"Okay, thanks." I gave a quick nod and headed off to eternity.
I didn't show it, but I slightly dreaded the sound of this task. You see . . . I'm going to the room that I had dropped out of earlier this semester - this was gonna be reeeeeeally awkward . . . nonetheless I had to do it; it was my job. I peeked into the room, where Mr. Robertson was lecturing. It was just as I had left it; Ricky, Tracy, and Tina all at the front corner (but not too close), and "Jolly old Math-Man" sitting by the overhead, slightly bouncing in his "hydraulic chair." I swept in with an exaggerated tiptoe manner, flashed a quick smile to my calc' buds, and met the side of the massive guy;
he totally didn't see me.
When he finally looked over, I just flashed an apologetic smile and asked him "how it was going." Yeah, the awkwardness was just as I thought it would be; the whole class watching our exchange, Robertson just kind of . . . looking back silently with a weird face, and me just trying to get my task done. Well the silence was absolutely deafening (
heh, that doesn't make sense), so I quickly told him the situation.
After ANOTHER frickin' moment of silence when he thinks to get back at me some more for leaving his "wonderful" class, he finally got up and told the class to work on some question while he got the test for me. So the two of us walked to the back cabinet slowly (his pace, really) - I just kept flashing the apologetic smiles. FINALLY he gives me the damn test paper and I finally get to
break orbit from "Mr. Planetoid" (
Oh! Cheap shot!). I recall I left, telling him to "have a nice day" - to which he replied, "I'll try."
So yeah, you know the feeling when you get the prickly things on the back of your neck? No, it wasn't ghosts; I just felt like shivering (which kinda sucked for me, because I did this huge, exaggerated "
hudiyah!" thing coincidentally in front of 2 girls that came out of nowhere [
well, at least now they have something to talk about . . .]).
I came back into the quiet test room and directly into Ms. Christian again.
"Oh good, you're back," she says, "hey, I have another favor to ask you." I just kinda shrugged my shoulders.
"Whadayaneed?" She pulls out a sheet of paper, which I follow along closely.
"I need you to phone these people . . ."
With that, she gives me the key to the office-thing next door and the attendance sheet - four names have inked-in dashes next to them - and I was off being a "sub-rat". Just so you know, I don't consider myself a "full-rat" because they're a grade below me (
oh, age-bias!).
I won't get into it too much; I'll just say that I basically couldn't get through to ANY of them (clever grade 11's). Either way, I left messages on most of their machines (one guy doesn't even have that [I don't think he's clever, though]). The message would usually be something like, "hey [insert name here], where are ya? So yeah, you missed a test, you'll have to redo it tomorrow at lunch, bring a note or else you get zero, and, uh . . . yeah." Boring, but concise.
I came back to the classroom, and told Ms. Christian the bad news. She "said" she understood, and that she'd try at lunch later.
I was barely back at my seat on the ledge when Ms. Christian called me over again. This time she
cordially invited me to hand out mark sheets (
I know, what's with all the bitch-work today?). I said I'd try, but we both knew what would happen; I had been in the class for about two weeks - I knew no names. After about a minute, I conceded defeat and headed back to my post by the window.
By now, it was about halfway through the block, and Ms. Christian had given the 40-minute mark. I just did my random stuff at my window-seat. Reading with one eye; watching for hands with the other. As per the job description, the hands came up now and then. I would then put down my book, hop off the ledge, and stealthily
Rainbow 6 my way to the erect (
tee hee) arm.
"What's up?" I ask him.
"Okay, it's number seventeen," he says.
"All right, what about it?"
"How do you do it?" He probably didn't catch it, but I cut off my snicker so it just sounded like a heavy breath.
"Okay, it says to use the quadratic formula, right?"
"Yeah, but I forget what that is." Thinking strategically, I continued,
"Okay, what do you think it is?" He goes,
"I don't know . . . something like 'B over 4AC'?"
Completely pokerfaced, I tell him,
"If that's what you think, then go with it."
"Okay, thanks."
"No problem."
Yeah, that guy's screwed . . . . .
That's the thing; you can clarify questions, but you can't really help them in the usual sense. You're just not allowed to give the answers or really confirm their answers . . . . . actually, in retrospect, I'm really bad at that. I give away WAY too much. Yeah, live and learn . . .
The rest of the block was pretty straightforward; a little reading, a bit of walking . . . a LOT of redundancy.
"Yeah, just fill in what the calculator says." "I can't tell you that, sorry." "If it's bugging you, just skip it and come back ('cause I don't know)." Yeah, typical test day, I'd say (
heh, it rhymed).
Well, after a long, long test, the bell finally went, and I got to leave and eat lunch. Generally I don't talk to the students too much as we all leave (I'm usually too hungry), but today, I dunno . . . I just felt like yakkin'. But then, well . . . I decided I was too hungry, and detoured to the caf' (heh, betcha thought you were gonna get dialogue now, huh?). So yeah, I was hungry - whadayagonnadoaboudit?
Epilogue:
The bell went, and Physics 11 was underway . . . well, kinda, at least . . . . .
The class was sitting, happy the day was almost over - I just yakked it up with my fellow grade 12's in the grade 11 world. A short minute later, a familiar face stepped through the door . . .
"Ernie," Steve says to me with a smile.
"Steve," I say back to him.
"Did you go to math?" he asks me.
"Yeah. We had a test today," I tell him.
"Oh yeah, I missed that, huh?"
"Yeah . . . did you know Ms. Christian made me call your house?"
" . . . She did?"
"Yup. I left a message saying everything."
"You did???"
"Yup."
Steve looks around a bit, seemingly a little apprehensive about something, and finally calls out,
"Mr. DeMarco, I have to get something from my locker, okay?" With that, Steve walks out the door . . . then he runs down the hall.
