Published: April 10th 2025, 1:00:02 pm
Amelia knew better than to protest against the idea. It sounded like the girl who suggested it was teasing, anyway. The only surefire way to turn it into a reality was to react in a way that encouraged them to have more fun at her expense. Besides, Amelia had already been hazed; the previous weekend with Summer and company had been thoroughly humiliating, though there was always the chance that avoiding them all this time pressed a ‘reset’ button of sorts where her status as Summer’s bitch was concerned.
The safest option felt like deferring to the leader. “Whatever you want, Ms. Summer.” If she were actually given the choice at this point, Amelia would have voted for one of those events. While she hadn’t been interested in them before, they were currently a less daunting option than doing dares in a dorm room with a group of teenagers. As tangled up as she was in this ‘transfer student’ life, she was still aware that it was inappropriate to hang out with the very girls she was supposed to be teaching.
As Summer thought about it for a moment, Amelia settled on the potential option of bailing if things ever got to a point where she wasn’t comfortable. While it would undo the recent progress towards the only real strategy she had, she also wanted to avoid any awkwardness or future trouble.
“Hmm, dares do sound kind of fun,” Summer said, “But the new girl also needs to prove that she can be useful to us. Millie. What’s your best subject?”
Amelia hesitated, both because she hadn’t expected a question like that and from how basically every section of the aptitude test retake had still been challenging after a week of brushing up on the material. “Umm, Math, I guess?” She wouldn’t necessarily call the class a strength of hers, though the algebra and geometry formulas had been coming back to her a lot more quickly than the rest.
“Okay, then you can do everyone’s math homework,” Summer said, “You all have yours, right?”
Wait, but- That was cheating! Westridge had a super strict policy on that, for both parties where the dishonest act was concerned. As Amelia processed the casual demand for something that wasn’t casual in the slightest, more than half the girls noted that they didn’t have anything like that on them. A lot of students opted to swing by the dorms after the last class of the day to drop off their stuff before extracurriculars, dinner, and so on.
Summer just shrugged. “Then go get it. Your rooms aren’t that far, right?”
As soon as they realized the idea for Amelia involved their required participation as well, the girls scrambled to get up and make the short trip. Content to keep bossing the new girl around with a smaller audience, Summer retrieved her all-subject binder from where she kept it stashed in her shoulder bag. “You can start with mine,” she said, “Not that it matters.”
The whole point of the system they had in place with the aptitude test, including tutors and remedial content, was so students in the same grade wouldn’t be divided by classes of varying difficulty. Regardless of how much overlap the present girls had where their schedules were concerned, they would all be given the same assignments and have the same tests on the horizon. Normally, that meant a girl could study with anyone else in her grade. Or, in this case, everyone could outsource their homework to a single student.
Of course, Summer and company were really only hurting themselves by making Amelia do their work. By not working through problems with the formulas they were taught most recently, they were going to have to study that much harder later on. For the time being, Summer didn’t seem to care about that; she was only worried about not getting caught. “Don’t make it obvious, Millie. Match my handwriting, and shoot for an A- like I usually get. Same with everyone else. Look through their old assignments, figure out what grade they would get, and mess up on purpose to make it happen.”
Was she assuming I could get a perfect grade if I tried? The academy teachers were so picky, to the point where missing a step or diverging from the exact way it was taught would be points off. In order to do what Summer wanted, I would have to do each problem all the way through at least twice to make sure I knew precisely what I was doing, and then figure out how to create different imperfections in every girl’s assignment to avoid getting caught.
Knowing better than to hesitate or argue when this evening in general was my ‘last chance’ according to Summer, I simply moved towards her desk where I assumed I’d be working. For all I knew, this could just be a test. Once I was done, the girls could always do the assignment themselves if they didn’t like my answers and/or if my forging of their handwriting wasn’t good enough.
However, being excluded from the coming activity wasn’t all Summer had in mind for me. “Wait.” The simple demand had to be for me, when the remaining girls were busy finding the referenced math assignment. Crossing her arms in the familiar pose, Summer said, “Don’t get too comfortable. I don’t think it’s fair that everyone else is going to be taking dares. I’d hate for you to feel left out.”
I was fine being left out. Sitting on the sidelines and not participating in a game with girls like this was the best I could have hoped for compared to what I went through the last time I tagged along, even if the tradeoff was academic dishonesty by my hand.
Summer didn’t feel the same way. “How about this, Millie?” she said, pausing for suspense and possibly to figure out the specifics of what she was going to have me do if she hadn’t planned ahead for this, “I dare you to take off your bra and underwear. You can have them back when you’re done.”