Every year, a national volunteering club for high schoolers hosts a national convention. To get into the national convention, the participating individual must obtain one of the top five spots in their selected subject in the state convention. To participate in the state convention, that individual must also obtain the top two spots of their grade level. If a participant made it to the national convention, it would be great for their resume.
Of course, being the best artist in our grade by far, I submitted my drawing and painting and was nominated as one of the two participants for drawing and painting. However, I also wanted to participate in the trivia competition as well, that was also part of the state and national convention.
It all started because I was bored. That's the honest truth. I was already locked in for Drawing and Painting, and everyone knew I'd cruise through that without blinking. But the trivia competition? That was something different. Unexpected. Random. And for some reason, I wanted to try.
I had zero business signing up. I didn't even know what kind of trivia they were going to ask—world history, pop culture, science, presidents, state birds? No clue.
But the kid who won last year was this cocky junior named Aadi who wore sweater vests and corrected teachers when they mispronounced French words. I couldn't stand him. He wasn't mean or anything. He was just… unbearable in that quiet "I'm-better-than-you-but-I-won't-say-it" kind of way.
And honestly, I hated it when people were so mediocre at something but thought they're great.
So I signed up.
Two nights before the competition, I went full blackout mode. I stayed up until 5AM both nights, skipping games, skipping scrolling, skipping sleep. I had tabs open like I was researching for a dissertation: U.S. history timelines, Nobel Prize winners, Greek mythology, weird state laws, periodic table facts, Oscar winners, everything. I was eating instant noodles while watching a documentary about Cold War politics on 2x speed. I had flashcards on my phone. I had a Word doc labeled "USELESS STUFF THAT MIGHT WIN THIS."
By the morning of the competition, my brain felt like it was overheating. But I walked into that cafeteria-turned-arena ready to destroy.
It was five rounds. Four schools. Buzzers at every table. Ten people per team. I was one of the ten, but I didn't stay that way.
The first round? Easy. I got every question I buzzed in for. Second round? I started drawing glances from teachers. Third round? My teammates literally stopped reaching for the buzzer and just let me take over.
"What element has the atomic number 26?"
Buzz.
"Iron."
"What U.S. president served non-consecutive terms?"
Buzz.
"Grover Cleveland."
"Who painted The School of Athens?
Buzz.
"Raphael."
By round five, even Aadi was staring at me like I'd grown a second head.
I was in a different zone. Not because I was naturally gifted, not because I had some photographic memory or whatever, but because I wanted to prove something. I wanted to see if raw effort could beat years of walking around like you own the school.
And it did.
We won. District wide champions. I got called a "one-man Wikipedia" and a "cheat code" and a bunch of other weird compliments that I'll pretend didn't feel good.
As I left the room, Aadi caught up to me and said, "I didn't know you were into trivia."
I looked at him and smiled. "I wasn't. I just learned it all in two nights."
He blinked. No words. Just silence.
And that silence?
Felt better than any trophy.
The state convention was held in Central City—somewhere between "middle-of-nowhere Georgia" and "just enough hotels to host events like this." We took a yellow school bus down with the rest of the qualifiers. Drawing and Painting would be held on Saturday, but the trivia finals were Friday night in the auditorium of some community college with flickering lights and busted ceiling tiles.
It was the kind of place that smelled like coffee and dust. That weird smell of ambition and neglect.
As we checked into our hotel, I kept my headphones on, trying to tune out the chaos of students running down hallways and teachers trying to act like chaperones instead of babysitters. I didn't really care about the hotel. I cared about the win.
Friday afternoon, I was walking around the convention center lobby with a slice of vending machine pizza in my hand when I overheard two seniors from a school in Macon talking near the snack table.
"Bro, remember last year when that team from North Ridge cheated during trivia?" one of them said, loud enough to cut through the low hum of the room.
The other guy laughed. "Yeah. They wrote answers on their wrists and had some dude fake a nosebleed to sneak answers under the door. Still lost in finals too."
I paused, pretending to sip my soda, listening just enough to catch the important bits.
"Whole team got disqualified," the first one said. "Their rep was trashed after that."
The second guy whistled. "I heard they still get clowned for it back home. Like, some real lifetime embarrassment type stuff."
I didn't say anything. Just walked past and took a seat by myself near a giant fake potted plant.
Here's the thing—I didn't cheat. Not this time. I could've. But I didn't. I earned that win at school. I studied harder than I ever had in my life.
However, I can't be sure that everyone else doesn't, especially people in my school who always tried to win no matter what the method was, and plus, in the state convention, everyone is on their own, unlike competing in groups at Freedom High School.
However, I can't be sure that everyone else doesn't, especially people in my school who always tried to win no matter what the method was. And plus, in the state convention, everyone competes solo—no teams, no safety net. Just you and the buzzer. You mess up once, you're out. You blink, someone else gets the point. You stall, and they run you over.
And I could feel it already—this wasn't some clean, fair fight. It never is when there's something on the line that looks good on paper. I saw kids in suits whispering to each other in hotel elevators, writing tiny notes on wristbands, hiding cheat sheets in water bottle labels. One dude had a smartwatch disguised as a normal Casio.
Everyone was doing something.
The difference is—they were sloppy.
Me? I wasn't going to use a smartwatch or a piece of paper that could fall out of my pocket.
I had something better. Something no one else would even think of.
I used art.
Thursday night, before the competition, I drew a design on my thighs using a fine-tip black pen. It looked like abstract geometric shapes—lines, dashes, swirls, arrows—but each stroke represented a chunk of information: years of major wars, famous treaties, key historical figures tied to specific dates, chemical symbols, capital cities, obscure world records, everything.
It was coded like visual shorthand. Like how musicians read sheet music, or how I sketched in symbols instead of full landscapes. To everyone else, it was just some weird, artsy doodle.
I wore ripped jeans with strategic holes and sat just far enough away from the proctor. Every time I shifted my leg or leaned back, I could glance at the "design" without suspicion. Even if someone saw it, they'd just think I was eccentric—"the artsy kid doing his artsy thing."
Halfway through the trivia finals, I realized I wasn't just keeping up. I was crushing it.
Other kids fumbled. Some got caught with their sad little index cards. A girl got disqualified for whispering something into her sleeve. One guy was so nervous he forgot his own name when introducing himself.
Me? I stayed calm. Cool. I made it look easy.
Question after question: nailed it.
By the end of the night, they announced the top five scorers in the entire state.
I was first.
Not tied. Not barely.
First.
People clapped. Some were confused. I heard murmurs. I saw a few eyes narrow, like they were trying to figure out how the artsy guy from Freedom High outscored prep school robots who probably practiced trivia with their parents since fifth grade.
But no one found out.
No one could.
Because what I did? It wasn't obvious. It wasn't careless. It was designed. Like everything I make—coded, layered, hidden in plain sight.
Cheating?
Sure.
But I was the best cheater in the room. No question about it.
Even though I took first place, I ended up withdrawing from the national convention. Not because I couldn't win—I knew I could. With the methods I had, it would've been easy. Predictable.
But that was exactly the problem.
I knew not everyone at nationals would be cheating. Some of them would actually care—studying for the love of it, competing because it meant something. And I didn't want to step onto that stage and ruin it for them. I'd already proved my point.
Winning the state convention was more than enough for my resume. I didn't need another plastic trophy or another applause from people who didn't really know me.
So I walked away—quietly, cleanly.
Because just this once, winning wasn't worth the cost.