章 50: Homo Sapiens

Jasper stopped in front of the door. It looked as hideous as he remembered and the boy decided to change up his usual style. He came prepared when he knew he would be facing a bunch of punks. Compared to his meek self, these boys wouldn't think twice about giving him a wedgie¹ and hanging him by his underwear on the school fence if they thought they could.

The gardener's son tousled his neatly combed hair and unbuttoned the first two buttons on his shirt before untucking his shirt. The boy also slung his bag over one shoulder before raising his leg and kicking the door open.

As expected, a dirty duster fell from above to where Jasper would've been if he walked in the normal way. Unfazed by the 'hospitality' of his students, Jasper stepped over the fallen duster as if it wasn't there in the first place. The classroom was dark and the boys were silent. All eyes were on him and Jasper stopped in the middle, taking time to observe the state of the room before deciding that they needed a change.

With all eyes on him, the boy strolled towards the curtains and tore them down so that sunlight could filter into the room before opening the windows wide so that they could have some natural breeze. The chairs and tables were all pushed towards the side and back of the class by the delinquents and Jasper didn't want to put them all back by himself. There were sixteen boys in the room and about forty tables. Most of the tables were rusted and broken but there should be more than enough for the boys to study.

"Grab and functioning table and chair from the class and get ready. I'm giving a pop quiz. Whoever can get seven out of ten questions right can skip class for today."

There was tension and nobody moved initially. Jasper was patient. He didn't want to boss these boys around too much. This classroom wasn't his territory, after all. Eventually, the leader of the group moved, and one by one, the boys followed his lead. They took about fifteen minutes to settle down and Jasper didn't even bother with what these boys knew or didn't know. Each test paper was randomised by him. He had a set of fifty questions that he mixed and matched. The questions were all from the upper primary levels and the trickiest of the lot.

For the first five minutes after Jasper handed the test, nobody attempted any of the questions after writing their names and the date. Some tapped their feet while others tapped their pencils. At the back of his head, Jasper wanted to slap every single one of them. How did they manage to get this far without knowing basic math? Multiplication word problems aren't difficult! Calculating the area of a circle is only a single line formula! These boys had better be kidding.

Ten minutes passed and some of the boys had given up, choosing to nap instead. Initially, the test had a fifteen-minute time limit but seeing as none of these boys could answer a single question, Jasper decided to end it early and not waste any more precious time.

Jasper took a quick look at the test scripts as he collected them and tried not to flip the table. It was difficult. Even when Alex was having her blonde moment, it never made him this frustrated. How could such dumb humans exist? As Homo sapiens who survived the evolution and avoided extinction by adapting to the environment and ruling the strong with their wits, how can these fools be deserving of the title as the same species? It's simply too ridiculous!

"I'm disappointed," Jasper told the class.

Nobody was impressed. In fact, some even rolled their eyes and yawned.

"Told you it would be like this," the delinquent leader smirked. "We're hopeless."

Jasper grit his teeth and was about to tear the papers up when he saw someone still scribbling answers at the back of the class. The sound of a pen scratching on the table's surface was pleasing and Jasper really hoped this boy wasn't an aspiring artist.

He peered over the shoulder of the busy student who was filling in the last blank. Jasper took note of his name. Apparently Jeremy Loh wasn't too dumb. He got one question wrong as a result of carelessness but everything else was correct. Still, he couldn't accurately gauge the boy's potential as these are questions way below what these boys should be dealing with.

"I'm done," Jeremy handed his paper in and Jasper nodded.

"Question eight was wrong due to a sign operation error but everything else is correct."

There was a wave of murmur after Jasper's announcement and the stand-in teacher allowed them to talk about it for a minute before telling Jeremy that he could leave the class if he wanted to. "It's going to be a crash course today for the rest of them. You don't have to stay."

Jeremy smirked. "No, I think I want to stay. Let's see how good you are. I have a bet with Jinru, after all."

Jasper blinked. Who was Jinru again? he glanced down at the papers to look for the boy with the name. Wen Jinru attempted the first question but was stuck on the second step of the problem. Apart from addition and subtraction, it appears as if the boy couldn't understand multiplication or division too well.

"What? Got a problem?" Jinru scowled. Jasper immediately recognised him as the leader of the delinquents.

"Not at all," he smiled. "Algebra is going to be a lot easier than what you guys are struggling with."

Nobody believed Jasper who sighed and tossed his papers into the trash.

"Listen up! From tomorrow onwards, you're all going to bring your calculators to class. Who cares if you don't know how to add or divide... all you have to do is pass the test. You just need to know how to use the calculator and get the answers."

Nobody knew how to react to that declaration. Jasper clearly overestimated the power of a calculator. So what if it could help them add, subtract, multiply and divide? Algebra was a bunch of nonsense X and Y equations that made absolutely no sense!

Seeing the sceptical looks on their faces, Jasper started writing from the top left of the whiteboard. It was what he understood about algebra all condensed into one very huge cheat sheet that he designed the night before.

If these numbskulls were bad at understanding concepts, then he would have to drill them into their brains.

Nobody spoke as they watched the scribbles infect the entire board. In less than ten minutes, there was not a single spot on that huge whiteboard that wasn't covered in some kind of formula or working.

"Memorise this in two weeks and you'll pass the topical test." I will come again tomorrow morning and you will be writing down as many formulas as you can on a blank piece of paper. Class dismissed, it's lunchtime for me."

The delinquents didn't react in time as Jasper packed up before leaving. Utterly stunned, they looked at each other dumbly.

Jeremy sighed. "Shall we start?"

Begrudgingly, the delinquents started copying it on their foolscap pads. It was said in olden times that if you couldn't remember something, you will definitely remember it after writing it a thousand times. That was exactly what Jinru suggested and nobody questioned his logic as they started copying the first set of ten.