The Exam

I can’t remember what happened to the others, but I’m pretty sure we had more than ten students in class. Pretty sure. I stare back down at the Exam on my desk. I’m about halfway there, page 1,743. Our trailer truck takes a wide turn, swinging us behind it, and we all lean right at the same time. I grip my desk, applying force to the left to keep it still, but the Exam slides off to the front of the classroom. When we exit the bend, we snap back into a straight position. I try my best to coolly stand up and strut over toward the Exam in case anyone is watching. However, Mr. Cab and the other students don’t look up. It’s all for the best, because it’s very hard to balance in a moving trailer classroom on the freeway. I collapse back in my chair, my legs stiff. If only I had held onto the Exam and the desk, then I wouldn’t have had to get up in front of all my peers and lose my page.

I had recently asked that the desks and chairs be chained to the floor, but the school board declined the motion stating that it was too early to celebrate Halloween.

Planting the Exam back on my desk, I begin counting under my breath, flipping each page to get back to where I was. At this, Mr. Cab looks up at me. He hates inside noise, but the constant outside noise of roaring motors, freeway wind, honks, and crashes is somewhat fine. I think that makes Mr. Cab a big hippo something.

“What’s your problem, kid?” he asks.

“There are no page numbers,” I answer. “But don’t worry, I’ve been keeping track.”

“Just flip through to the last question that you answered.”

Everyone is looking at me now, and boy do I feel pretty dumb because the problem is, I can’t remember what question I was on. It could have been anything: “How many Earths fit into the planet Venus?” or “In your own words, describe a future historical event.” However, I just nod. One never argues with the teacher. I open the Exam to a random page. This is fine. Mr. Cab had interrupted my counting process, and I had forgotten the page number anyway. Then, someone raises their hand. I hunch over, hoping the girl doesn’t say anything about me and what just happened.

But she says, “May I use the restroom? I need a break.”

Mr. Cab nods. “Don’t spend too much time in there, else you’ll get lost. Then you won’t have much time left.”

“For the Exam or my life?” she teased.

“They’re the same thing.”

She shrugs helplessly and then reaches into her bag, pulling out a special pink vape pen the school hands out during Valentine’s. February already? The girl then takes the hallway pass, a bright red life buoy, and lazily opens the Exit Door. Wind rips through and low speeding cars drift in our direction. I look out as she dives off, thrown from the hoods of cars like a twig down a roaring ravine. I hope she finds her way back, because I’ve needed to go for quite some time, but I always wait for someone else to go first so the exchange looks natural. I go back to the Exam. It’s not very difficult; I don’t have to think at all…

When I return to thinking, there are only six students left and the phone is ringing. Mr. Cab picks it up.

“Jacob, you’ve switched schools. It’s a few miles behind us. You can probably catch them at the last gas stop,” he says.

I glance around the classroom, but I can’t remember which of the three students is Jacob. However, a boy behind me in the back corner looks up from his Exam.

“I have?” he asks.

“Yes,” Mr. Cab says. “You were supposed to be there a month ago in August.”

Damn. I had missed summer again.

The boy, whose name escapes me, gets out of his seat, a little too fast as we accelerate, and he nearly trips. It’s pretty funny. He hands his Exam to Mr. Cab who chucks it into a trash bin.

“You must leave everything behind,” Mr. Cab says.

The boy understands and throws his backpack on the ground as well as all his clothes, even his shoes and glasses. Mr. Cab nods in approval.

Like a blind naked mole rat, the boy feels his way to the Exit Door. He looks up and down the wall for the hall pass. I feel almost sorry for him; he thinks he’s coming back. But the hallway pass isn’t there. I wonder why. It’s not very hard to find, because it’s… well I can’t remember what it looks like. I come to the conclusion that there probably wasn’t a hall pass in the first place.

Tears flow from the boy’s squinting eyes as he opens the door. The wind cuts through, drying everything on his face. I watch as he leaps with a mission, but the cars strike his body forward in the wrong direction. It’s going to be a very long journey to that other school, I think.

Just before the door closes, we make a sharp turn down a spiral ramp, and the door flings back open. I grip my desk, but the Exam goes flying. I curse. I wasn’t keeping track of my page again. Another student’s Exam launches off his desk. I’m glad I’m not the only one at least. However, a girl sitting to my right takes this opportunity to show off. She firmly gets to her feet and I am in awe as she marches toward Mr. Cab’s desk with ease, the classroom door still pitching forward and back as we swirl down the freeway ramp. She slams her Exam on Mr. Cab’s desk. Even he is having trouble as he’s pressed up against the back of his chair, using his left hand to stabilize himself and his right to grade. The girl helps him flip pages as she stays standing like a great oak tree with roots that dig deep into the earth with just enough of them peaking above the dirt to trip people walking beneath her shade.

By the time we exit the spiral ramp, Mr. Cab finishes grading the girl’s Exam, and he announces, “Congratulations, you received a 45,623 out of 50,000 which is a 91% on your Exam.”

Oh, so that’s how many questions are on the Exam. Although, I can’t remember what number question I was on, and damn, my Exam is still on the floor. I try to get up, but Mr. Cab distracts me as he hobbles toward a wooden closet at the front of the classroom. He flourishly swings the panels open and takes out a black costume. The girl puts it on like an oversized jacket that falls to her ankles. She puts on a square cap where the words, “May all your dreams come true” are written on the back. I realize it is the month of May, the month of Maybe. A loose, white tassel hangs over the edge of the cap like a dead rat’s tail.

Without saying goodbye, the girl confidently strides to the other side of the class, powerfully swings open the Exit Door, and jumps as high as she can. I twist my neck to get a closer look as the girl in the air flaps her arms like a maniac, but of course, she drops like a stone and I can’t see what happens next as we speed away. She probably thought she could glide with the help of that gown which is a pretty pathetic idea.

Now cruising smoothly, the only other student and I left in the classroom finally retrieve our Exams on the floor. I pick up the Exam the same time he picks up his. We look at each other, and I am paralyzed. I don’t look at people very closely. I always forget their details, but I stare at this boy right now, this boy with eyes like smoke rings from an extinguished flame and with paper cuts on his fingers like tiger stripes. I can’t move, but he does, fearlessly pushing me aside and sprinting toward the door. Using his bleeding left hand, he claws open the Exit Door, and hurls his Exam out onto the highway. There’s a fluttering paper noise for just a second, but it is replaced by a silent scream as Mr. Cab rams past me and into the boy. He falls out of the trailer. Mr. Cab closes the door before I can see what becomes of him. My heart beats, but then I just can’t remember what the boy looked like anymore.

“Get back to work. You’re the last one I’m waiting on,” he says, turning around.

I clutch the Exam to my chest and return to my seat. I look around at the empty classroom. If it weren’t for the backpacks, that random pile of clothing, and many unfinished Exams strewn across the floor, I wouldn’t have known I was the last of something. I can’t recall what happened to the others.

Then I finish the last question. I can’t remember how I did it, but there are no more pages for me. I prop my chin onto my interlaced hands and look at the clean whiteboard in front of me.

I hear Mr. Cab behind me from his desk. “You done?”

“No. I don’t want to be done.”

“Well, you’ve been here for years.”

“Years?”

“Yes.”

“Wow.”

“So you better be done. You have to get out of here.”

“Why? I think I’m doing pretty fine just the way I am right now.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, marching over, arms crossed.

I say, “Well, I don’t know. I just think I would do much worse out there.”

Mr. Cab rifles through the Exam.

He shrugs. “According to this, you’ll do just great. You got most of these right.”

“I did? How?”

He points to a question. “You knew the answer to this one.”

“But not anymore,” I say.

Mr. Cab reads the question, “At what age does the brain stop developing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well you did.”

“At some point.”

Puzzled, Mr. Cab continues to monotonously grade the Exam.

“Well you passed, and that’s what matters right now,” he says, coming to a decision.

"Right now?"

He nods. "Only right now."

He walks over to a wooden closet at the front of the classroom and flourishly swings the panels open, taking out a black costume. It’s some oversized jacket and there’s a square cap with a loose, white tassel hanging over the edge like a dead something something.

As I put it on, he says, “Congratulations, you received a 38,778 out of 50,000 which is a 78% on your Exam.”

I wiggle my arms in the long sleeves watching them swoosh. It’s fun, but Mr. Cab stops it. Gripping my wrist, he leads me to the Exit Door.