ALL STANDARD DISCLAIMERS APPLY.
Form S.
John stared at the little shaded box at the top corner of his test booklet, tapping his pencil steadily against the table. Next to the box displayed the penciled in words, Baum John, blank. This was all his mother's fault, she was the one who had signed hime up for this damn test. "Fill in you name at the top of your test booklets above the marked line," Mr. Coorigan read out to all the students who had somehow gotten themselves roped into taking the PSAT. John stared at the middle inital space on his booklet, he wasn't sure what to put, not quite remembering if John Baum had a middle name. There was the eraser marks from where he had removed his real middle initial, K, as in Kyle, his father. Finally he settled on rewriting the K, after all, wouldn't it look a tiny bit suspicous if he had only eraser marks there, what kind of retard didn't know their own middle name?
John resumed tapping his eraser on the edge of the table, earning an annoyed glance from the girl across the table, quickly he removed it and began tapping it against his left palm instead. It was a nervous habit, same as biting fingernails, he didn't know when he developed it but he knew he had to end it. Nervousness was a sign weakness, great military leaders couldn't show any sign of weakness, John wouldn't tap anymore.
"You may open your booklets to page two, you have 25 minutes, go," Coorigan called out, the beeps of his watch timer being set clearly audible throughout the cafeteria where the testing session was being held.
1. Because passanger lists....the captain was able to promis complete ________.
(a) duplicity (b) renunciation (c) confidentiality (d) clarity (e) classification
What? okay, so duplicity means two-faced, John recalled his freshman Lit class back in the 90's and crossed out a, skipping over b, he identified c as the correct answer bubbling it in the scantron answers sheet. Inwardly taking a breath of relief at the easiness of the question. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after.
17 minutes later, he was only on question 10 when Coorigan called out "5 minutes," in warning.
"Great," he sarcastically remarked under his breath, noticing one of the kids around him smirk, he rolled his eyes in response.
He struggled to get as many questions done in five minutes as possible, not realizing their was a quarter point deduction for every wrong answer he simply started to fill in random bubbles, it wasn't like it mattered, he told himself.
"Time," the controlling voice over called, "lift your pencils, put your answer sheet in your test booklet, you have a two minute break."
"Shit," little miss almighty across the table remarked, causing a small smirk to appear on John's lips, "Court, do you have a tampon or pad or something," okay ew. Although grossed out by the thought he still chuckled.
"Shut up, bitch," "Court" called out to John, "yea, just take my backpack to the bathroom, Shelb."
Crap, the remark about the bathroom made John have to go, greattttt, he wasn't going to be able to stop thinking about that now, he glanced at the clock to see less than a minute before testing resumed, fanfreakingtastic.
"Twenty-five minutes, turn to page nine, now" John had just turned the pages when he saw Shelby scurry back to the table and fumble through the book to find her page. John would have found it funny that the smart girl was struggling but seeing as he was struggling even more it just didn't seem to work out. Glancing down at the book he took in the image of a triangle, obtuse or something, well this was just perfect, he was retaking geometry now, seeing as he had failed it the first go around sophomore year. You know what, fuck it, a grand PSAT score wasn't going to do him much good in the future, besides this was all his mom's fault.
"I just want a normal life," he was bitching to his mother again after she told him he couldn't go on one freaking date because she felt his training needed a little rounding and that he was out of practice.
"I'm sorry John but that just isn't an option for you, I wish it were but it's not," there was something about the way she said it that just really didn't sound sincere.
"Whatever," attempting to walk around his mother and out the front door.
"Hey," she stressed out, "This picked you, you can't ignore your fate John," she called out, causing her teenage son to hault, turn, and pause.
"All I want is a normal life," he walked out the door, fully intending to go on his date, fully expecting to be grounded when he returned, Sarah had other ideas.
Instead of grounding John like a normal mother, Sarah had gone down to his high school and registered him for the PSAT, Sarah Connor just had to be unusual, unique. That was how John found himself in the stupid cafeteria with all the geniuses of his school taking a goddamn, precollegeentrance exam, knowing full well that he would most probably drop out of high school and not even get his GED.
"Fuck it," John stood up, carried his test booklet to Coorigan, ignoring his final warning that the test would not be graded if he left and walked out, stopping at the bathroom before going out to get a coffee. He was still excused from his first two classes and he intended on making the most of that time before returning for C block.
AN: That is not how PSAT scores really look, I cut some of the question out because legally we can't replicate them and yes you can leave the testing room during the test for the bathroom, as long as one of the test admins. excuse you, I just wanted my story to flow better and say "ignoring the warnings that if he left without a proper excuse pass his test would not be scored" didn't sound good to me.
HAPPY NEW YEARS/DECADE
10:10 PM DEC 31 2009
