No Pills

How simple it is

Charlie's P.O.V

Next week turns into today's stress. I get out of bed earlier than my usual 4:00 am to study. Sydney says there's no need to take the examinations so seriously, but I am not taking any chances. Also, if she saw what I saw, she would have felt just as intimidated. When presenting my medicals, I realised a lot of students were walking while reading. Almost everyone was glued to their books. If that does not tell me that Spencer High's examinations are no walk in the park, what will?

I leave for school before Sydney wakes up. Passing nods to greet elders, I feel unready - so unprepared that when the siren wails and all of us writing the entrance exams settle wide spaces apart from one another in an enormous hall, and when the papers are shared, the Calculus catches me off guard.

By how simple it is.

*

Aside from exam stress in the morning, I have had something akin to peace from Monday till now. The examinations were straightforward.

Pupils erupt from various classrooms, jubilating over the conclusion of the examinations. Albeit a great struggle snaking my way through the blooming crowd of cheers, I make it to the library in one piece. In St. Johns, I always celebrate my last papers with whatever recent literary piece I can lay my hands on.

"Yo, we're partying tomorrow!" A burly, sweaty guy bumps into me. I wince, but he doesn't notice as he skips into a pathway between shelves, leaving the entrance open for his mates to huddle in.

What in the world -, I think, as it dawns on my ears that they are not the only ones making noise. Everyone is talking! The strangest part is that even the librarian is guffawing with some girls at her desk.

This is awful. I am cognizant of the fact that examinations are over. Hence, this behaviour is normal, but this is the wrong location. Also, I need quiet to find something to read.

Isn't anyone going to bring order?

As if on cue, an intercom starts blaring white noise, and then a feminine voice floats in the air.

" Fellow students of Spencer High, please endeavour to shut up. We would like to give you a few announcements because the principal told us to, and you know," she chuckles, " she loves to be the life of the party -"

"- Yes, " a male speaker interjects. "This is your ever charming bad-boy Byron speaking, and I am here with my co-newscaster..."

"Rexha."

For some reason, the girl's name drops the noise into murmurs. I thank her in my head and wear my fluffy pink earmuffs, which I have learnt to always keep in my backpack since my painstaking plane ride.

"... Now to the latest gist. The new edition of our school's magazine will be coming out soon, and for the first time in our awards column, even potential students are part of the nominees! You heard me; the library can't protect y'all from us..."

I wander unconsciously to the non-fiction shelves, where my listless gaze skims past book titles.

The only thing that snaps me back to Earth is a mechanic engineering volume slipping off, smacking my head as I bend to look at the books in the bottom row. I yelp and look through the space of the shelf to see two girls who are too engrossed in their chinwag about what they will wear to a party to even turn around and apologise. I take this as my cue to leave.

I begin scouting for a more serene spot, turning a corner. I enter an apparently quiet classroom, only to find the African American guy from my first class and a girl in smokey-eye makeup toiling with his locks inside.