Kill Switch by Penelope Douglas

Winter
Seven Years Ago
“Ugh, I hate this!” I whisper-yelled, yanking out my earbuds,
tossing them onto my bed, and stopping the audio-text.
No one used algebra.
No one.
I’d have to sign up for tutoring or something. I needed to
keep my grades up or my father would pull me out of Thunder
Bay and send me back to Montreal.
Why was I having such a hard time with this? All my other
classes—no problem. I mean, math had always been hard, but
the teacher… She talked fast and relied a lot on her
Smartboard, projector, and all the other little gadgets that were
of no use to me.
And it was pretty clear she didn’t want to change what
worked for twenty other kids for the sake of one. I thought my
mom could talk to her—help her get a clue—but I didn’t want
my father to find out. He hated me being an inconvenience as
much as I did.
I pushed my laptop, calculator, and braille keyboard away
and crashed back onto the bed, taking my earbuds with me. I
plugged them into my phone, found my music app, and