Independence

Chapter 0124

At 8:00 am, there were already plenty of people out and about at the largest farmers market in Lumberville.

“Mr. Sutton! Here for some fish today?”

“Yes. Do you have any sea bass?” Lionel Sutton asked.

“Of course! I’ve set some aside especially for you,” the fishmonger, Mary Zimmer, said. She then took his selected cut and cleaned it up for him. “Here you go!”

Lionel took out his phone and asked, “How much is this?”

“Oh, it’s free of charge. You can have it on the house! You’ve helped my son, Flynn, a lot at school…”

“That won’t do. You’re running a business, so you have to accept my payment,” Lionel said, immediately transferring 30 dollars to her. That had to be more than enough to pay for the fish he was buying.

Mary was rather astonished when she heard the r. Hey, you didn’t have to…”

fication on her phone.”

Lionel answered, “I’d feel guilty if I didn’t pay for this. See you next time! I’m going to buy some onions now.”

“Oh, but Mr. Sutton, wait a minute…”

“Is there something I can help you with?”

“Oh, it’s something like this,” Mary said, straightening out her apron rather nervously.

“I heard that there are a number of spots for Earnest High students at the Physics Olympiad. I even heard that the winner of the international gold medal will be guaranteed a spot in places like Bedford College and Queenstone College!”

Lionel nodded. “There are a few spots reserved for Earnest High, yes.”

“Do you think Flynn can get one of the spots?”

1/3

歷

Lionel fell silent for a short while. “Mrs. Waterson, I think you need to

understand that Olympiads like these require students to have exceptional knowledge, even more than what’s taught in books, to ace the tests and

compete with one another.

“In other words, the standard of the Physics Olympiad questions is a lot higher than the questions students are used to in classes and exams.

“While it’s true that there are a few spots reserved for us in every subject, we usually only select students who are exceptionally brilliant in these individual subjects with a strong learning ability and competitive thinking.“

Mary looked anxious. “But Flynn’s a good student! He’s always among the top 20 scorers for his year at school. Is he still not considered brilliant in his studies with a strong learning ability?”

“Mrs. Waterson, you need to understand what I’m saying,” Lionel explained patiently. “Firstly, top scorers have a good overall performance in their exams across the subjects. However, only students with exceptional results in that particular subject will be chosen.

“Secondly, the school has already determined the list tudents who will be going for the Olympiads, so there is also nothing else that I can do about it.”

“Is that so… Then never mind,” Mary said, waving at Lionel with a forced smile on her face.

“See you around. I’m going off to another store now.”

“Alright. Come back next time!”

However, as soon as Lionel was out of sight, the smile on Mary’s face immediately dropped. She spat on the ground and said, “What’s with all the bullshit about being good in just one particular subject? Flynn is brilliant in all of his subjects. That idiot must be blind to not have seen it in him!

“How could he say that the school already determined the list and there was nothing he could do about it? What a faker…”

“Mrs. Waterson? Why are you mumbling to the fish? Who made you mad like that?” one of the other vendors asked. “I just saw Mr. Sutton walked toward the

2/3

other end. I thought about asking him about my daughter’s studies too. You know, Millie?”

“Forget about it. He thinks that Flynn’s studies are terrible. Why would he even spare your daughter a glance when she’s always at the bottom of the class?”

“What’s wrong?”

Mary pulled her lips in a thin line. “He said Flynn didn’t qualify to join the Physics Olympiad. Hmph! The whole city knows that his daughter took part in all the Olympiads there was to offer last time, like Physics, Chemistry, Computing… How could he say such a thing about my son?

“Put plainly, he’s the kind of person who won’t help anyone else get into a good college just because he wants his daughter to be the only one who did it!”

“Mrs. Waterson, you should watch your words. Mr. Sutton isn’t a person like

that!”

“I don’t care what kind of person he is! He doesn’t want to let my son join because he doesn’t want anyone else to be better than him! So what if he thinks that way and has a daughter who went to Bedford College? She still never came home for years. I bet she’s already forgotten about her parents!

“I even heard that his oh–so–brilliant daughter quit her masters‘ after getting her degree and even refused to find a job!”