clothes first, I only got her hand-me-downs.
Emma got the beautiful princess-themed bedroom, while I was squeezed into the dark basement.
In the end, I even had to give up my SAT scores and my bright future to Emma.
What more did they want from me?
Thinking about how I had listened to Mom in my past life, only to end up with such a miserable fate, I couldn’t help but feel like a complete fool.
“What, should I give her my brain too? It’s not my fault she’s an idiot,” I shot back mercilessly.
Mom was stunned for a moment, then exploded in rage:
“How dare you talk back to me like that! I raised you to this age, and this is how you repay me? You’re not allowed to sleep tonight! Kneel in the living room and reflect on your mistakes!”
If this was my past life, I would have been trembling in fear by now, obediently kneeling down.
But I wasn’t going to be so stupid this time. I stared Mom straight in the eye:
“You raised me? Have you forgotten that I’ve been working to support myself since I was 14? Your new clothes and new phone were all bought with my scholarship money!”
Mom’s face paled. Knowing she was in the wrong, she could only resort to unreasonable arguments:
“I’m your mother! I gave birth to you, so your money is my money! I can use it however I want!”
“If you can’t accept that, then get out and live on your own!”
She finished with a smug look, clearly expecting me to apologize.
After all, without this home, I would end up on the streets.
But she never expected me to calmly nod and say:
“As it happens, the school has offered me a spot in the national math olympiad. They’re providing a dorm for me to focus on studying. Thanks for letting me leave, Mom.”
“What?! You got into the national math olympiad?!”
Emma, who had been watching from the sidelines, couldn’t hold back anymore. Her eyeballs looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets.
I waved the invitation letter in my hand:
“What’s wrong, never seen one before? I suppose the only thing you’ve ever held is a report card with the lowest score in school.”
This was a fatal blow to Emma.
After all, if I won an award at the national math olympiad, I could get into any top university without even taking the SATs.
“How did your grades improve so quickly…” Mom eyed me suspiciously.
I had been waiting for her to ask this:
“I have to thank you for buying me that cat. I discovered that if I imitate the cat by crawling around on the ground meowing every day, I always do well on tests the next day!”
As expected, Emma’s eyes lit up when she heard this.
Sure enough, the next morning, I was woken up by Mom’s shouts:
“Why are you still sleeping?! Quick, come see your sister! She… has she gone crazy?”