Kyla's Flashback 5

"Time's up." Zach announced as he stopped the alarm from his phone.

"Here you go!" Kyla smiled confidently as she brushed her hair backwards and handed her answer sheet to Zach.

He arched his brow and reached out to take her paper. "You seem very confident about your answers."

"Of course I am." She supported her chin with her palm as her eyes trailed the red pen he had in his hand. His movements were quick and deft.

Finally, he put his pen down and looked at her with confusion in his eyes. "Kyla, how did you get admitted to Wayne High School? Did you really take the test?"

"Huh? Of course, I did! I crammed like two days prior to the exam and passed it." She blinked, wondering why he asked about that question.

"Then you will have a lot of practicing to work on." He passed her answer sheet back to her.

Once her sight concentrated on the red circled score on top of the answer sheet, her expression froze. The rosiness on her cheeks slowly faded. "One out of twenty correct?! That's impossible! Check it again!!" She asked him to recalculate her score.

His arms crossed when he heard her response. "The only question you got right was the first question asking about the main idea of the passage. Everything else related to the articles was wrong. How did you score this low?"

Loosening his knotted arms, he tapped the practice page with his fingers. She blinked twice before placing her palms flat on the practice book.

"First of all, who the heck created these articles? The passages were dull, long and hard to read. Forget even understanding the content, they even asked me to figure out the tone of the same narrator. I can't even figure out people's tone in real life, and they're right in front of me when we talk. How the heck would I be able to figure out exactly what mood this narrator has, huh?"

As she skimmed through literature questions, she began pointing out her opinions of the tests. "Oh, and what the hell is wrong with the person who wrote these questions? That person gave the definition and asked me to choose the term that best matches with it! Look at the four choices! All four choices were spelled the same with the difference of one letter! It's like telling people to distinguish between the words: course, coarse and corse."

"Besides, who the heck in their right mindsets would memorize long ass words like prestidigitation, antediluvian and grandiloquence? Who would ever use these words unless they're writing a book or something? Even then, the word choices would be written in a smoother flow than this crap I've read!" She ranted about the content she had to read while fighting the urge to sleep.

After she had finished her complaints, she looked up to see Zach's expressionless face. "Whatever you say won't change the fact that you received a one out of twenty on the practice test or a five percent if you wish to have it in numerical percentages. Answering your question from before; intellectuals would use the complicated words you listed."

"Anyway, it's getting late. Since I promised to help you with your studies, I will meet you here every day after school unless something comes up. Is that alright with you?" He gathered his belongings and prepared his library card for borrowing the practice book.

"Can we change the meet up spots once in a while? I think a livelier environment would help me concentrate more than the library. Plus, once school actually begins there will be more people at the library to borrow the computers." She looked at the kids section where computers were set up for entertainment purposes.

Following her line of sight, he spotted the empty chairs at the computer desks and quickly agreed. "Alright, then we can meet outside the school gates after class ends. Have you checked your schedule for the upcoming semester yet? It's posted on the student account."

He took out his phone and logged into his student account to show her how to navigate through the webpage. Seeing how dazed she was, he already knew how clueless she was about checking her schedule. Instead of having her guess, he'd rather save her some time and teach her the steps to finding her schedule.

"Oh!!! Let me see my schedule now." She excitedly rummaged through her bag and logged into her account. Once she saw her new semester schedule, a frown occurred. "Oh, my lord! Why is world history the first class every morning?! Why do I have history right before literature? Math and science class are right before lunch. Drama class?! What's this crappy schedule?"

She pursed her lips and showed her semester schedule to Zach. After reviewing the classes with her, he sighed. "My luck seems worse than yours."

"Huh? Why?" She suddenly straightened her slouch back when she heard his mumbled words.

"I have the exact same schedule as you. Isn't that worse enough? And history is interesting, why are you complaining about it? Literature is not that bad if you think about it in a more positive perspective. The teachers will probably make the class read books like William Shakespeare's books." He mentioned the possible lessons in their upcoming classes, causing her head to spin.

"Hey! Being in the same class as me means you're lucky! At least you'll have someone to talk to in class. I suck at world history because it requires a lot of my brain juice to squeeze out information about wars in the past. The timeline and sequence of events do not relate to me. What will I do with the information I learned about the past? Also, reading is hard enough. I'll be blessed if I don't get caught falling asleep in literature class!"

She stared intensely at her phone screen with obvious resentment towards her schedule. If only she could change her schedule, but that would be impossible. 'On second thought, this might not be a bad idea. Since we have the same schedule, it'll be more convenient to find him when I need help studying!' She thought to herself.

"If there's nothing else, I'll take my leave now. Enjoy the last two days before school begins. I guess we should look after each other at school since we have the same schedule." He took a step forward and turned around to say these words.

"Same to you. Don't study too much that your brain would become fried on the first day of school. I'll look forward to being your classmate and neighbor for the next months." She stood up from her seat, carried the books in her arms and smiled at him.

Just like this, the journey of studying for the next three years begun.