Sigmund sat on his desk, writing the correct solutions of math problems onto paper.

It was not a hard task, it was just tedious. Going too fast would make his writing untidy and that was as much of an option as just not writing the answers.

This was not his homework after all, he had solved and written down his homework quite a while ago. This was the homework of all those that threatened him if he would not do it for them.

Sigmund knew that it wouldn't do him anything good to not do this, nor would it do him any good to talk to the teachers, as they were not able to protect him.

That was what he had been told in a private talk with ms. Mayar.

Math was only tedious, but next up was history. While the answers were long solved and written down, each of his blackmailers had a different distinct way to write.

The art of forgery was also not only to copy the writing style, but also to copy the style of the answer itself, whilst staying true to the correct answer.

He had a talk about that with ms. Mayar too, whether he could just make it obvious, but ms. Mayar said to him, that she and her colleagues too were being controlled regularly on her performance.

Sigmund liked his teachers and himself more than he disliked forging homework.

It had become routine to him and he was good at it, he was the best forger of the entire school, not because he was so talented, but because he did every school day.

His parents did know, but he had explained well to them the dilemma and the societal difficulties on stopping. It all had its roots in that so many profited and only one suffered moderately. Training times would be cut short and the regional performance of sports teams would decrease drastically, robbed of their edge over other teams.

There could be made much money but first and foremost glory for the school if their team was performing well. As a result Sigmund would be penalized in hard to control ways as his forgery was an open secret.

Sigmund knew that his parents did not agree with all of this, but they had no power over the corrupt educational system and nor did he himself.

The masterful forger wished for a friend that would train forgery alongside him, they would finish the stack much faster together, and then they could go outside and stare at the sky.

It came to Sigmund then: This was his reference point. He could extrapolate the necessary abilities that a friend should have from his own work that he found tedious.

A friend would share this burden with him and thusly the work would be halved and his free time would be much longer. With renewed vigor, Sigmund began tackling the challenge of finishing all the history essays of almost the entire class. He would have to do it fast and precise, just like he knew it would be right.

Friendship was waiting to be defined and it would be large step on his project towards recognizing the perfect friend, when the time had come to recognize.