“Damn it, the questions we got were all those which I didn’t revise.”
“I’m so sad that I feel suicidal. Hopefully, my results won’t be too bad because I really don’t want to end up in Class F,” the students grumbled and moaned, their voices echoing through the classroom building.
There were even some classmates who asked Emily teasingly, “Emily, how did you do in the exam since you didn’t attend school for a week?”
“I think I did alright,” she replied casually, but she was actually overjoyed on the inside as the questions happened to be the ones she had revised, and she was confident that she would be close to getting the full score.
Hearing her reply, her classmates continued being sarcastic, “Looks like you’re smarter than us.”
Instead of talking back and starting an argument with them, Emily kept quiet and thought to herself, Nobody will speak badly of me anymore when the results are out!
When it was time for the English exam in the afternoon, Janet took a look at the paper, dropped her pen and took a nap after filling out a few blanks.
Envious looks washed over her classmates’ faces when they saw her, thinking, She’s sure different from all of us, finishing such difficult questions within a couple of minutes.
After half an hour when it was alright to submit the paper, she submitted it without even taking a second look.
“You’re done?” Lilian asked, glancing at her with disdain.
Dropping the paper, Janet nodded. “Yeah,” she said and left the classroom jauntily.
After taking a look at her paper and then at her back, Lilian’s eyes grew as large as saucers. What…What’s going on?
When her classmates saw that she had handed in the paper so quickly, they all looked at each other and exclaimed, “I didn’t see her answering the question at all!”
“Did she just hand in an empty paper because she didn’t know the answers?”
“Yeah, I didn’t see her write anything as well. What’s going on?”
“Does she have a special ability where she can write her answers without a pen upon seeing the exam questions?”
Emily couldn’t help but frown in unease at her students’ discussions.
By the time the exam was over in the afternoon, Lilian and Mr. Smith collected the exam papers and went back to the office to mark them.
Realizing that something was amiss with Lilian as she stared at the papers with a disheartened look on her face, Mr. Smith asked in puzzlement, “Ms. Lilian, how are the results of those rascals this time?”
“Don’t even start. The students are no longer interested in studying these days. Staring at Janet alone is enough for them,” she replied, annoyed.
Teachers from other classes chimed in, “There’s nothing to worry about. No matter how much they’re slacking in their studies, the average score of your class will still be the top of the grade.”
“That’s right. Look at this stack of papers here. None of them answered seriously. They’re all gibberish!” one of them said.
Smirking at their comments, she was relieved that the class she led was the best in school. As she was marking the exam papers, she was startled at one one them and her face fell as she mumbled, “Janet will be at the top of the class again this time. How annoying.”
Staring at the answer sheet which was filled with words with only one word written wrongly, the final score she wrote down was 149. Without checking the name of the student, she assumed that it must have been Janet’s paper.
All of a sudden, Mr. Smith cried out, “Goodness, this student filled in everything! I’m sure the score won’t be anything less than 130.”
“Is that student a genius?”
“Is there someone so smart?”
“Let me take a look!” The language teachers from other classes all came over to join the excitement.
“This must be Janet’s paper,” they gushed, staring at the paper in his hand.
Mr. Smith hesitated for a moment before answering, “Probably. I’ll take a look after marking.”
Less than ten minutes later, he flipped over the page that initially hid the student’s name and was startled when he saw who the paper belonged to. “This… This is not Janet’s paper.”
“What?”
“Who else if not Janet?” Everyone else was equally surprised and came over to take a look. “Ah, it’s her!”
Seeing the commotion, Lilian went over to check it out as well and saw that it was Emily’s name on the paper.
