School Trouble

I resided on Twenty Second Street. It was one of those neighbourhoods that were so quiet and mysterious that you could hear a pin dropping onto a carpet next-door. The houses along this street were large and nearly all of them were surrounded by high walled-fences with spikes on top. No one trusted one other, and no one interacted with their neighbour. The street itself was cold and miserable. Huge trees grew on either side of the road, their branches embracing, forming huge leafy arches, so that even during the day it was dark and scary. The merry cries of playing children were hardly heard, for their parents never allowed them out of their fences.

“Luis Jones, you are expelled from Sky Limit Trust School. I want you off the premises immediately!”
These words resonated in my head with a furious stubbornness. As I stared at the tree before me, the tears streamed down my face and splattered onto the concrete below. I could not believe that it had all come to this. The whole world faded into a misty haziness, and unconsciously, I relived the day all this started; that fateful day…

I was in my room, seated on my bed, biting my nails in agitation. My belly was continually working itself into painful knots. Yes, I was all worked up, and for good reason. That evening, my father was returning home with my examination test results.

Truthfully speaking, I did not have much to worry about. I had never failed before. I was always top of my class from the sixth grade on, and the examination had been a breeze. However, I was still a wreck. It is a phenomenon, and it happens to everyone. Each time you hear that the results have come out, you become a bunch of rattling bones; even when you were merry and carefree prior to that dreaded announcement; even when you know it would be easier to find life on Mars than for you to fail.
There is nothing harder in life than waiting for something—especially your examination results. All you want is to know and get done with it, so that if you have failed, you can go kill yourself in a hurry, and if you have passed, you can start the wild celebrations.

By the time my father finally came with the results, I had been waiting for five full hours in perfect silence, and the only sound that emanated from me was the rattling of my frame and the wild thumping of my heart. When he called me to the sitting room, I was as white as milk. I sat obediently before him on the thick wooly carpet. He had a big brown envelope in his hand. I did not need to guess what was inside.

“I have got your results,” he said, waving the envelope in front of my face. I stared back at him with wild, bulging eyes. He thrust his hand into the envelope, and as he did so, an enigmatic smile stretched across his lips. This gesture frightened me because my father hardly smiled. And as if to prolong my agony for a little while longer, he stared hard at me for several moments without saying a word. Finally, with his eyes full of pride, pride not of the fact that I had done so well, but of the fact that he had produced quite an intelligent son, he thrust the results slip into my hand and said:

 “Congratulations! You have made it… and as usual, you came first.”

  I did not know what to say. My father hardly congratulated me; and so when he did, it was quite overwhelming. I just goggled at him with a gaping mouth. He stretched out his arm towards my tiny and shaky being. I reluctantly reached out and grasped his large hand. He responded by shaking me so vigorously my frail arm felt nearly off.

  I walked out of the sitting room staring at the results slip in my hand with a broad smile across my face. My Uncle George was in the living room, sprawled on the sofa in front of the small black-and-white television set. He stared up at me with an extremely curious look.
 

“What’s up?” he asked when he noticed the smile on my face. For the whole day, I had been a wreck and there had been very few smiles. With my sudden change in disposition, he did not need to guess what had happened.

At first, I tried to appear unaffected, but it was too hard; I was going to burst with happiness if I tried to hold it in. I flew into the empty seat beside him and thrust the results slip into his hand.
 

With an envious smile across his face, he stared at the results. His eyes widened. Without looking up at me, he said:

“These are very good results…very good results. Congratulations young man.”

“Thanks,” I said as I retrieved the slip.

  As I left the room for the kitchen, where my mother was preparing supper, I really wondered if he’d manage to concentrate on what he was watching; he was too green with envy. I could clearly see it. His seventh grade examination results had hardly been any good. He had not shown them to me, but I had sneaked into his room and gone through his stuff, as I was fond of doing, and stumbled across them. If I were his father, I would have given him a good flogging for getting such results. I am sure his father, my grandfather, had actually done so.

 Mom was quite elated when I showed her my results. She was so elated that she gave me a hug. I felt very happy that day. It was a day that I will never forget, because that is the day my life changed.