"Separate," Maya repeated, drawing a tiny worm in the soil. "That's a good word."
"Kid, who built this?"
For three weeks, they met in the school library after hours. Leo was terrified. The fluorescent lights, the sound of lockers slamming, the sheer proximity of other teenagers—it was a sensory assault. Maya was his translator. When a jock called him "homeskillet," she replied, "That’s original. Did you think of that during practice?" When a teacher questioned if he "really understood" the scientific method, Maya pulled out his 200-page lab notebook, filled with meticulous data from his own farm's test plots. home student 2013
"I need a partner," Leo said, his voice flat from disuse. "And the prize is five hundred dollars. I'll split it. You don't have to do any of the science." "Separate," Maya repeated, drawing a tiny worm in the soil