Mimi’s Little Mixtures
By Miriam Mhlanga
Copyright 2012 Miriam Mhlanga
Taking the Test
You've just left the comfort of your friends around the dinner table and you are now squeezing through a hoard of self-righteous year sevens and eights. If it was up to you, those children would be shot; they have no respect for the badge whatsoever. You push and shove at the little rats as you try to get to the other side of the school where the rest of 'your people' are.
You've always seemed to hate the younger years. It's not, much to other people's belief, because you are constantly confused for one, but actually because they were little shits.
"Hey, watch it!" You yell at one and expect them to apologise but he doesn't, he just looks at you with mockery written all over his face.
You debate whether or not you should instigate a fight but you chose against it as you feel that you are already late. Just to put your point across to the boy, you give him the stink eye as you point at you 'PREFECT' badge and continue your journey past the Le Rendezvous and into the double doors heading towards the main hall.
You slap head in annoyance when you realise that other than Silent Sam, you're alone. The awkwardness between the two of you is so intense you couldn’t even slice through it. Instead of mulling over your poor excuse for a social life, you start walking around the tiny area as you pretend to text someone on your phone. Realising that this wasn't going to work, you head over to the left wall and read the seat numbers sheet. B4, that's your number.
"Maggie!" Your saviour calls you and you turn around with a huge grin on your face.
"Salt!" You reply with almost as much enthusiasm. You were never much for noise.
Whilst hugging Salt, you catch Tea standing rather awkwardly next you the pair of you. You never really found out why he was called Tea, not that it actually ever mattered; you weren't even friends. However, once upon a time, you could have been considered the best of friends. As you make contact with him, you get the feeling that he too is remembering the past.
Nobody but you and Tea know about your old friendship and he plans to keep it like that, much to your disappointment. You know he's ashamed of once knowing you even if he won't accept it. He tends to do everything humanly possible to avoid any contact with you.
"Hey, Tea," you whisper in the hope that maybe he'll respond.
You want a few moments for him to say something or at least give a smile. You would even settle for a tiny one, but he doesn't do that. He pretends to not have heard you but you know he heard you. You fight back the hurtful tears as you watch him turn away.
Salt looks at you strangely but you shrug it off and say that you're just a bit nervous. She shrugs back and you talk easily for a few minutes about weekend plans and the latest bands that you're interested in.
-x-
"I'm so nervous," you say for the umpteenth time to Salt as you put your bags down on the stage.
"Don't worry about it Maggie," she whispers reassuringly, but you don't believe her; she has a habit of chatting utter bull.
You pat your pockets to ensure that you have everything that you'll need as you walk down the stairs.
"Year eleven, please sort out your uniform before you leave the stage," the balding, short man that is Mr Power says as you walk past him. You shuffle by him quickly so that he doesn't clock your jeans.
As luck would have it, he doesn't notice and you swiftly make your way down to your seat.
"Tuck in your shirt!" Mr Bob bellows at n unfortunate student. You turn around from within your seat so that you can see who the person is, praying to God that it's Molly; you never did like her. "Don't turn around!" You jolt back to face the front at the shock of Mr Bob's booming voice, breathing a sigh of relief when you realise he wasn't talking to you.
The room stays quiet for a while as the last minute students come in. You discreetly turn around as you survey the area and are baffled at the number of people sitting this exam. You never thought there were this many triples!
I guess Miss Ryde was right about there being too many triples, you think to yourself as you empty your pockets.
"Eyes to the front please," Mr Bob bellows making you groan. Everyone knows that when he says this, his stupidly long and repetitive speech is soon to follow. You didn't see he point of him repeating something he says every single time. I think that I'm old enough to know the rules by now, you fume to yourself.
You decide that the best thing to do is to drown him out for the next few minutes until you hear something that catches your attention. “Mobile phones or electrical gadgets such as MP4 players are forbidden to enter the exam hall."
You don't remember leaving your phone on the stage. Frantically, you start patting down your blazer until you feel that hard lump in the upper left pocket. Your phone.
"Anyone found in possession of such items will not only be disqualified from this exam but every exam they have or will take in the future. This is because the exam board will see this as an attempt to cheat."
"Stay calm, Maggie," you whisper to yourself as you try to calm your breathing down. You'd heard the speech a million and one times but you never thought that it would actually matter to you.
"This is your last chance to hand anything that you shouldn't have in," he says.
You wait for someone, anyone, to raise their hand but no one else does. This, in turn, puts you off too. However, you suddenly come to your senses as your future flashes in front of your eyes. I don't want to be poor, you almost scream.
You're just about to raise your hand up for the invigilator when, "Okay, the time is now 1:05, you many now start your paper."
You almost scream in pain but fortunately you keep it in as an invigilator walks by you. I should have said something, you cry to yourself.
Just keep calm and it'll all be alright, you chant in your head as you begin to fill in your details on the cover paper. As sod's law would have it, because you're so nervous, you write your name on the wrong part which then results in you scribbling all over everything.
Sighing, you open the paper and look at the first question. There is a huge box, taking up most of the space on the first page, with a picture of a pair of socks and about four paragraphs of writing which you don't read.
'How do silver particles stop your socks smelling bad?' the question asks.
You sit there troubled. What kind of first question is that? Aren't first questions meant to be easy? Where is my ' what is 1+1’ question?
You start to think back to all your past chemistry lessons with Mr Roy and you can't remember being taught anything about silver particles. Giving up, you squiggle some nonsense about silver being a metal and metal slices bad smells. No wonder you're failing...
-x-
The rest of the exam is done with little thought or hard work and by some miracle your phone hasn't decided to troll you and ring. You're now onto the last question. The question has three paragraphs of writing which, again, you don't read. Under the question, there are six lines of writing which tell you that this question is pretty hard core.
‘A sample of solvent used in one perfume contained 0.6g of carbon, 0.15g of hydrogen and 0.4g of oxygen' the question says. It then gives you the Relative Atomic Masses of the elements mentioned. ‘Calculate the simple empirical formula of the solvent'.
As you finish reading that question all that is on your mind is ' dafuq?’ You can swear on your dead jelly fish that Mr Roy had never once mentioned anything about the empirical whatsamahoosits. He wasn’t even worthy of being called a teacher. He didn't even know what the chemical symbol for Carbon was! Bloody Carbon!
"You have five minutes left," an invigilator says
quietly.
You start to panic as you have no idea what empirical even means. You try to remember what your revision guide says but all you can remember are the funny pictures.
"Curse you CGP!" you quietly mumble.
"One minute left."
In a surge of panic, you start to write everything and anything that has anything to do with science. E=MC2, Osmosis, bonding, F=MA, atoms, electrons, 4.
"Put your pens down and face the front." You hadn't even heard Mr Bob come in. You breathe a sigh of relief as the invigilator comes in. You'd done it.
As the last of the invigilators came to the front, Mr Bob asked the hall if there was anyone who hadn't handed in their paper yet. "Alright, file out silently students in row D, please." You sigh as you can see that you're going to be sat here for a while. Mr Bob loved to play with us after the exams. "Students in row A..."
You drown him out as you see row C leave the hall.
"Row B, he said before turning and leaving the room. You realise that you actually were the
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