High School 3

No cheat sheet... I was going to fail this test. There was only one option: reaching my bag, pulling out my notebook, and reading my notes from there. But how was I going to do that in front of everyone? I thought most would have kept their mouths shut, except for Edbert, but there were too many people between both of us. He wouldn't have seen.

Still, I had never done that. I had cheated. I had read some notes carefully hidden in my pencil case or asked a classmate for an answer, but, reading the whole notebook? How was I going to do that? It was impossible.

I had the test on my chair. So many questions, so little information in my head. What's "class"? What's "genus"? "Phylum"? Is there an order for that? My head was a mess. I saw Ms. Farias across the room. I was on one corner and she was on the other side, but there were some classmates in between. There was a 50/50 chance she'd have noticed.

"Think, Jay, think!", I shouted louder than I should have.

"This is not a mall, Mr. Thawne," said Ms. Farias.

I had to do something. My fingers were approaching the bag by my right foot. My heart was beating faster. Boom! Boom! Each time it felt like bombs exploding in my chest. I couldn't swallow saliva. I just remembered I hadn't seen Ms. Farias for a while. The image of her staring at me, judging me, destroying me made me panicked for a moment, but I had to see. I turned my head and saw her reading a book. My fingers felt the bag. It was open! Yes! My notebook! It was my notebook! I was going to start drooling and I made a weird noise. Ms. Farias stopped reading and saw around but didn't catch a glimpse of me. I could breathe again... I took the notebook, put it on the top of my desk. It was surreal. This was a test, but my notebook was on the top of my desk. How was that possible? Did I win? I won. I was going to open it. I swallowed some saliva. My eyes were wide open. My fingers were inside the pages already, but... I couldn't. I put it back. I just couldn't. Was I a coward? I didn't know, but I just couldn't. I decided to give up.

After a long while, the bell rang. I didn't write anything but, for some reason, I didn't feel that bad, just a little tired. I couldn't see her in the eye, though. I left the room and caught a large breath.

She was there. Leaning on the wall. She was waiting, or pretended to be waiting, considering that the bell just rang. I just imagined her running out of her classroom, recklessly climbing up the stairs, hyperventilating, but then leaning on the wall pretending to be cool. The whole idea made me laugh a little.

"And how was it?", she asked, smiling.

"I didn't do anything."

"But you're a genius!"

"No, I'm not. I think I'm kind of good at some things, but you're overestimating me."

"Shut up. You're a genius. Period. Maybe that test wasn't good enough for you."

I smiled.

"Hey, let's do something."

"Something like what?"

"Something new. Something we haven't done."

I was a little scared of her smirk.

"Uh, huh?"

"Let's go out this weekend. I'm going to make you feel better."