The Math Test

I walk into class and notice the words test in red on the white board. I jump, I had no idea about
a math test on this day my father is going to kill me. I sit down and see all the other kids like
they were having a normal day just like any other. The math teacher comes around and hands
me the thick test on my desk. I started to write and it didn’t seem so hard after all, but then
came the last 3 pages, I was done for. I never knew how to do the exponents and they were on
the last pages of the test. I sit there looking on problem 100, 3 to the power of 5. I sit there
thinking, my head starts to hurt. I look around and all the other kids seems to have no problem
taking the test. How was I supposed to know if the test was coming up? I look back on the white
board to see the homework from last night and there is was in red “Test Tomorrow” How could
I have missed that? It was the biggest sentence on the board and it was even underlined. “My
father really is going to kill me” I thought there shaking. I look back and 3 to the power of 5 just
kept going through my head. Do you multiply to make it 15? Or do you just add them up to
make 8? Or was there something else I was missing? I try to look over at someone elses test
next to me, but they notice me and Michael just stares at me with the biggest eyes and covers
his paper with his arm and goes back taking the test. I look ahead to see if there were more
problems like 3 to the power of 5, hoping that it was just normal multiplying or dividing, but it
was all exponents and exponents everywhere. I sink into my chair on the breaking point of
crying “My father is going to kill me” kept going through my mind like a broken record looping
the same lyrics over and over and over and over again. I put my head down thinking that this
was all a bad dream that it will be over. “WAKE UP CHRIS” shouted my math teacher. I jumped and she took the test away from me and from everyone else, I look at the clock and its 1:40
school ends in 15 minutes and that’s plenty of time for the teacher to grade them. I started to
think about stealing my test back so then I she will think she lost my test so then she can give
me a retake the next day. I get up slowly and tip toe towards the test focusing on my test
hanging off the desk. I put my hand on it then I feel pain on my hand, the teacher hit me with
the stick, I fall on the floor trying hard not to break into tears. She stands over me like the
empire state and says “Don’t let me catch you ever doing that again young man” I nod. I got
myself up and went back into my seat. I look at my hand and it was boozed. A few minutes later
she comes around handing back the math tests normally, but when she comes to me and hands
it she eyes me in a way like I was a no good person. I look at my test and 40, 40% correct and a
big fat dark F-. I slump into my chair now I knew there was no hope now “My father will kill me kept
coming through my mind. If mother was still here she would’ve helped me with the answers I
got wrong so that when the next test would come around I would get a good grade, but my
father wasn’t like that he was always too drunk or sad to help out. Then the school bell rings,
everyone gets up and leaves. I was just sitting there hoping to stall, but then the teacher forces
me to get up out of my chair and leave the class. Then I walk down the longest hallway of my
life and I would like to keep it long, anything, but to confront my father with this test. Then
come the doors to the outdoors. It was cold outside and I wished I brought my jacket. All the
other kids were having a great time talking, and laughing like everything was normal. I wish I
were them. I see the yellow school buses go passed me and move along to my father’s house.
I trudge back from school slowing wondering what he will do to me when he would see my
math test. I look up to the sky and see dark cumulo-nimbus clouds coming closer and closer, it
will rain very heavily soon. The air outside of my house smelled of whiskey and vodka. I opened
the door and tip toe down an endless hallway which gotten darker and darker on each step.
Then I got to the wooden door of the living room. I quietly opened the door to find my father
sitting there, there were vodka and whiskey bottles all around him. He questioned “How was
the math test?”That is when I feel a blast of cool air I don’t stop. I look back and I can’t see him
anywhere in the down pour and lighting, he was nowhere to be seen. When I got back it
stopped down pouring and raining in general, but it was cold and wet and I find my father in the
living room sobbing, I step towards my father to see if he was alright, but then he raises his
arms I flinch, but he just hugs me sobbing.