Evergreen

Chapter 18

I mean it's sorta exciting, isn't it? Breaking the rules - Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series

*

Much to Everett's chagrin, his first lesson of the week was English. In recent times, he'd put more time into studying Maths, Physics and Music than any of his other subjects; as a result, his other grades were suffering. Flip, he couldn't even remember what they were currently studying in English. Or had they finished the content?

"Good morning, class. Today, we're going to be revising An Inspector Calls. You can take some practice exam questions from the front of the room or look over your notes or test each other on flashcards. I'll be doing some work on the computer, but I'm still happy to help with any questions."

As Everett didn't feel like writing today, he opted to reread An Inspector Calls. It was a relatively easy book to study, for it had lots of snappy quotes and salient themes. If he was ever in doubt of what to write for his exam, he'd go off on a tangent about Mr Birling saying 'community and all that nonsense'. Meanwhile, Jade, being the studious girl she was, got on with writing a long essay about the theme of collective responsibility in An Inspector Calls.

While reading it, Everett wondered how on earth he'd remember all of these quotes. Not to mention how he'd know what to write about them, and when to add them to his essay. It was all well and good memorising twenty quotes about class, for instance, but if a question about generational differences popped up, they would all be useless. The annoying thing was, Everett knew the storyline of this book like the back of his hand and could summarise it easily, but recalling a specific quote did not come naturally to him. If only there were a way to embed it into his memory...

"How do you revise quotes?" Everett asked Jade as her hand scurried away at the pages in her exercise book. Jade looked up.

"I use flashcards. You can use some of mine if you want," she said, taking some multi-coloured flashcards out of her bag and handing them to her friend. Ev spent the next half hour flicking through the impeccably written flashcards, trying his best to remember but thinking about other things instead, like how Freddy had called him a loser yesterday in the hallway and he thought he might do it again or something worse, like insulting his family and friends, or he might find out about his anxiety and try to ruin his reputation with it, and try to turn his friends away from him...

"Everett, are you okay?" asked Jade, seeing that Ev had not looked at his flashcards for a few minutes.

"Yeah, fine," he said, fixing his eyes on his flashcards while getting his breathing under control. He couldn't afford to show weakness here in front of his English class - the last time he'd had a panic attack, he'd been bombarded with pitying looks and random classmates asking him if he was okay, and he really didn't like getting that kind of attention.

So he refocused his attention on the flashcards, writing down a few in his exercise book in hopes that it would help him remember them better. When he'd gone through all the quotes three times, he asked Jade to test him.

"We don't live alone. We..."

"Die alone?" suggested Everett, and Jade laughed. "Okay, then, we belong to each other?"

Jade shook her head. "Not quite. It's 'we are members of one body'. Ready for the next one? Here goes..."

Everett didn't quite get the next one, or the next, or the next. In fact, he managed to misremember eleven quotes before he told Jade to stop.

"What's the use in trying?" sighed Everett resignedly. "My brain is clearly like a sieve."

"Don't say that - you're pretty good at remembering equations in Maths and facts about planes. That means you can remember quotes too. How about you spend some more time memorising them?"