AGENT W | ✓

The oppressive scent of old textbooks and stale ambition hung heavy in the air, a familiar backdrop to the grand charade I called 'school.' My pencil, an unwilling prop in this tedious play, danced aimlessly across the page, tracing the faint outline of a lion that stubbornly insisted on resembling a fish. From my meticulously chosen front-row seat – a strategic deception, as any true operative knows the back is where the real work gets done – I surveyed the room.

My classmates, a flock of oblivious puppets, read, wrote, coughed, and sneezed with a predictable rhythm. It was a monotonous symphony, punctuated only by the infuriating poke of a pencil on my shoulder. "You, pstt." The voice belonged to the boy behind me, a creature of boundless insolence. My carefully cultivated meekness warred with an instinctive urge to inflict anatomical damage. Patience, Jamie, patience.

"So, what's the answer to #28, huh?" he chirped, his smirk visible even without a direct glance. I stifled a sigh, feigning a stutter. "...A-aren't we supposed to do the problems... by our selves?" He scoffed, his pencil still a persistent irritant. "Seriously? You're smart. Just do the damn problem for me." And then, the kicker, nudged by his friends: "And maybe #29-45 as well." I resisted the urge to roll my eyes so hard they'd vanish into my skull. This, I thought, was going to be a long day.