Saved By The Bell

Billy stared at the digital clock, on the repurposed scoreboard hanging from the wall, at one end of the hall. As if it was the dying seconds of a nail-biting game, the time seemed to fly by. Sweat started to bead on Billy’s forehead. This was his shot, his opportunity.

But he wasn’t ready.

He hadn’t studied enough. He had let himself get distracted. His phone, computer games, movies that he just had to see. It all felt so frivolous now. But in the moment, they had been truly tantalising.

Regret surged through him, making him feel sick to his stomach. He thought of his teachers. They had encouraged him, believed in him and he had let them down.

He thought of his mother. She worked so hard to give him this opportunity at this private school. This bastion of learning. And how had he repaid her?

The thick, unforgiving fabric of his private school uniform itched at him. He didn’t deserve to wear it.

All around him, sixteen and seventeen year olds, sat isolated at their own desks. Restrained in their own unforgiving plastic chairs. Were they also plagued with feelings of inadequacy? Regret? Guilt?

It didn’t look like it. They looked eager, pencils at the ready. Determined to prove that their superior breeding was tantamount, and that people trying to defy their standing, like Billy, were kidding themselves.

They dismissed him. He was a blight. A homeless man, sullying their otherwise resplendent street. They hurried past, looking the other way.

He looked down at the paper in front of him. Calculus.

He had always loved maths but now, it had betrayed him. The equation had been simple. Put the work in, practice and the questions become easier. But he had defied the statistics. He had tried to use an equation that just didn’t fit. He had tried to have his cake and eat it too. And now he felt sick.

In the fleeting seconds before the exam was due to start, he prayed for a saviour. He was an atheist and had always scoffed at the religious underpinnings of the school he now represented. But suddenly he was praying for Jesus, for Thor, hell, for Ryan Gosling to save him. An earthquake, to swallow up the school. A cyclone, a monsoon, a plague of locusts. Anything to save him from the impending disaster that was this exam.

If he just had one more night. One more chance to study. He wouldn’t waste it. Not again.

A hush came over the hormonal hovel of teens, as their Principal approached the microphone.

“You have two hours. There will be no bathroom breaks, no sharing of equipment and no talking,” he barked, ominously.

No escape, thought Billy, as he sighed deeply. The Principal, having eyed off every student in the hall, nodded his head.

“You may begin,” he uttered.

No good luck, no encouragement. This wasn’t about luck. This was about hard work, and Billy had failed before he had even begun.

All around the room, the others tore open their exam with excited abandon. Billy felt like a horse left in the starter’s gate. He’d never catch up.

He slowly opened his own paper and read the first question. He felt a sliver of recognition, but not enough. It was like it was written in a language that he had heard but didn’t understand.

He recognized the letters but the patterns they made were foreign.

But then, just as tears pricked at his eyes, a voice cleared from the front.

“I’m afraid there has been an incident and we need to evacuate the building,” stated the Principal, clearly frustrated.

Billy couldn’t believe it. Had he done this? Had his prayers been answered?

“Leave your exam and exit the back of the hall, immediately,” ordered the Principal.

Billy didn’t need to be asked twice. He pushed his chair back and practically ran through the exit doors. Others weren’t so keen. They looked heartbroken at missing out on the opportunity to show off their understanding. Many of them had stayed up all night, abusing energy drinks and Ritalin medication. All for nought.

Would they resit the exam? Would they write a new one? When?

Even more questions they wouldn’t get to answer.

When Billy got home, he dropped his bag at the door and felt the weight lift from his shoulders. The weight that had grown exponentially over the last few days. The approaching disappointment surging towards him like the ground to a falling parachuter without a shoot.

But somehow, he had been given a second chance.

A secondary shoot had opened, just in the nick of time.

He was determined not to waste it. But before he could crack the books and get to work, he was starving. Apparently, the butterflies in his stomach had rid him of his energy. He hurried to the kitchen and made himself a peanut butter and jelly. Brain food.

His mother wasn’t home, as usual. She was at work. Since his father had left them, years ago, it had just been the two of them. She was the bread winner and the peanut butter and jelly winner. She sacrificed so much for him, and he had almost let her down.

No more.

But then, as he was about to grab his books and get to work, he spotted his Playstation. It was a beacon, flickering in the darkness. A buoy in the turbulent water. It was a fire and he was a moth, helpless. He forgot his books and accepted the magnetic pull towards it.

Just a few minutes, he promised himself, as he grabbed the control. Seemingly losing it, as he ignored the remarkable opportunity he had been given.

A voice broke him from his spell.

“Billy! Honey! I’m home!” she called out, as she put her bag and her son’s forgotten backpack in their designated positions on the wall hooks.

In his room, Billy panicked. He snapped his head to look out the window and was shocked to see that darkness had descended on the neighbourhood. He had been playing for hours.

He leapt up from his bed, as if electrocuted, the controller falling to the floor. He ran over to his desk and grabbed a pen. He opened his textbook and feigned concentration.

Just in time too, as his mother approached and leaned against his doorway. Billy didn’t spot it, but she immediately clocked the controller haphazardly discarded on the floor, the screen frozen mid game and the textbook turned upside down. She pushed down her disappointment and looked to her son.

“So? How did it go? How was the exam?” she asked, excitedly. His biggest cheerleader.

“It got cancelled. I heard there was a bomb threat or something,” he muttered, casually. Unable to look his mother in the eye. He tried to not look at the screen he had forgotten to turn off.

“Oh, well, that’s great, isn’t it? I mean, you wanted more time to study, right?” she suggested, encouragement oozing from her pores.

Thankfully, unlike the exam, he knew the answer to these questions. He nodded. “Yeah, um, speaking of, I better get back to it,” he replied, gesturing to the upside-down textbook.

“Of course. Sorry, darling. Hey, how about I order us a pizza? I’ll bring some in when its ready,” she added with a grin.

Pizza, his favourite. Damn, why was he so weak? He could play video games anytime. Why couldn’t he just ignore it and study? Why did he have to let down the one person in the world he wanted to make proud?

“Thanks Mum,” he managed and she went off to order. Why hadn’t he asked about her day? Was she tired? Exhausted, even? She didn’t show it. Had she disappointed herself today?

So, with that harrowing thought, he flipped his book around and got to work. He worked through examples, checking his answers. He watched Youtube videos illustrating solutions and ignored the Snapchats and suggested videos calling to him from his device.

About an hour later, the doorbell broke him from his calculations.

Thank God. He was starving.

He didn’t wait for his Mum to bring in a slice. Instead, he went for the door. He promised himself he would ask his mother how her day had gone, as they ate together.

But as he got to the edge of the hallway, he saw it wasn’t the pizza delivery driver. It was a police officer. Billy froze and backed up. What was he doing here?

He slid into the shadows and peered around the corner, as his mother moved to let the uniformed officer inside. He didn’t look friendly. He looked irritated, angry even, as he took a seat on the couch. The couch that they watched movies on and provided a stage for them to argue about the merits or more often, lack of merits of the said film. As the large man descended into the cushions, he seemed to sully it. Defile it.

Billy watched as he pulled out a pen and pad. He glanced at it before starting. “Now, I understand you have a son that attends the Queensland Academy of Health Sciences …” he left the sentence unfinished, like an accusation. He didn’t need an answer. He already knew.

Billy flinched. Was this about him?

He hadn’t done anything. I mean, he had wished for the exam to be cancelled. But you can’t be arrested for praying or wishing. Can you?

His Mum, to her credit, stayed calm. “Yes. Why is there a problem?” she asked, seemingly not believing it.

“Well, I’m not sure if you have heard, but there was a bomb threat at the school today,” he started, frown lines appearing on his Cro-Magnum forehead. Disappointed at the thought.

“Yes, Billy mentioned it. His exam got cancelled …” she interrupted, much to his chagrin.

He quickly interrupted her to regain his power, his manhood. “Postponed. They will resit it tomorrow. Now, I don’t need to tell you, that calling in a bomb threat is a serious offence. It costs taxpayers, a significant amount of money and can, quite fairly in my opinion, result in thousands of dollars in fines and often jail time for the perpetrator,” he stated, as if reading from a handbook. A handbook he clearly believed in.

Billy’s eyes bulged. Jail time? Surely it wasn’t that big a deal. Right?

His mother didn’t seem as surprised. “I understand completely,” she stated.

“Is your son here, by the way?” he questioned, causing Billy to retreat further down the hallway. Suddenly the thought of doing his maths exam didn’t seem that bad as the idea of being interrogated by the man on his couch, with the gun on his belt.

His mother sat forward. “That is none of your business. He had nothing to do with this …” she growled, offended, protective.

“Everything is my business. But it’s not him I’m worried about. We have him with all of his classmates on camera, waiting in the hallway to enter the exam. He didn’t do it …” he admitted suggestively. Letting the silence between them speak volumes.

His mother crossed her arms. “Well, it wasn’t me,” she stated defiantly.

“Are you sure?” he asked, finally an actual question. “You wouldn’t be the first mother to protect her son from an exam he wasn’t ready for. I bet that’s where he is right now. Taking advantage of this … opportunity,” he leered.

Billy gasped, before quickly covering his mouth.

Would his Mum really do this? He had admitted he wasn’t ready last night. That he was stressed.

Before he could think any further on it, his mother stood. “Well, as I said, I had nothing to do with it. I was at work all day. I’m tired. So, if you don’t mind. Dinner will be here soon, and I’d like to enjoy it with my son,” she stated bravely, gesturing to the door. Only a slight quiver in her voice.

As the officer took his leave, Billy scurried back into his room. He collapsed onto his bed and ran his hands through his hands.

Had she really done it? Had she risked her hard-earned money, even going to prison, for him?

He looked at the books on his desk and pushed himself up.

If she had done it, he was certainly going to make her sacrifice worth it.

Later that night, Billy fell asleep in his chair. His head lay in between the pages of his textbook, as if hoping he would absorb the information through subconscious osmosis.

As he mumbled about wanting to do just a few more questions, his mother guided him to his bed and tucked him in. It wasn’t easy anymore. He was heavy and well, she wasn’t getting any stronger. She wouldn’t always be there to protect him, she realized, as she turned off the light and left him to sleep. Counting sheep shaped curves and the areas underneath them.

“Pencils down,” declared the Principal resolutely. The students collapsed in their chairs and let their writing tools fall. Time was up. Nothing left now but the interminable wait. The wait for judgement.

Billy closed his tired eyes and said another prayer. He hadn’t wasted his opportunity. He had done a lot better and whether it was his mother or an act of divine intervention, he was thankful.

As he left the hall and headed for the bus, he noticed his Mum. She waved at him and with a look over his shoulder to check none of his classmates had spotted her, he walked over. She gave him a hug. He soaked it in, well at least until she kissed him on the head and he playfully pushed her away.

“Well, how’d it go?” she asked, trying to hide her trepidation.

Billy pretended to be sad and then smiled. “Great,” he muttered. She gave him a look.

“Really, Mum. It went great. Way better than I thought. Thanks,” he blushed.

She grinned, excitedly. “I knew it. I knew you could do it,” she squealed, pushing back a tear. “C’mon, let’s get you home,” she muttered, hiding her face, as she moved around the car.

As they drove, Billy tried to wrap his head around what had happened.

Another problem he had to solve, and no calculator was going to help him this time.

Had his mother called in the bomb threat?

He wanted to ask her. He wanted to know.

He even opened his mouth. But nothing came out.

He didn’t know what to say. Until he did.

He turned to her. “I love you, Mum,” he stated honestly, no longer worried about prying eyes or judgemental classmates.

“You too, darling. More than you know,” she added with a smile. A smile that said everything.

She might have called in the threat. Or maybe she had just bought him pizza, tucked him into bed and then come to pick him up, to show how much she cared.

It didn’t really matter.

He was very lucky and he was going to work harder to make sure she didn’t have to go to such lengths again.

Life was a test and even if he had failed this one, he was determined to pass the next one with flying colours.

For himself and, just as importantly, for her.