I smile. “I’m super excited for this test, that’s all.”
He sighs. “I know, I know, everyone hates the SATs. But it’s a necessary evil, like flossing and in-laws.”
The bell rings, and I turn to Raj. “What else can you spell?”
“Tomorrow I’ll show you how to draw a naked girl in Microsoft Word.”
After math class, Delilah and I meet up at her locker. When she approaches, I’ve got my nose buried in my calculator. “Youcan take the guy out of the math classroom,” she says, “but you can’t take the math out of the guy.”
I laugh and proudly present my calculator screen.
“Let me guess. Your prison number?”
I put my hand over hers, twisting her wrist so that it’s upside down.
“How cool is that?” I say proudly. “I can type my name in numbers.”
Delilah smiles. “I see pre-calc is really paying off for you.”
“Wait, I’m not done.”
I take the calculator back and writeBOOBS, then show it to her.
She rolls her eyes. “Ugh. You’re acting like such a teenage boy.”
“I am one,” I say proudly. “Wasn’t that exactly what you wanted?”
Delilah turns the calculator off and gives it back to me. “I should have listened to that genie,” she replies. “Be careful what you wish for.”
In the fairy tale, countless armies faced Pyro the dragon. Grown men shook in their armor, crying out for their mothers as the flames licked their shields. They pleaded with the heavens and sank to their knees, certain they had met their end of days.
The fear of these men was nothing compared to the faces ofthe students surrounding me as Mr. Elyk begins to pass out the SAT Reasoning Test. A cheerleader sitting behind me is swallowing convulsively, as if her breakfast is about to come face to face with my back. Raj keeps checking the battery life on his calculator. Even Chris looks a little pale.
“I don’t understand why everyone’s panicking,” I whisper to Chris. “All you have to do is color in the circles.”
“It’s not about how you color the circles. It’s about finding the right answer to know which ones you color. Based on this test, I could wind up at Harvard or bagging groceries for the rest of my life.”
“No more talking,” Mr. Elyk says. “We’re about to begin.” He lifts up a piece of paper and begins to read from it, a litany of directions that has something to do with sections and time and point systems that sounds like gibberish to me. I stare at the grid of circles that will apparently decide my destiny.
“Now everyone break your seals,” Mr. Elyk says, “and begin.”
I do as he says, then look down at the first question in my booklet:
For pumpkin carving, Mr. Smith will not use pumpkins that weigh less than 2 pounds or more than 10 pounds. If x represents the weight of a pumpkin, in pounds, he will not use, which of the following inequalities represents all possible values of x?
a. | x – 2 | > 10
b. | x – 4 | > 6
c. | x – 5 | > 5
d. | x – 6 | > 4
e. | x – 10 | > 4
What the devil is wrong with a man who doesn’t even know how to use a proper scale? If it keeps reading x, it’s time to purchase a new one.
Clearly this is a trick question. So in response, I decide that the best use of my time is to fill in the circles in the way that will be most pleasing to the eye of the person who is grading it.
