The teacher starts talking about trade policy or something. It's not actually very clear.

"First-aid kit."

"My mom's a nurse. I work for a vet. I like being prepared." 

"I guess that makes sense?"

"Yeah. I'm hoping to go into medicine, one day. You?"

"I'm actually not all that sure! Biology sounds like a potential candidate – sounds like you could do a lot of good there – but I'm pretty good at math and sort-of kinda languages, too."

"Translators are pretty in demand, but only for diplomacy and war, I think. I haven't really looked into it; languages aren't my thing." 

"Grammar's not much my thing – I like it, when I can get my head around it, but it makes more sense to hear it in examples – so I wouldn't go into linguistics or anything." He shrugs. "Translation could be fun."

"What about math? I think there aren't that many people that are good at it, and there definitely aren't a lot who like it."

"It could be good, yeah, like translation, but I'm not sure I'm cut out for doing really high-level stuff."

"McCall, can you explain comparative advantage?" 

"If one country is better at something than another country, they specialize in it?" 

"Good God, I'm surprised you can tie your own shoes. You, Ayers, what is it?" 

"– Where one group, like an organization, is able to produce some type of goods at a lower opportunity cost – how much they lose by producing this as opposed to something else – in comparison to another group, so they produce and export more of that, proportionally."

"Sounds good to me. You should help McCall out, he needs it." 

Class continues.

Tyler takes legible notes where applicable. Tries not to seem like a show-off.

After class, Scott seems to want to talk to him. 

"Hey, what's up?"

"Are you good at Econ? I probably could use some help." 

"I am pretty good at Econ but I'm not sure how much better I'd be than a textbook? I'd be happy to help, though."

"Thanks. How much do you charge?" 

"I don't usually tutor people so I don't have a handy number, actually," he says. "Uh, get back to you on that one?"

"Sure. Thanks for your help." 

And Tyler must engage in further edification. 

After which there is presumably track practice! Or cross country, rather.