Imani glanced around. Cole was drawing a tiny scoreboard in his worksheet corner. Rohan watched her. Lila nodded once, almost invisible.
"Okay," Imani said.
She read the margin line aloud. A few students frowned as if she had broken a rule about tone. Ms. Orth smiled with something like relief.
"Feedback systems that require comfort first often protect the powerful," Ms. Orth said carefully. "We can practice clarity without waiting for ease."
After advisory Sutton said, "You turn everything into a speech."
"You turn everything into a complaint about speeches," Lila replied.
Imani walked away before the exchange became a sport. She was learning another skill: not every bait deserved a hook.
That evening she told Rhea about advisory. Rhea laughed once, short. "Courageous conversations. Did they provide hazard pay?"
"Just worksheets."
"Of course." Rhea sobered. "I'm proud of the margin note. Also: you don't owe them curriculum improvement as unpaid labor. Share when you choose. Not because the school needs a mascot for integrity."
Imani flinched at mascot. The word landed near an old bruise. "Do I seem like that?"
"You seem like a child with a spine," Rhea said. "Institutions love to borrow spines and call it culture. We loan carefully."
---
March brought a small crisis that was not about math and therefore tested whether October had taught anyone anything.
During a group project in science—honest difficulty, no traps—Imani's lab partner, a quiet girl named Elise with bitten nails and excellent graphing habits, accidentally deleted a shared data table. Elise panicked. Sutton, two benches over, said, "Maybe if some people weren't so intense about being perfect, accidents wouldn't feel like death."
The comment was aimed at the air and at Imani both.
Imani felt heat rise. She wanted to snap. She also wanted to finish the lab. She looked at Elise's face—white with shame—and chose.
"We can rebuild from the notebook raw counts," Imani said. "It'll take twenty minutes. I'll help. Sutton, if you have a time-saving idea, put it on the bench. If you don't, stop narrating."
Elise whispered, "I'm sorry."
"It was an accident," Imani said. "Accidents aren't character."