Red, Blue, Me, and You

Ghost Exams

It's 10 minutes until my first exam starts - it's maths - and I am panicking. A lot has happened over the past week. Mum and Dad have been sleeping in different rooms, and that's been working better for them. They know we've noticed, but we all just pretend that everything's normal, and that Dad's not sleeping in his study. Leah's team beat my team 1-0. It was the most frustrating game ever. They scored in the 4th minute, and then we spent the rest of the time trying to get a goal with no luck. I'm so glad it was a friendly, but that didn't stop Leah's bragging afterwards. Liam and Ben finished constructing the bird house together, and I helped them to paint it afterwards. Leah and I have had a couple more study sessions, and Olivia, Hannah, and I studied together as well. Now it's 9 minutes until my first exam starts, and I am still panicking.

There's no going back now, however, as I'm already sitting in this cold exam room. It's silence, except for the ticking clock on the wall. The exam moderators are pacing up and down the room giving sympathetic looks to each other, and glaring at any student that so much as blinks. They really know how to create such a calm exam environment. I watch the clocks steady rhythm counting down the minutes, which turn to seconds, and then the clock strikes the hour.

"You may begin."

I open the exam booklet, and flick through the pages just to see how many there are. Then I start on the first problem. I look at it and have no clue what to do. This isn't good. The first problem is supposed to be an easy one. If I can't do the first one, how am I going to be able to manage the rest? But, then it comes to me. I do know how to do this. It's just worded slightly different to how I'm used to. I write the couple of lines of working down, and take a deep breath, before proceeding to the next question. It takes me a minute to figure out how to do it, but I get there. I continue to work my way steadily through the exam paper. I know there's a few questions I definitely got wrong, but I'm also fairly confident I got a lot right. Not bad for me and a maths exam.

The first thing I do when we're allowed to leave the hall is find Hannah and Olivia.
"Georgia what did you get for question 3b?" Hannah asks.
"No!" Olivia almost shouts, "don't say anything. I don't want to think about this until when the results come out. No talking about it from now on."
I lean over and whisper to Hannah, "I got 23 over 5."
"Okay good. I got that too," Hannah whispers back. I'm pleased knowing that I got the same answer as someone else.
Olivia's put her hands over her ears and is walking slightly ahead of us. "You stopped talking about it now?"
"We've stopped talking about it," I assure her, "now should we go get some lunch?"
"Can we go to the arcade?" Hannah asks.
"Why? You got a boy you want to see?" I tease.
"As a matter of fact, I do," Hannah smirks.
Olivia grins, "last week we ran into him at the arcade and he said that some of his mates and him would be there after the maths exam. You were at football training. Sorry we didn't invite you."
"That's alright. I understand. But if something like this happens, tell me," I reply.
"We didn't know if you'd want to know stuff about boys," Olivia replies, and gives Hannah a look.
I chose not to question how they came to this conclusion. "You're my friends. I want to know when things happen in your life. Now, come on! Let's go!"

Hannah and Olivia give me the run down on this boy while we walk to the arcade. There are a surprising amount of year 11s from both schools here. I spot my favourite blonde almost instantly, on the other side of the room chatting with her friends. She's laughing, and my goodness that smile does something to me. She looks up and our eyes meet, and I just know I'm blushing. Then I feel a hand on my shoulder, and Olivia drags me over to a table where Hannah's sitting.

"Okay, so, this boy?" I ask, "is he here?"
"Not yet," Hannah sighs.
"And what's the plan when he does get here?" I ask.
"I don't know," Hannah says.
"What do you mean you don't know?"
Olivia rolls her eyes. "Geo, you aren't exactly an expert on talking to boys either."
"I know. I remember last time."
"Don't worry," Hannah assures me, "we aren't going to ask you to talk to a boy again."
"That's good. I don't think I'm ready for that yet," I half lie.
"That's fair enough," Olivia smiles.

The boy doesn't turn up, and Hannah is understandably upset. Olivia and I console her for a bit, before Hannah decides that she's going home. We both offer to walk with her, but she says she needs some alone time. Olivia leaves not long after her, and I stand outside the arcade for a few seconds trying to decide what I want to do. Then I feel a hand on my shoulder.

"Hey Georgy," she whispers in my ear. I turn around so we're face to face - a little too close for being in a public space - but the smile on Leah's face takes away any care I have. I hug her.
"Hey Lee."
"How was the exam?" she asks, as she pulls away from me, and holds my hand. We continue to walk down the street.
"Better than it would have been if you didn't help me," I tell her, "I was oddly incredibly nervous though. Usually I care so little about exams that it just doesn't bother me, but I was thinking about all this mistakes I've made in practice exams, or mock exams."
"Ah," Leah says seriously, "you're being haunted by ghost exams."
"Ghost exams?" I laugh.
"Yes," she nods, "exams in the past that you didn't do well on, telling you that you're not going to do well on this either."
"Ah, okay," I reply, "how do I make myself ghost free?"
"You develop a bit of self belief."

I almost laugh out loud at how whimsical that is, but I control myself. She does have a point. It's just, developing self belief in terms of academics seems a little bit impossible. I think I'll stick to being somewhat sure that I won't fail for now.

"So, what are you up to at the moment?" she asks me
"I was thinking of heading home," I reply, "Mum's insisting we have dinner as a family, so you can imagine how that's going to go."
"Don't have time for a quick kick around?"
"Well maybe for you I do," I reply. Since when I was I so cringe?

We stop by Leah's house to grab a couple of footballs. She changed out of her school uniform and into shorts, but I'm stuck with my school skirt on. I start taking shots at goal, and Leah decides to join me. Each time I get a goal that I like, and believe me there are plenty I don't like because I'm very critical of my technique and fussy about where and how I want the ball to land in the goal, I take a step back. I have my method, shooting with both feet on one side, and then switching to the other. It's important to cover all angles. I'm so in my zone that I forget that Leah's even there until she speaks.

"It's been 2 hours," she calls across the field to me from where she's knelt down beside her bag with her phone, "I just thought you should know."
That's not great. I was hoping I'd be home well before dinner started. At this point, I'm going to get there exactly on time. Leah starts to do kick ups with the ball and eventually passes it over to me. I kick it into the goal, and then go and collect it walking over to Leah. I pick up my school bag, and she gets the memo that we're leaving.

"So next time I think we need an actual plan on what we're going to work on," Leah starts, "you know, seeing as we're now training to make sure we're still in good form for the camp."
"Yeah," I agree, "but I think maybe I might just focus on exams for now."
"Cool," she says, "I can't wait for you to meet my friends Georgy!"
"Are we going to tell them that we're together?" I ask her, the thought suddenly occurring to me.
Leah frowns. "I'm not sure. What do you think?"
"I'm not sure either. I don't exactly hate the idea of at least someone else knowing," I respond.
"Perhaps we could just tell Keira. She wouldn't have anything bad to say about it," Leah suggests.
"I'll wait to say yes properly until I've actually met her, but if you think we can trust her then it's a yes for now," I say.

We reach the point where we need to walk in different directions, so I give her a hug before we head our separate ways.

Dad's car is on the driveway when I walk up it. I can see my family all getting ready for dinner.

"Hello Georgia," Dad smiles as he places the cutlery down on the table, "how was your exam?"
"It was actually okay," I reply.
"That's good to hear," Mum chimed in from the kitchen.

I take my shoes off and leave them next to my school bag. Soon enough we're all sitting around the table.
"So, we have some news for you kids. We thought it would be good to all sit down together whil-"
"Your mother and I are getting a divorce," Dad cuts Mum off, and she gives him a stern look. "What you were taking too long to get to the point."
The room is deadly silent and I don't dare move until Ben reaches his hand out towards mine, and I reach out towards his to close the gap hoping that it provides him at least a little comfort.