I WAS JUST TRYING TO BE FUNNY | ✓

▬ 16

YOU DICKHEAD! YOU'VE RUINED MY SENSE OF SELF

            For all the fuss, exams turn out to be entirely anticlimactic. Two years of preparation and then it's just over on some random Thursday. When I step out of the sports hall for the last time after Core Pure Mathematics 2, the pad of my thumb pressed to my lip, all memories of sitting a single paper have drained right out of my brain. The only reminder is the tinge of metal on my tongue.

Because she gets a private classroom for exams, Sonia catches up to me in the next corridor. She wears her Kipling backpack on the front so that she can stuff her graphic display calculator and clear pencil case into it and walk at the same time.

Tightening the drawstring, she glances at me. 'Are you okay?'

I pull the thumb from my mouth. 'Got a paper cut. I swear if that's an omen that I've flunked everythin...' I wipe it on my shirt. 'How was it?'

Her hands linger on the drawstring before she closes the flap and slides the backpack down her arms. Only once she has it on properly does she speak. 'I answered all the questions, at the very least.'

'I'm sure you did brilliant.'

Three classmates hurry around us. Bianca punches the assistance button and the doors clatter open to allow the noise from outside to flood in. 'I can't,' she says. 'I've still got religious studies tomorrow.'

Sara and Matilda are too elated at the end of their exams to spare much sympathy for the fact that a few subjects still have papers left. Arms linked, they look back at Bianca as they step into the sun. 'Right. See you Saturday then.'

Bianca drags her feet over the threshold. She probably regrets her subject choices now. The utopian weather mocks her.

A grin breaks on my face the moment I step through the glass door. The blue of the sky is broken only by brushstrokes of cirrus clouds. Pupils from lower years cluster in the shade. A handful have taken off their blazers and shoved up their sleeves to bask in the warmth before their next lesson.

'Subhanallah.' Pulling off my tie, I turn around to squint at the school building. 'I should vandalise the canteen or somethin.'

'Why?' Sonia asks. Shielding her eyes, she gazes up at the sky as if she forgot the sun exists.

'It's what would happen if this was a rebellious but charming coming-of-age film. Like Breakfast Club. Or Empire Records.'

Sonia sighs in relief when I choose instead to head to the cycle shelter. She digs out her phone as she trails after me and the Nokia start-up tune plays over the noise of the forecourt. Her face lights up at the text waiting for her and I watch her start to type a reply before I bend over to unlock my bike.

With the key in the padlock, the need to slow down collides into me. This is the last time I'll cycle home after school. Am I appreciating it enough? The way the shelter is too crammed and yanking my bike out sets off a domino reaction and even the turquoise Kinesis at the other end threatens to fall over. The sun-bleached Totally Spies sticker among crude permanent marker vandalism. The chafe of backpack straps against my neck when I bend over to unravel the chain from my wheels.

What if at twenty-three, I don't remember any of this even though it's been an integral part of my reality for seven years?

Sonia's voice tugs me to the present. 'How did it go?'

Knowing she can't be talking to me, I look up. One end of the chain slips from my hand and knocks into my shin. I clamp my lips together; my grunt of pain bumps into them and rebounds back into my throat.