–***–
Thursday came and went. Three halls with forty students in each, the front desk a spectacle of green and brown exhibits. Scribbling, drawing, pondering. The most nervous students walking back and forth between the exhibits until the staff told them to leave room for the next student. Coloured pencils getting sharpened. No multiple-choice questions in the class run by Jim Kirk, that was for sure. Jim was watching over it all, walking around in the different rooms. The students were not allowed to ask him questions but he still felt he should be there.
After five hours it was over. The greenhouse staff came to take the plants away. Scotty lamented.
"Will you look at that! This poor liverwort's been handled too much. See here, all around the edge!" He was holding the plate close to his face and looked at the bruised thallus. Jim smiled at him.
"Come now, Scotty! Exam day takes a lot out of all of us. The students, me, you, and the plants. They are our co-workers. And besides, liverworts like it rough. You know very well that thing will be more lush next week than it was before."
"Humph."
"Only because of your treatment, of course. You're a miracle worker, Scotty, you could make a stone sprout." Jim gave Scott a slap on the shoulder. One of the assistants opened both doors to the hall wide to let the forklift in. Jim jokingly pointed to the high stack of exam papers on the desk. "Hey, how about you use that forklift to help me get that pile to my office?"
–***–
Friday came. Jim had been grading papers every waking hour, using his fastest method. First, find all papers that are flawless and grade them. No mistakes meant little work to do for Jim. Then came the nearly flawless, where the mistakes could be easily marked, and graded accordingly. The next step was the hopeless ones. There were always a few of those. The ones who answered less than half the questions, or earnestly wrote 'I don't know'. They were also easy to grade, as they expected and deserved an F. But the rest – oh, that was the hard part. Here was where he had to be as justly subjective as possible. Pass or fail? It depended on if Jim himself considered the mistakes important or insignificant. He was bracing himself for dealing with one student that had called the cycad a 'palm' in the first line but correctly identified it as a Zamia further down. The beep of the phone interrupted him.
"Hello, Kirk here."
"Where should we meet?"
"For what?"
"I'm sorry, perhaps I misunderstood. Goodbye." When Jim heard the dark voice it all came back to him. Friday! The math guy! He stood up so quickly that the chair toppled over behind him.
"No, no, don't hang up! I'm still here! Hello?"
"Yes?"
"Outside the Aula Magna, under the clock-on-a-spike. In ten minutes."
–***–
The sun was shining and the campus was busy. Lots of students were eating their lunch outdoors. Jim spotted a gang from his class and waved at them as he walked by. They waved back and hollered.
"Hey, what are you doing outside? Shouldn't you be grading papers, sir?"
"Even a teacher has to eat! You wouldn't want me to be hungry and grumpy, would you?" He threw out his hands and walked backwards to keep eye contact as he passed them. They laughed and looked happy. Well, he hadn't failed any of those eight yet, so they were entitled to enjoy themselves. Jim turned around to see where he was going and spotted a slim dark figure under the clock. Why was the man wearing a black suit in May?
–***–