The Red Road (39 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

I
wasn’t entirely sure where much of the summer term went. Along with
most of the rest of my year, I descended into a routine of getting
up, washing, eating breakfast, revising, having lunch, playing
sports, having afternoon tea, revising, having dinner, revising,
socialising (only a little), revising, and then going to bed. That
was how it went, Monday through Saturday. I revised on Sunday, too,
Baz, Rory, Marvin, and I testing one another and sharing past exam
questions that we had managed to acquire.

Eventually, the GCSE and A-Level
exam timetables went up around the school, appearing on Butcher’s
main notice board and several other notice boards throughout the main
school. I borrowed one of them and took it into the school office,
requesting that I get a photocopy. Many others followed suit when
they saw it pinned to my bookshelf, the times and dates of my exams
highlighted in green and orange (the latter representing the subjects
that I would find the most taxing).

Simmons grew less and less tolerant
of the second years in our dorm, punishing more and more of them with
lines and reporting their misbehaviour to Mr Somers on a fairly
regular basis. At other times (and if he weren’t a part of the
Clique), he might have been referred to as a sneak, a dweeb, or one
of the many other insults that were common through the school.

“You’re going to do those
lines,” I heard Simmons say to one of the second years one night,
who was largely defying his attempts to discipline him.

“Sure, and monkeys might come
flying out of my butt,” was the response.

“For fuck’s sake, will you lot
stop quoting
Wayne’s World
all the time!”

“Oh, okay. Not.”

“Right, if you say that one more
time, you’re going on the
Murga List
.”

“You can’t put me on the
List
.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No, you can’t. Only a prefect
or Mr Somers can do that.”

“Do you want me to speak to Mr
Somers, then?”

“No.”

“Then shut the fuck up and go to
sleep.”

I heard grumbling coming from the
boy as he settled down.

“Guys, seriously, we’ve got our
exams starting next week, so we’re trying to get our revision
done,” I said, opting for an approach that favoured reasoning over
threats and abuse. “Everyone in the third year is really stressed
right now, and the upper sixth are worse. I think it would be a good
idea not to wind anyone up, because the teachers won’t take your
side if anything happens.”

“I don’t know why you’re so
stressed,” another boy said. “They’re only GCSEs. If it were
your A-Levels, I would understand.”

“GCSEs aren’t that easy,” I
said.

“I saw one of the papers, and it
didn’t look that hard.”

“Believe me, when you’re
actually doing them, they feel like the hardest thing in the world.
You’ll find out next year. Now, seriously, please go to sleep,
otherwise I’ll do as Ant already suggested and report you to Mr
Somers. It’s only going to be like this for two weeks, guys. I’m
sure you can cope. And then both Ant and I won’t be here, so you
can do as you like.”

“All right,” the boys said and
fell quiet.

I looked at my timetable. geography
first, then English lit, biology, geography (essay questions),
chemistry, English lang, physics, history, French, general studies,
history (essay questions), and finally R.E. (or R.S. as some were now
starting to call it). Despite my personal tutor being one of the
subject teachers, I had always found geography a bit of a pain and a
bore, so it was nice to get it out of the way early on so I could
concentrate on my more difficult subjects. Physics and chemistry were
still the two that I was most bothered about. There were so many
equations and constants that needed to be remembered in physics, as
well as a whole string of symbols and details about polymers, oxides,
bonds, melting points, and acids and bases for chemistry. I had scored a B in each
during my mocks, and so hoped that the final exam wouldn’t be too
much harder. I had largely gotten over my fear of R.E. It was just
essay writing and, as long as you presented your arguments correctly,
there was no wrong answer.

I glanced at the calendar on my
wall. In a fortnight this would all be over, and I would be a free
man. There would only be two weeks of term left after that. The
school had told me that, following the completion of our exams, we
were free to leave or stay around for some practice A-Level classes.
Though I was keen to get away from St Christopher’s as soon as
possible, I was giving those sample classes some serious
consideration.

Economics was one of the subjects on offer, and so I
thought it might be worth investigating while I was still here. Of
course, whether we were allowed to take the subjects on offer was
ultimately at the discretion of the teacher. If they felt that you
might struggle with it, or it wasn’t a good fit with the other
subjects you might be taking, they could blackball your attempts to
enrol. I wouldn’t be taking history, chemistry or French, so I
doubted that I would have any problems. I would probably sign up for
economics, maths and English, the three subjects that I wanted to
study at BSFC. This would help me to ease my way in.

A little while later, Simmons
switched off his lamp and got into bed. I followed suit. Four sleeps
until D-Day.

~ ~ ~

On the morning of my first exam I
made my way down to the assembly hall, along with all the other boys
in my year. We had been brought there the previous week by the
headmaster, to show us where we would be sitting some of the most
important tests of our lives. As had been promised back then, the
hall was now filled with a number of small desks and chairs, about
five columns and several rows. There were a lot more than were needed
for the third years by my count, and as I waited I saw a handful of
sixth formers arriving to join us.

“Would the sixth formers please
come to the front,” Mr Finn, one of the invigilators, asked. They
shuffled forward, looking every bit as nervous as the rest of us. Mr
Finn seated them, starting in alphabetical order and having them sit
one behind the other, consuming a little over half of the first
column.

“How many of you are sitting the
Oxbridge paper?” he asked of the eleven or so sixth formers. Two
raised their hands, and he made a mental note before coming forward
to the rest of us, still clustered by the door.

“I trust you’ve already been
made aware of the seating arrangements?” he asked.

We nodded that we had, but he
repeated them anyway. As with the sixth formers, we were to sit one
behind the other, in columns, in alphabetical order. I found my place
in the first column, and nervously began to unpack my pencil case,
scrabbling to grab one of my pencils as it made a daring leap off the
desk.

“The exam hasn’t started yet,
but from here on, until you leave the assembly hall, there is to be
no talking,” Mr Finn said. “If you have any questions, please
raise your hand. We’re just waiting for Mr Sutherland to arrive,
and then we will start handing out the papers.”

No hands were raised, and Mr
Sutherland, the second invigilator, arrived a few minutes later. With
both men present, the exam questions and A4 sheets were handed out.
DO NOT look at the questions or turn your paper over, we were
told. Once all the papers had been handed out, Mr Finn began
explaining how the exam would run.

The sixth formers were sitting
history, and their exam was to last two hours. Unlike us, they were
allowed to look at their exam questions beforehand, but not start. It
made me glad not to be doing A-Level History. It sounded as though
they were being given extra time to consider some rather complex
questions. My own geography exam was set to last for an hour and
forty-five minutes. Despite the fact that we would be done fifteen
minutes before the sixth formers, we were told that we wouldn’t be
allowed to leave, as it could disturb those sitting their A-Levels.
Our papers would be collected up, and we would be required to wait
out the last fifteen minutes patiently. I hoped that this wouldn’t
become a regular occurrence.

After a great deal more preparation
and ensuring that we were all comfortable with the set-up, Mr Finn
looked at his watch, declared that the time was two minutes past ten,
that the exam would finish at two minutes past twelve for the A-Level
students, and eleven forty-seven for the GCSE paper, and that we
should start.

I opened the booklet, my fingers
shaking slightly as I did so, and began thumbing my way through the
pages to get a feel for how taxing the more tricky and lengthy parts
would be. My eye caught something as I did so, an Ordinance Survey
map. It looked familiar.
Very
familiar. I then looked to the
question below –

A) What is at grid reference
212452?

B) How high is the highest point
at grid reference 2043?

C) What is the relief at grid
reference 2244?

D) What do grid references 2145
and 2341 tell us about the past activity in the area? Explain your
answer.

I couldn’t believe what I had just
seen and turned quickly to the final page to the essay questions.

1) Discuss the positive and
negative impacts of tourism on an area.

2) Describe the two main types of
ecosystem, illustrating your answer with examples.

Was I dreaming? Aside from a handful
of differences, this was the very same paper that I had sat during my
mocks and used as a revision template ever since. Had Mr Finn been
aware of this when he had slipped it to me? I wondered. Had the exam
board made an error, or did they make a regular habit of recycling
the papers? I looked to the man seated at the front of the hall, but
he didn’t meet my eye.

I glanced to those seated around me,
some nodding quite happily to themselves. Baz met my eye and
grinned. We had revised this paper together just a few nights ago.
This was going to be terribly easy. I snatched up my pen and
commenced writing, answering the multiple choice questions robotically, ticking
the boxes that I already knew were correct.

I finished the entire paper after
just an hour and twenty minutes, and despite going over it a couple
more times to ensure I hadn’t missed something, I came to the
conclusion that I already had geography in the bag.

~ ~ ~

The next two weeks became a roller
coaster of stress and emotion, some of the boys in my year claiming
to have breezed through everything they had done, whereas others were on the verge
of suffering a mental breakdown over what they described as complete and utter
screw ups of all their exams. There wasn’t much I could offer in the
way of sympathy, other than to say that they had probably done better
than they expected, and then invite them to revise some of their
other subjects with me.

When it came to chemistry and
physics I found myself cursing the rules that I wasn’t allowed to
bring either a periodic table or a set of equations into the exam
room with me to help. Physics was the better of the two, and at the
end of the day I wouldn’t be sad to put chemistry behind me. While
I found the time tinkering about in the labs with Bunsen burners,
test tubes and various acids and bases to be amusing, I didn’t see
the subject figuring very much in my future plans. Those involved
suits, rather than lab coats; a white-collar job, as opposed to the
blue. I did manage to remember all the parts of a flower in biology,
though, and I was certain that I had managed to get chloroplasts and
chlorophyll the correct way around this time.

By the first week of June, I had
crossed many subjects off my list of exams. It was very satisfying to see
a series of red lines on the photocopy. I was feeling more and more like a free
man with each passing day. I wouldn’t be totally free until the
penultimate week of term or so, after I had completed the A-Level
classes, but the end was certainly approaching.

Something unusual then happened
towards the end of my exam period. I was in my dorm one afternoon,
studying quietly and listening to the radio at a low volume. Simmons
was nowhere to be seen. I guessed that he had gone to study with
someone else, in another of the houses. My dormitory door opened and
in walked my housemaster.

“Ah, Joe,” he said. “Good,
you’re here. Now, how many exams do you still have left?”

“Um ... just one,” I said.
“R.E.”

“When is that?”

“On Thursday.”

“Good, come with me. I need you to
take a prep.”

“Pardon?” I said, completely
thrown by what Mr Somers had just said. “A prep? I’m in the third
year.”

“Yes, I know, but there are no
sixth formers available to take it. They’re all revising for their
A-Levels.”

“What about the lower sixth?” I
asked, not willing to move. “They don’t have any exams.”

“The lower sixth and second years
are in a meeting with the headmaster this afternoon, about the future
of the school,” Mr Somers said very matter-of-factly. “Their
futures are hanging in the balance on whether or not the school is
able to stay open into the next year, and so they are attending a
talk on their options.”

“Sir,
my
future is being
decided
this week
by my GCSEs,” I reminded him.

“You only have one left, Joe, and
it’s R.E. We both know you’ll do very well in that. Now, come on,
you can continue to study in prep.” He drew back his sleeve and
looked at his watch. “You only have to do this for twenty-five
minutes.”

I could tell that there would be no
arguing with the man, and so reluctantly picked up my binder
containing all my revision notes, photocopies and essays on R.E., and
followed Mr Somers to the classroom block.