The Amulet of Kryshar

Chapter 4

"Fifteen minutes, everyone! You have fifteen minutes to complete the test, and then I will come around and collect them from you," Ms Rose announced from the teacher's desk, where she was sitting in apparent comfort, reading a book. I could imagine her smirking at the entire class' struggle. She probably thought it was like a movie or something similar. Maybe she even wanted to order popcorn and a big cup of fizzy drink on the side. I could imagine her lounging in the cinema, pointing at the screen and laughing: "Look at those idiots! They don't even know what they are doing!" Geez. Thanks, Ms Rose.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

I dropped my pencil like it was a hot potato and sneakily looked around the room. All around me I could hear the swish and rustling of paper. People were sighing their frustrations out into the air around them. But the air didn't care of course. It just minded its own business. Most people seemed to be stuck around the middle of the test though, so I gave myself credit for coming further at least. It was a miracle I came that far with my pounding head

Suddenly, I heard something fall down onto the floor on the other side of the room. Several other people glanced in that direction as well and then turned back to their tests when they found out it was just a pencil that had rolled onto the floor. Then the pencil clattered onto the floor. Again. And again. And again. At the same time, my headache suddenly acted up. The pounding became stronger and my blood seemed to pulse in my head at a faster rate.

Thu-thump, thu-thump. Thu-thump, thu-thump.

Ms Rose looked up irritated from her book. "Who is causing such a racket? Melanie, is that you? Are you the one distracting the others from their test?"

Melanie? I turned my head and sure enough: I saw her sitting at her table with her head bowed in shame over her test paper. She was holding her pencil in a death grip.

"S—sorry Ms R—rose, I—," Melanie stuttered. She didn't even finish her sentence when suddenly her pencil slipped out of her hands and rolled onto the floor. Again. Several students around me groaned in unison. Carlson laughed. Meanwhile Melanie bent down and retrieved her rebellious pencil and gingerly placed it on the table. I blinked. Her pencil couldn't have just fallen out of her hands this time. Not just like that. I saw how tightly she held it just a second ago. It was as if the pencil had a mind of its own. To me it looked like it was moving on its own for a second; it shifted in Melanie's vicelike grip before falling. And the air seemed to have shimmered, like it does when the heat is rising from the ground in waves on a really sunny day.

"Melanie!" Ms Rose snapped. Her face flushed red with anger. "Enough is enough! Pull yourself together and stop keeping everyone else from doing their work!" Her voice was rising in volume near the end of that sentence until it was almost a yell.

I winced. That really did not help my headache at the moment, Ms Rose. Besides: for once Melanie wasn't disturbing me. The questions about the topic we haven't learned yet in math started a page and a half ago already. I had no idea what to fill in, but I scribbled as many assumptions as possible on the page in a desperate attempt to seem like I knew what I was doing and to get some points for some correct working. On second thought, I could only hope that some of the working was correct. After all, since we didn't learn any of this yet, most of this was guesswork. But, like I said, Melanie didn't disturb me because she had nothing to disturb me for. The questions on the last couple of pages were so hard that I was just sitting, staring at them thinking: "Is this even something that is supposed to be in a math test for our level?" Long story short, there was no way I could answer those questions. All that's left was just to kick back my feet and try to calm down my head and my tingling hands.

I looked at my hands. Nothing unusual there. They look just like my normal everyday hands. They weren't even red or anything. And yet, I could feel a cribbling feeling beneath my skin, as if there were a ton of fire ants marching all over my hands, while stinging me. The pencil thumped onto the ground again on the other side of the class room. Nooooo! I couldn't handle this anymore. I rested my forehead on the table. For some unexplainable reason, the sound of the pencil clattering onto the ground really annoyed me, even though I've heard way more annoying sounds on repeat at home. I have a little brother, enough said. Maybe the reason this sound irritated me this much is because my head was pounding stronger and stronger each time the pencil rolled with a clicking sound on the wooden floor, while the fire ants in my hands seemed to be acting up and performing a flamenco dance with each clack of the pencil dropping.