IMPRESSION

My heart is pounding as if it could burst out of my chest and my whole body is sweating, I am nervous, panicking, all at once. Every time the staff is walking beside my bench, I am nothing but terrified. All of this is only because one of my answer sheets is with my friend who is sitting at the other corner of my bench, and he stole it from me half an hour ago. I couldn’t tell the staff because if he gets caught, he will have to reappear for another year, and that is exactly why I must keep my goddamn mouth shut. But now…, I lost my patience.

“Kevin, give my answer sheet. How long would you take?”, I whispered.

He didn’t respond and the guy in front of Kevin noticed me. His name is Ravi. “Turn around, I wasn’t talking to you.”, I whispered quickly to him, and I think I might have been arrogant. I could say that by the way he glared at me, I hope he doesn’t rat me out. No response from Kevin though all this time. It’s as if he didn’t even hear a thing.

“Kevin, hey, give me my answer sheet.”, I whispered again.

Again, no response. But I don’t know why the hell does Ravi keeps on turning around. He turned around again. Wait, he turned to Kevin this time, and Kevin saw him as well. They both were…, well…, I think they are communicating in gestures. They exchanged a few of them and then Ravi turned around. This dude doesn’t give me a damn but has all the patience in the world to talk to Ravi in gestures.

“SIR!”, said Ravi and that made me startle, not only me but everyone in the hall.

OH MY GOD! What is he going to do? Is he going to tell him? I can’t say.

The staff acknowledged him.

Oh god! don’t! just don’t tell the staff! Oh god! make Ravi disappear or erase the last 10 minutes of his memories or maybe take his ability to speak, anything would be fine. I am praying to God as if any of these wishes would come true. But I don’t know what to do, if he tells, it’s over for me. I will have to reappear again.

He asked, “my pen had just slipped from my hands. Shall I take it?”

Why you?! He scared me. If I find out he did that on purpose, he’s dead. But anyway, it’s a relief he didn’t mention a damn thing about me.

The staff gave him a nod.

He took his pen which was under his bench, and he turned to look at the staff. The staff’s back is now facing Ravi.

What is Ravi even doing?

He turned to Kevin and… “What the...”, oh god, the words slipped from my mouth and now everyone’s eyes are on me. At least now Kevin noticed me and smiled under his breath.

“What is it Nethra”, the staff asked.

“Nothing, just an unexpected question. I wasn’t expecting this one to be on the question paper”, I said quickly without a second thought.

“Well then, shup up and answer it if you know”, he said.

I guess he was irritated by my ‘what the...’. After all I did broke the silence of the hall. It’s the least I could I expect from him.

Now, what happened was, Ravi was asking for my answer sheet with those gestures and Kevin agreed to it and gave him my paper. That’s why I spilled those words. I am so furious, so furious that I want to punch them both in the face right now. How dare he gave my paper to Ravi without my permission. But I can’t do anything, can I? What could I even do? I can’t tell the staff, I can’t tell anyone, so I kept my mouth shut.

The staff is walking towards the back of the class and once he passed my bench, I whispered to Kevin angrily, “why did you give my paper to Ravi”.

Kevin made gestures telling me to concentrate on my exam.

Okay, now I am pissed. This guy has some nerve messing with me like this, that too in an exam hall, I am being a good friend, helping him on his exam but he doesn’t even ask for my permission before giving my paper to him and above all this he is giving me those lethargic responses. I don’t know what else to do and I don’t know what else are waiting for me to go through in this hall, so I pulled my pen, started to show my frustration on my answer sheet because he does have a point there. I should concentrate on my exam, and I don’t know what else to do after all.

After some time, Kevin called me to give my paper. But I am not talking to him until he apologizes. So, I kept my face irritated and got my answer sheet from him forcefully even though he was giving it to me, so that he would know I didn’t like what he did. All this time the staff didn’t even notice a thing.

Now I am relieved that I got my paper, but still mad about what Kevin did.

“Last thirty minutes”, the staff said.

Still pissed, I am writing the exam.

Oh my…

My pen… it’s not writing. I shook it in my hands to see if the ink spilled or not. It doesn’t. please don’t. please don’t. I am praying as I open my pen to check the ink. SHIT! There is no ink in it. I don’t know what to do. I am panicking again. Sweating again.

I am shaking it and trying to write even though I know there is no ink.

Shaking it. Trying to write.

Shaking it again. Trying to write again.

I am doing it repeatedly, continuously but it’s no good.

What should I do? What should I do? There’re still three questions left for me to write and as I think about it all, a drop of tear appeared on my eyes. I wiped those with my handkerchief. I can’t take this. I can’t take anymore of this exam hall drama. Oh god! The tears don’t stop falling from my eyes. I don’t know what the heck am I supposed to do?! What should I do? WHAT THE HELL SHOULD I DO?!!!

Something just hit me on my left arm. I found that it was a pen. Kevin gave it to me, probably to complete my exam. I examined him from top to bottom. He doesn’t seem to have another pen, then why is he giving his only pen to me. I was curious and pointed out a finger asking him, “what will you do?”

“I can pass with what I have written”, he replied with a smile. He probably thinks he is doing me a great service, which is true, and feeling great by it, that’s why he is smiling. I don’t know why but for some reason all the anger I had at him just vanished. It happens all the time, I can never be mad at him even for some time and I hate it, I hate to even think about it, and, above all this, the staff is terrible at invigilating because he doesn’t seem to notice any things we are doing and that’s a relief.

I didn’t bother to give a response to Kevin because I still need to complete my exam. And he too seemed he doesn’t need a response. He laid his face down on the desk, could be to take a nap. So, I grabbed his pen and started to scribble the answer as there was not much time left. I prayed that whoever corrects this paper should be good hearted or else he/she would fail me for my pathetic handwriting at this moment.

I finished my exam, and the bell goes. Thank God! I made it on time. I looked to my left to find that Kevin was taking a nap just as I expected and was also drooling all over his paper, which I wasn’t expecting and it’s so funny for me to see him like this and he is also so adorable right now. I really don’t want to wake him up, but it can’t be helped as he should submit his paper. So, I woke him up by knocking on the desk a couple of times. He woke up with a sudden jerk. He looked around a couple of times, probably to gain consciousness and after gaining, he approached the staff quickly to give his paper and then walked out of the hall. I checked my answer sheet to ensure if everything is okay. After submitting my paper as well, to the staff, I chased after Kevin.

But “Nethra”, a voice came from behind.

I turned to find who it is. It’s the staff.

I kept a confused face about why he called me.

He thought for few second before speaking and said, “You must learn the manners to ask permission to the staff present in the hall before you need something from someone”.

What! Was I busted all along! I am so confused right now because I can’t tell if he is referring to me asking my answer sheet or the pen. I can’t tell which one of those he noticed. I am embarrassed by the fact I got caught and not knowing what to say, but I must give him an answer, so I replied hesitatingly, “Okay sir”.

“Now get out of the hall”, he said. The next moment I came out of the hall before he says something else.

Now I am chasing after Kevin because he forgot to ask for his pen and I forgot to give him. I found him among all the students. He was approaching the canteen. I called him and he turned around to look at me. The thought of thanking him crossed my mind but instead I said, “apologize to me first.”

He thought for a moment, and I think he figured out why I asked him to apologize. So, he said, “sorry”.

He knows me so well and that made me smile.

“Why are you smiling?”, he asked as if he knew why I was smiling.

“I don’t know which one of us helped the other”, I replied with the smile still on my face.

Now he is smiling. Unlike me he just smiled a little, very little that one wouldn’t even be able to guess if he’s even smiling from a feet away. But I know him. That’s how he is.

He said, “Now we are even”.

“yeah”, I said still smiling.

“Are you going to have lunch?”, I asked.

“Yeah”, he said.

Without a second thought I asked again, “shall I join you?”.

He thought some time before giving me an answer and then he said, “Fine”.

We both walked to the canteen to have our lunch together.