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Tiara felt more than happy that day. It was the best time of her life because she had started school and finally passed her English exam! She had never passed an English exam before. Tiara always had difficulty using English words since she came from a Chinese family, and they spoke Chinese at home. It felt strange growing up in a household where everyone spoke Chinese and living in a Chinese neighborhood where everyone else did too. There weren't any special Chinese schools in northern England at that time. Tiara’s family was the only middle-class family in the neighborhood that could afford tuition for an English school. Her dad worked as a truck driver, and her mom was a hotel cleaner. They had Tiara when they were quite young; her mom was 17 when she got pregnant, and her dad was 20. They worked hard and saved enough to send Tiara and her younger sister to an English school, even though they didn’t have to pay much for her sister because everyone recognized her as a genius.
Tiara was always behind compared to her sister Chiara. Chiara was born to be a mathematician, physicist, medical student, and sportsperson all at once. As children, Chiara learned to walk first, finished her ABCs first, and completed potty training first. Tiara was a slow child, her mother always said; she took her time with everything. She needed training wheels for a long time before she could stand up on her own. Chiara, on the other hand, did everything flawlessly; things just came easier for her.
Now they were in fifth grade and in the same class, even though Chiara was two years younger and had many friends. Chiara was always a chatterbox and talked about the most interesting things. That’s why people liked her so much. She had never failed a class, while Tiara’s parents were always called to school because of Tiara’s poor grades. The teachers were confused since they knew Chiara was her sister. They discussed the girls' learning environments, wondering how two siblings from the same household could have such different intelligence levels.
One night, Tiara overheard her parents talking. They were worried they might have to drop one of them out of school because of financial instability and rising inflation. They managed to pay for both girls because Chiara had a scholarship, but they were reconsidering if they could afford to send Tiara to secondary school.
Determined, Tiara decided she was going to be as smart as Chiara, no matter what. She didn’t want to be a burden and wanted to stand on her own feet. The night before, she studied all night, memorizing vocabulary and writing down grammar rules over and over again. She barely slept, finishing her last vocabulary word at 3 AM and falling asleep with a smile, even though she had to wake up early at 6:30.
She walked proudly to school with Chiara by her side, knowing she was prepared. She got a 75 on her exam—a much better grade than failing. She couldn’t wa