There’s no manual to study, and no one right answer — to anything

T had no idea why Mrs. Goldstein asked me to stay after class that day.If I’m remembering right, she sat down in the desk next to me, auburn sheitel in a side pony, proffering a folderful of neatly printed sheets.

“Wait... you want me to do extra work? For no reason?”

I was genuinely puzzled.

It was ninth grade, early in the year. I was 13. What 13-year-old wants to spend their time — their free time — on Chumash class enrichment, for a measly percentage of a grade point?

Don’t get me wrong. I worked hard. Yes, I did the best I could, and my best was pretty, pretty good, if I may say so myself. But 100% was enough for me. (Okay, let’s be real — 110%.) The class material was enough for me. The status quo was enough for me. I didn’t need to do more.

Not when there were friends to call and books to read and, well, plenty of other things I enjoyed way more than dissecting a Rashi.

I didn’t know it then, but another 13-year-old was smart enough to accept the enrichment offer. And the day of reckoning came senior year when, with calculations down to percentage she’b’percentage points, Rachel Kohn was crowned valedictorian.

There wasn’t actually a tangible difference — we both spoke at graduation, and the school even gave both of us the “v” title in the program.

But it stung. I’m not gonna lie.

It stung because I knew. Deep down, beneath my meticulous, capture-every-word class notes that everyone wanted to borrow, behind my exhaustively researched reports that led to boringly reliable report cards — and under the piles and piles of exotic leaves I amassed for my tenth grade leaf report — I hadn’t done everything.

Something was missing.

A teeny tiny option that I didn’t take.

An option I could have benefitted from, that could have made me better, had I just been mature enough to see that at the time... I’d said no.

Maybe that’s why nobody asked me, later on.

Nobody gave me the chance to say no.