DAZAI ADDAMS: SUMMER, 1972
Dazai would never tell anyone, but she really enjoyed The Academy exam period. There were no lessons for a whole two weeks and while everyone else ran around like a headless chicken, Dazai felt very relaxed about the whole thing. She didn't care much whether she passed or failed her exams.
The same could not be said for the rest of her classmates. Sinistra Cresswell had taken to ambushing other students in the library and common rooms, demanding that they quiz her on the 18th Century Goblin Riots. Leonie seemed to be constantly muttering to herself under her breath, wringing her hands together. Florence Davenport and Josephine Carter, two first years Dazai usually tried to avoid, kept bursting into fits of hysterical giggles from the nerves. Maeena and Draya appeared to be acting out with more bravado than ever; setting off flameless firecrackers in the corridors and performing vanishing spells on unsuspecting student's book bags in the library. Dazai was simply thankful that Carolina had declined the constant offers to join (as Dazai and Leonie had). Dazai couldn't tell if the two of them were just responding to the general atmosphere of anxiety, or whether they were expelling their own nervous energy.
The older students had no sympathy for their younger counterparts. Cyrano Vasco snapped at everyone at least four times a day (once he yelled at Maeena in the corridor for breathing too loudly while he was trying to revise for one of his classes). Dazai felt that they had got off easy – she'd heard that Sinistra Cresswell actually cursed her dorm mates one evening because they were talking too loudly while she studied for her exams. They couldn't speak for three days – Poppy Creek had to grow their tongues back.
Their first exam was Greek and Latin, which had Dazai off to a terrible start. They had to translate an entire paragraph into both Greek and Latin, which she privately thought was entirely unreasonable. Draya, Carolina and Leonie managed without a problem, though Maeena seemed to struggle nearly as much as Dazai. It was obvious to anyone that knew Dazai that she had failed the exam. Maeena had only done a bit better (and she could read).
Transfiguration went almost as badly, though it was an easier subject. Their task was to turn a stag beetle into a pepper shaker – Draya completed this in minutes, barely concealing her pride as Professor Leatherwood commented that it was the best example of small scale transfiguration he'd ever seen from a first year. Dazai's shaker wasn't too bad, her stag beetle looked porcelain but still had legs and it would cough whenever you shook it but pepper would come out nonetheless, whereas Draya had somehow managed to make hers glass. Carolina had transfigured her beetle completely into a pepper shaker but it had the same cough as Dazai's when Professor Leatherwood attempted to shake it. Maeena managed to get hers to remain still, but it still had legs and antlers, even after an hour. Leonie's pepper shaker was still shiny and black.
Invocation and Sacred Scripture were both written exams. Dazai wanted to scream when she had realized, but her feeling increased when she looked at Leonie Mallow and saw that she had written the longest essay – the girl had to ask Dazai, who was sitting next to her, for extra parchment. Apparently there was plenty to be said about the goblin riots after all. Potions was easier than she expected – they had to brew a cure for warts from memory. Having a very good memory from years of practice, Dazai knew she had all of the ingredients and quantities right, even if her preparation skills were lacking precision.
Between exams, Dazai enjoyed her last weeks of freedom either wandering the halls and adding to her map (when she was alone) or eating ice cream outside by the lake (when the others were with her). She'd recently found a corridor that felt vaguely of unkempt joy, but couldn't work out what that meant – it was nowhere near the Great Hall.
