Rats, Roses And Paper Bones

Chapter 8: Doomsday

Doomsday was here. The sun was shining brighter than usual, my heart was beating faster than usual, and everything was unusual. That was a bad sign, but I would be placed in my department today, I hoped.

I skipped breakfast because I couldn't even eat through all the tension. Every bite of food felt like a lump of metal passing through my throat. I just gave my food to Victoria as usual.
"Are you sure you're okay?" She asked.
"Yeah, just a little nervous," I replied, gulping down a whole bottle of water in a second.
"A little?" She laughed.

During the morning assembly, all I could think of was how I would break down if i didn't pass the placement test. I even got a scolding from the teacher beside me for not standing straight during the national anthem.

After the assembly, as I waited for the news to be broken, I decided to stay in the library, which was a tall building with twenty tall wooden shelves, each of them differentiating each genre.

I sat down at the far end and, in the meantime, busied myself by reading, "Don't give up now, a book by one of my favourite inspirational writers. I had read the book for about thirty minutes when I dozed off on the table.

An hour later, I heard noises right from my sleep, and I woke up instantly. It was a group of apparently new students giggling and jumping with excitement.
"It's out! It's out!"
"I got in!"
"Shhh... this is a library, not a playhouse!" The glasses wearing librarian said from her table.
"Sorry ma," they said in unison and continued giggling quietly.
My heart started beating fast again. The list must be out!

I stood up swiftly, rushed out of the library, and ran as fast as possible to the science department to see if my name was pasted on the door. People were already crowded there. There were quite a lot of new students in the S1 class. Anyways, our names were mixed together with the other old students, so the list was for the total number of students in each department.

I squeezed through the crowd to have a look at the list. It was numbered from one to fifty-two. So there would be fifty-two of us in the science department. Obviously, later on, we would be divided into two; pure science and technical science.
I searched the names one by one, hoping my name would be there, but I couldn't find it. I searched again and again and again, but still couldn't find it.

I couldn't believe it at first. There must be an error somewhere, I said to myself.
I went to the arts department to check if my name was on their list, although deep down I wished it wasn't. There were forty-one students on the list, but my name wasn't there either.

In tears, I went to the commercial department to check if my name was on the list. Hopefully, if I didn't see my name on any of the lists, it meant that there was an error, not that I didn't enter the science department.

My heart dropped when I actually saw my name on the list. I was number thirteen out of thirty students.
My mind went haywire... I thought the ground would open up and swallow me up instantly.
I couldn't believe it. I actually didn't get into the science department.

*******************

"Where are you coming from, miss?". I heard my Dad's baritone voice echo.

I looked up from the ground on hearing that voice, beads of sweat on my forehead, and shivers running down my spine.

My eyes moved from him to the small table beside him. There was a familiar piece of paper on it. My blurry vision must be deceiving me. What was my report sheet doing with him? Who blew my cover?

"Mum sent me to buy something, sir." My eyes were still on the report sheet.

"I see." He said, picking up the paper and waving it at me.
"Did you think you could hide this from me?"