Chapter 6: The finals.
“And then he asked for my number, I told him I couldn’t give him because you know my mom is at home the whole day and all so he gave me his,” Aanam narrated excitedly to us when we were walking back home.
“And when did all this happen?” Leandra asked, both her hands tugging at her bag nervously.
“During the Hindi class, we were bunking.” Aanam reported.
Leandra sighed. “You’ll aren’t kids anymore. Stop this bunking nonsense. This is high school now, not just a joke. Become serious about your grades.” Leandra voice was firm, now. She wasn’t in the mood, I guessed.
Aanam and I looked at each other, giving slight smile and thought about what Leandra had just said. “She seriously thinks that will happen.” I mouthed and we giggled. Leandra kept silent the whole while.
“Bye,” I said getting on to my bus.
“Yeah bye. Call me.” Aanam sad walking off to her car.
When I turned to say something to Leandra, she was already walking off to her bus all alone. What was up with her?
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The year flew by and we had reached the time of our final exams. My first two papers went well since they were English. The two-day break had given me a lot of time to prepare for the geography paper but what was I supposed to? After all bad habits die hard. So instead of leafing through the pages of my thick textbook, which I hadn’t even touched throughout the year, I took the phone and dialed Aanam’s number.
“Hey! What’s up Aanam” I screamed cheerfully into the phone.
“Who is this?”
“It’s me, Natasha! Can’t even recognize your own friend’s voice now?”
“Uh-huh! Natasha, shouldn’t you be studying for your geography paper Monday?”
“What are you-” I suddenly realized what I had done. It wasn’t Aanam; it was her elder sister who had received the phone. Oh hell! I thought.
“Act- actually I just wanted a few notes. Can you give her the phone please?” I hesitated.
After some commotion over the other end of the phone, Aanam received the phone.
“Oh man! That was classic. You actually thought it was me.” She couldn’t control her laughter.
“Shut up, you fool!” I said but I couldn’t resist but smile at my foolishness. “Anyways I really did call you for the notes.”
“Yeah, you did and I just passed the exams with full marks,” She blabbered sarcastically, still laughing.
“Whatever!” I rolled my eyes, opening the refrigerator to make lemonade for myself.
“You know what? I had called Josh and my mom walked I right at that moment,” She said in a hushed whisper. Aanam was from a conservative Muslim family. And forget going out with a boy, even talking to a boy over the phone was a very serious matter.
“What are you saying? Then?” I said, slowly stirring the lemonade with the spoon. I don’t know why but this gave an effect to the suspense.
“It was time for namaaz (prayers), and so mom came to call me. She asked who I was talking to for so long. I said it was you, but she saw the hesitation on my voice.”
I gulped down the lemonade. Surprisingly, I did not splutter any out after Aanam’s shocking news. When I told her so, she laughed. We talked about some other stuff and later she kept the phone because her sister was eyeing her angrily. I loved Aanam, but her family members really made me angry sometimes.
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I stared at the geography paper. I blinked. I stared at Leandra sitting right in front of me. I blinked again. This was it. I was finally in the exam hall; staring at the paper and having no clue what to do about it. The room was silent. I had never seen my noisy classmates so quite ever. The only sound that could be heard was the ceiling fan. The supervisor announced to start our papers. I took my pen and as if by magic, began writing the answers. You would be surprised at how much I knew if you had seen my last minute 2-hours-before-the-paper studying. I wrote and wrote and there was no stopping me. Finally, I came upon a question where I had to take a halt. It read:
Mark Chinook on the world map provided with the question paper.
Shit! I knew I should have studied local winds, I thought.
The rest of my paper was filled, now all I needed was one answer. “Psst…Leandra!” I hushed. “Leandra.”
She slightly looked at me from the corner of her eye, letting me know that she was listening.
“Section B; Question 3; sub question a.” I muttered.
She breezed through her paper trying to find the answer. I waited patiently until I felt a cold hand on my back. “Is there something I can help you with?” Ms. Bradley was standing behind, eyeing me angrily. But for a minute, I wasn’t scared. There was something else that was bothering me. How are her hands so cold? I thought. Is her heart situated in her hands?
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“Damn it! Damn it!” I shrieked. The paper was over and we were hanging out near our usual place, the window, before we left to go home. The papers got over at 11.00m pm and the busses left school at 12.00 pm, so we always had one hour to chill out in school doing nothing. “I had actually gotten all the answers. Man! If only I wasn’t so greedy. I lost 20 marks just because of one small five mark question. One goddamn five mark question.” I was completely freaking out.
“Hey you guys, you know what?” Aanam began, completely ignoring me and showing no concern for me. “My mom and sis had a doubt on me because of the whole Josh calling me at home thing so now the net is off limits to me.” She whined.
“Your sister is such a-” Leandra made a face.
“And what if they tell my parents. Oh shit! What if they do?” I cut off Leandra and their silly topic.
“Natasha, How can you be so selfish? All you can think of is you.” Aanam cried, placing her hands on her hips.
“What do you mean huh?” I looked up at her, not sure what expression to give her, annoyed or shocked.
“You care about your paper? What about me not getting to use the net freely?”
I was taken aback by those unexpected words.
Hello! Was the net more important than my grade? Didn’t she know how bad I was feeling already? How could she be so self centered. I was standing there, with the possibility of failing geography because I hadn’t done much work in class. I needed to do well in the finals to get a passing grade which was nearly impossible with a negative mark of -20 and she thought of nothing but her freaking net!
How I wish I had the guts to speak it out but I kept my mouth shut not wanting to cause any further fights.
“Listen, I am sorry for this, Natasha. I should have given you the notes I took down in class but it didn’t strike me. I am sorry. And yeah, Aanam. It’s so sad about the net. Your sister’s a real freak.” Leandra tried to make peace, sensing the tension in the air.
The rest of the exam papers went by easily and I wasn’t caught cheating again even though I did. (As I said before, old habits die hard!)
