Like Father Like Son- Chapter 7
Those students who were well-prepared for the examination found the questions easy and straight-forward. But for the playful ones, it was their evil day.
Twenty minutes into the examination, Peju was yet to write a letter. She could not recollect all what she had read, even those ones she had crammed had vapourized.
Her head was blank.
All she remembered now was the lost money.
She looked through the questions again, this time with unwavering attention and full concentration. She saw question 1 asking, What is matter? ‘A piece of cake!
she flashed a thought and a smile, wondering why she had not seen it before. She picked up her pen and wrote:
'A matter is when something bad happens to someone like losing money and the person feels bad and the person is asked: What is the matter now?'
Question 1b asked for the definition of some terms and she let it stay. They were part of the stuff she had crammed and had now forgotten. Questions 2(a),
(b) and (c) were nothing she was familiar with and she let them stay too. Hopeless, she looked around for help.
To her immediate left and right were Damola and Jessica. A glance at the two fetched her a slap from the invigilating teacher. She later remembered they weren't anything better than her. Damola was eating the plastic cover of her pen while Jessica had been told to stand
for pestering a boy who sat next to her for help. Now, Peju was fidgeting and sweating.
'Have you finished?'
That was Mr. Afolayan's thunderous voice.
Peju looked up to see who had finished so soon.
It was Seyi. He had all the pages of his answer booklet filled with ink. God! where did this boy get his own brain?
Seyi submitted his booklet to Mr. Afolayan and left.
For a moment, Peju was gripped with self-pity.
The fear of failing the paper haunted her. She had ink only on the first page of her booklet, the remaining three pages were blank.
Mr. Afolayan was now moving round. He caught Omolade peeping at another person's work and she was ordered to stand up. As if that was not enough, he collected her answer booklet and ordered her out.
Omolade pleaded earnestly for forgiveness. She begged desperately to finish her work but Mr. Afolayan would not listen.
I say get out
Mr Afolayan barked ominously
.
The snap in his voice jolted Omolade and she fled,
"Ten more minutes!
Peju felt jolted on her seat. She had answered only one question out of five. She had made a face to a few students around her, apparently asking for favour but no one considered her. She turned and saw Rhoda flip over the pages of her answer booklet and it was all full.
'God! Who could have stolen the money? Why did I even involve myself in the contribution in the first place? What will become of me at home if I fail this examination? God, why...?' The thoughts of an imminent poor terminal report unsettled her.
Peju was now moping. She could now see the handwriting on the wall. She resented the idea that she started her first examination in the school with a failure.
She shot a look at Damola and she saw the latter had resigned to fate as she was now watching like a spectator in a football match. Jessica, on the other hand, did not
succeed in getting any favour from the boy and she was now dozing on her seat.
Peju thought she couldn't just leave the pages of her answer booklet blank like that. And she began to write anything that crossed her mind. First, she duplicated the questions in her examination paper twice in her booklet. Then, she began to write the school anthem, the national anthem, the pledge... A question asked for a drawing and she drew a fig tree she saw through the window. Drawing was drawing, she gave up. 'Time up!'Mr. Afolayan barked and began to collect the answer booklets from the students.
Peju, after submitting her booklet, admitted she did not prepare well for the examination. She agreed,
however, that the money, she lost worsened the situation as it affected her mental alertness.
Mr. Afolayan, after he had finished collecting the answer booklets, arranged them neatly. Then, he put all in one big, brown envelope. He sealed the envelope and scribbled on it. Then, he took his leave.
Mr. Afolayan's exit saw majority of the students turn wild with joy immediately. However, a few had faces radiating sadness. One extrovert boy was arguing with another one who radiated self-confidence over the correct answer to Question 2a(i) of the Integrated Science examination. Each was claiming to have written the correct answer as they both answered the question differently
Come, let's ask Seyi,' the self-confident boy suggested and they both rushed to Seyi at his seat. Seyi was going over a textbook in preparation for the next
examination.
‘Oh Seyi, sorry to disturb you,' said the selfconfident boy apologetically. 'Yes, what is it, Deji?' asked Seyi, closing his
textbook.
'Sunday and I are arguing over Question 2a(i) which asked us to differentiate between Breathing and Respiration. I said Breathing is different from Respiration but Sunday said they are the same thing.' Deji explained, exhuming confidence.
'Breathing is different from respiration,' Seyi said authoritatively
Gols
'I don't believe it!' Sunday spurned.
Seyi was not surprised Sunday said he did not believe it. Everybody knew him for his vain pride. Seyi brought out his Integrated Science textbook and opened
to the page where the topic was treated. He read out:
• Breathing is an act of taking in air by the animals that have lungs but Respiration is a method by which and animals use oxygen to break down their food to release energy.' Closing the textbook, Seyi
asked contemptuously, 'Is that saying the same thing? "Well, I missed that one.'Sunday said defeatedly.
'But that doesn't mean you will score higher marks than I will do,' he bragged to Deji. Peju, where she sat morosely, wondered how the three would react if she told them the answer she provided for the question they were arguing about. That was the question she answered by writing the school anthem. No doubt, she would be advised to go back to the primary school after being humiliated with a long mocking laughter.
Peju was brought to reality by the loud ringing noise of the school bell which signified it was breaktime.