Well, go fig; right after that confession of studying all he could, he plopped down against one of the far walls and began rifling through his own notes. I just got back to my own stuff. At this point, I still knew absolutely nothing about the Middle East! I knew that would cost me in the long run . . . . .
yeah, I had to take another short break.
I know what you're all thinking: "why the hell didn't you study?" Well, for the record, I did. Yesterday I invited Jody, Jason, and Gavin over to my place so we could all study - I mean, sure, maybe we ended up playing a little bit of "Mario Tennis™" AFTER we finished up, but that was it! We really honestly did study! After that, I've just been working with it as much as I could, re-reading this or that, going through my assignments (which was the point when I suddenly wished I had handed in more assignments than I did), and doing the old provincials we had been given to look through. As for now, I was trying to figure out
just exactly what the hell happened in Afghanistan with the Soviets . . . heck, as I say this, I STILL don't know!
I heard some more footsteps echoing through the empty hallways; Jody then walked in with her blue jacket and black shoulder bag.
"Jody, I HATE provincials!" I pleaded to her.
"
Yeah, hello to you too," she says after. I just shrugged my shoulders and she let it go (and just so you know, I DID say hello to her eventually). I asked Jody the standard "how goes?" stuff as she took a seat to my right, in front of the lockers, and opened her books.
"So what are you looking at now?" she asked me.
"Suez stuff," I replied. "I STILL don't get the Middle East stuff!"
"Well, it's not
that hard . . ."
"Sez you . . ." Well, despite the heated exchange, Jody was still willing to show me a few things about the infamous Suez Canal crisis [in which Nasser, the president(?) of Egypt, nationalised the canal and had a swarm of armed Brits and Frenchmen come in, and then some other stuff happened . . . hey, YOU can study that on your own time!].
The next fifteen minutes of reading and checking my watch went by fast - a little TOO fast, considering I still had to re-learn what "perestroika" meant. Too late . . .
"Damn it," I said, looking at my watch again, "T-minus 15 minutes." Jody let out a heavy breath; as for me, I let my body slump enough to let my head hit the dirty, dirty
Siberian floor - hard. "Ow." Yeah, Jody totally ignored that. She had better things to worry about, I suppose - hell; I had better things to worry about!
"I don't think we're supposed to bring our bags to the exam," Jody said as she closed up her binder. Likewise, I started to close up my books and put my bag in my lock; crap! I still need to get my pens and pencils out and stuff; crap! I'm gonna need to give back my textbooks; CRAP! I need my extra pencil lead; CRAP!!! I STILL locked my books in my locker!!!
Ya see? The test hasn't even started, and I'm already all stressed out!
After about a minute of cursing and crises, I was finally set: I had 2 pens, 1 mechanical pencil, extra 0.5 pencil lead, a good eraser, and my textbooks to give back. Oh yeah, and my chocolate cookie (the last one dates back to an old ritual of mine - kind of a "last meal" kind of thing). I put most of my stuff in my sweatshirt pockets and opened the plastic wrapper around my cookie with the white-chocolate center-thing. I have to say, that thing probably tasted better than anything else I have ever eaten at such a time - such a shame they changed the center chocolate-bit. It used to be a big, rectangular thing; now it's just a dinky little circle of chocolate . . . oh well, times change, right?
So yeah, Jody and I walk past Mike (who I assume shall join us later) and go on our own little "Long March". [The original Long March, of course, being the one taken by Mao's Army during the communist rise in China, in which . . . well, at least I'm thinking about this stuff . . .]). All right, you guys already know me to be one HELL of a complainer about these halls. Well, I'll just say that I didn't get to complain this time . . . actually, no. I will still complain about the halls: they're TOO quiet! They're too empty! I'm hearing too many of my own footsteps! Agh! AND I have a History provincial in . . . T-minus 10 minutes! Yeah, I'm stressed -
heh . . . me stressed? Yeah, go fig, huh?
After rounding one of our final corners in the ghostly-empty hallways, I said to Jody,
"Ya know what?" She, of course, replied,
"What?"
"These floors should be green."
"Huh?"
"Ya know - it feels like we're walking
the mile." (Ya know, that movie starring Tom Hanks and that black guy from Armageddon? Anyhoo . . .)
"Oh . . . . . well, the tops of the walls are green," she points out as we both look up to the green "feltish" trim along the walls.
"
Well, I guess that'll hafta do . . . for now . . . . . Jo, I DON'T want to do this!"
"Ya, I know! Me neither!"
Well, go fig, after all that we still managed to reach the final stretch where we have to go down the stairs to where the exam is being held. There was no surprise as the steps came in sight; our entire History class was already at the base of the stairs. Needless to say, I saw an opportunity to get a cheap laugh . . .
"
Dead man walkin'!" I called out in my best "weenie-guy-that-everyone-hated-in-that-movie" voice - I think the character's name was Percy, wasn't it? Well, of the people that looked, they thought it was fairly clever . . .
Aaaaaaaaaanyways, Jody and I got down to the mob of people where Jill, one of our classmates, spots me and cries out,
"Oh good, Ernie's here! Please, ya gotta make us laugh!" I just let a smile creep along the side of my face and I just go,
"
Man, I SO don't want to be here!" Yeah, that did it (though in all fairness, Jill kinda laughs at everything). Jason happened to be standing near the edge of the mob - we just did the rising-eyebrow thing to say hi - that's really all guys need to do. I was a little surprised that Gavin wasn't here though . . . . . Well, the twenty-some people all huddled at the bottom of those stairs just continued standing around, talking, and quizzing each other. Me, I was just sitting on a step, eating my last-meal cookie (I eat it very solemnly too, just so you know). Jody took a seat next to me soon after (or maybe she was already there, I don't really remember . . . but anyway . . .).
"Hey, you wanna get in on this?" I asked her, offering a clean end of the yummy little chocolate thingy.
"Sure," she says, breaking off a piece, "for luck, ya know." So we continued to just sit there . . . eating chocolate cookie. Eventually my mouth got all sticky and bothersome - yeah, go fig, huh?
"Man, I should've brought some milk!" I said.
"How about water?" Jody offers, shaking her crystal-clear water bottle lightly. I nodded thanks and took a quick sip (it's not my water, after all - it wouldn't be right for me to take a big drink). Well, time went by fast enough (perhaps a little too fast), and the doors to the cafeteria opened. I suddenly remembered how much I DIDN'T want to be here . . . . .
yeah, a little late, huh?
