Later that same day, I had dinner with Kurumi.
We’d finished eating, cleared the dishes, and were letting it digest, when Kurumi, who was sitting across from me sipping barley tea, suddenly looked up.
“Oh, right, Natsume. Did you find the thing?”
“The thing? Oh, that thing. Yep, just a sec.”
I headed to the front door and came back with the paper bag I’d left there. Inside were the textbooks for the summer curriculum and test questions from second term. They were all from the previous year.
Kurumi had asked me to bring them. When I told her I was going to swing by my neighborhood to pay my respects, she asked me to check and see if I still had them.
I took the tests and textbooks out of the bag and sorted them by subject on the table.
“Math, English… Wow, you’ve got every subject,” she said.
“Yeah. I double-checked before packing them up, so there shouldn’t be anything missing.”
“Nice, Natsume. You always come through!”
I’d just stuffed all of it straight into my closet, so it would’ve been hard to lose anything. But I enjoyed her compliments, so I kept that to myself.
“What do you need all this for?” I asked. “Gonna use it to prepare for your tests?”
“Ah-ha-ha, obviously not. You’re a riot.”
“How so? I don’t think I said anything funny.”
“Oh, please. Natsume, you know how we roll.”
She had a point. People who set their homework on fire and used the flames to light sparklers would see preparing for tests as a big joke. It was all a matter of perspective.
I smiled wryly, and Kurumi looked away from me and started flipping through the summer textbooks.
“You see,” she said, “I heard some sinister rumors about Saigou High’s summer lessons.”
“Of course. They’re being held at our garbage school. I can’t imagine there’s anything good about them.”
“That’s certainly true. But these rumors sounded like good fuel for an attack.”
“…Meaning?”
Kurumi put her index finger to her lips and hummed. She seemed to be picking her next words carefully.
“Apparently, summer curriculum problems are used almost verbatim on the next term’s tests.”
“…They are?”
“Oh my. I gather you hadn’t noticed?”
She put the summer textbook next to the list of test problems, lining them up side by side.
“Like right here. See the second problem on this math test? Now look at the problem on this page of the summer textbook. They’re virtually identical—this one is just slightly rephrased.”
“Yikes. You’re right. I had no idea.”
When I looked at them together, the effect was shocking.
Kurumi was right—the test had straight up copied a bunch of problems from the textbook. Every subject had matches far too close to write off as simple references. Numbers, formulas, solutions—all of it was identical. There were no twists at all. Anyone could pass these tests if they just memorized the answers in the textbook. In fact, rote memorization alone would pretty much guarantee you a perfect score.
The summer curriculum was meant to lay the groundwork for the second term. It made sense for the textbooks to have second term problems in them, and those same problems were then used on the tests. I could see it all right before my eyes.
“Natsume, since you had this stuff at home, you must have taken summer lessons last year, too. You really had no idea?”
“I was still studying my butt off, so I had no trouble solving everything myself. I didn’t even notice.”
“Hmph. Well, you don’t exactly have friends, so I suppose you wouldn’t know.”
That was an unnecessary addition, but I couldn’t deny it. I didn’t have a single friend at school.
“I guess, in hindsight, the teachers did go on about how summer classes would fully prepare us for the second term’s tests. Is this what they meant?”
“Yep, they’re telling the first-years that now. Not in so many words, of course.”
It was just like how the teachers always placed extra emphasis on material that was going to show up on the test.
So they can’t admit it, but they’re still essentially telling us what’s up. Cowards…
I compared the test questions to those in the textbook, turning it all over in my mind.
What a load of BS.
This was like handing out the test answers to anyone who attended summer classes. That might seem contradictory to our school’s meritocracy mentality, but to my mind, it made perfect sense. Grades were everything at Saigou High, but none of it was for the sake of the students.
Why did the teachers constantly nag us to study? Simple. They wanted to improve the school’s reputation so they could turn a profit.
With private schools, reputation was everything—the more students applied for admission, the more money the school made. They talked about improving grades, but all they really cared about was fleecing more families for tuition fees. The flip side of this meritocracy was pure capitalism.
Those who attended summer classes would get the same problems on their tests, and their grades would go up accordingly. That made it look like summer classes dramatically improved students’ GPAs—like the program was a resounding success. That was how Saigou High drew more customers and increased their profits.
Kurumi flipped through one of the textbooks and scowled. “I really don’t like this system. There are always students who can’t attend the summer lessons for financial reasons or whatever. And then they’re left at a huge disadvantage. It’s not right.”
“Yeah. I completely agree with you.”
Saigou High set the line for failure at half the average score. Since anyone who had attended summer lessons already knew the answers, they all scored much higher, raising the bar for a passing grade.
To exaggerate only slightly, that meant students who didn’t attend were put at an increased risk of being held back, and through no fault of their own. That was just plain unfair. And if they didn’t like it, then they could fork over the money for summer classes.
All this made it abundantly clear that the school only saw its students as bags of money.
“Yeah. the more I think about it, the more sinister it gets,” I said.
“Exactly. So what do you think? Can we use this for our next attack?”
“Mm. I like it. I have a bone to pick with this system, too.”
“Okey-dokey. That settles it! Let’s throw a rock at ’em!”
Kurumi snapped her fingers, and I nodded.
No arguments here. We wanted to focus on issues with the summer lessons right now, and the sinister overlap between the summer textbooks and the second semester tests was ideal ammo.
“How do we stage it? Any ideas?” I asked.
“I thought about it, and I figured we could reference the textbooks and create some problems very much like what will be on the tests. Then we distribute those to students free of charge.”
“Free? But what if the actual test has different problems?”
“Who cares? If SaiHigh’s summer program is truly worthwhile, attendees will be able to solve everything even if the teachers change stuff up. Then there should be no problem. Right?” Kurumi’s lips curled into a mean-spirited smile.
If the school didn’t react, it would mean a fair test where no one could buy good grades. If the school did react, it would prove how worthless the tests were. This strategy packed a good punch of irony. I liked it.
…Or, well, I supposed I still had some concerns.
“Distributing problems isn’t really an attack. It feels more like charity work.”
“Hmm. Yeah, it lacks a certain satirical edge… Fair enough! Then let’s put a header at the top, reading, ‘Second Semester Midterms Leaked?!’ or something like that.”
“‘Leaked,’ huh? Even though we made the problems up?”
“That’s what the question mark is for! We won’t be lying.”
She was suggesting the same kind of deceptive language people used in the titles of online articles and videos.
“And, uh… We could add a line casting doubt on the necessity of summer lessons. That’ll make it more obvious what we’re pissed off about.”
“I see. So while we’re handing out problems, we’ll also be stirring doubts about the school’s policies.”
With that strong a message, it would make for a provocative attack.
“Yeah, I think it’s a good plan,” I said. “To borrow your word: It’s sensational.”
“Hmm? Are you making fun of me?”
“Not at all, not at all.”
“You totally are.” She laughed and jabbed me with her elbow.
With that, our direction was set.
“Now the only question is when to carry this out and how to get the problems to the students who didn’t take summer lessons.”
“I’ve got an idea for that,” Kurumi said. “There’s a day everyone comes to school right after the Obon break, right? We’ll pass ’em out then.”
“Sounds good. I’d like everyone to see our work, if possible.”
With that settled, there was nothing else to say. All that was left was to get everything ready in time.
“Okay, then let’s look over last year’s tests and write some problems!”
“Sure. I’ll grab the textbooks from this year, too.”
We stayed up late that night, scowling at our textbooks and writing up test problems.
Right around midnight, I got to a good stopping place, glanced at the clock, and thought, In a way, we kind of wound up using this stuff to prepare for our tests after all.