By the time Ren got home from school, the house looked less like a place where people lived and more like the site of a small-scale academic catastrophe.
The moment he stepped through the front door, his eyes landed on the dining table—and stopped.
Leonel's belongings had completely taken over the surface.
Books were stacked in unstable towers. Handwritten notes were scattered in every direction. Loose papers, opened reviewers, and half-finished worksheets lay sprawled across the table like the remains of a battle no one had won. Highlighters, pens, and correction tape had been abandoned in random places, as if their owner had fought valiantly against the merciless boss known as Final Exams and had fallen before he could finish the raid.
Then came the sound of metal crashing from the kitchen.
Clang!
Leonel jerked awake so violently that one of his pens rolled off the table.
