OK, I need to explain Muck-Up Day here. I don't know if it's done in countries other than Australia, but over here it's a tradition in schools where on the last day of classes the students who are in the leaving class (i.e. Seniors) basically get to run amuck and play pranks on other students and teachers. It's a lot of fun but has led to vandalism and injury in the past so a lot of schools have banned them now : (
Charlie groaned as Olivia came over to his bed and nudged him awake. "Whaddya want?" he mumbled.
"Time to get up, Charlie."
"But Mum, I don't wanna go to school!" he whined.
She laughed. "Come on, you baby, it's our last exam today."
"Last one. Bout bloody time." He yawned and pulled himself out of bed.
The exams felt like they'd lasted for forever and a day. On top of the academic exams the students had to do physical tests, medical tests, and panel interviews with an admissions board designed to scare you to hell and back. Olivia's panel was the day before, and it was beyond awful. Having a table of eight senior FBI agents questioning you on your every move at the Academy and your personal life is intimidating to say the least, but she tried to stay as confident as possible in justifying her answers to their deliberately condescending questions. The PT tests had also been brutal – hours of endurance, strength and flexibility testing designed to torture every recruit until they cried and begged for their mums. The last two weeks had been harrowing physically and psychologically. When they weren't doing tests, the recruits were always either studying like crazy or drowning their sorrows at the Whitehorse. Either way, they felt like they were doomed.
But today it was all going to be over. Their last exam was at 9am. It was Jacobsen's Forensic Psych paper. Three hours of essays and short answer questions. What a bloody nightmare. But it was the last one. And then it would all be over and Olivia could focus her worries on waiting for the results and testifying at Harris' trial. She and Charlie got up early that morning to study and go over last-minute notes. As they were working, her phone buzzed with a message.
"Hey, Livia. Just wanted 2 say gud luck 4 2day. Last test then u can relax and hang out with ur awesome boyfriend ; ) Hang in there kiddo. P"
She smiled before texting back. "Thanx, will c u soon. Btw, u give urself too much credit, lol. O"
Charlie and Olivia continued to study and drink copious amounts of coffee to keep themselves awake and alert. Eventually they reached a point where their time was running out, so they took one last glance at their textbooks before heading off to Kennedy Hall for their last test of the course.
"You're gonna be fine," Charlie whispered as they took their seats.
"I know," she said confidently. "And so are you."
He chuckled softly. "Yeah, we'll see."
When Jacobsen announced their five minutes of reading time had begun, Olivia turned the page and read the first question.
"Federal Bureau of Investigation Basic Training Course; Junior Federal Agents Program; Forensic Psychology Final Exam;
Short Answer Question One: Explain why offender profiling has been largely abandoned as a science and give a detailed example of an offender type in which this practice of criminal investigation is impossible, explaining why. 8 marks"
Terrorists. She grinned to herself. Thank goodness for Peter's study games and Red-Russian-inspired shenanigans. Olivia started doing the maths in her head. She had to write 120 marks worth of answers in three hours, which meant she had about one and a half minutes to spend on each mark. So she had twelve minutes to answer question one. She made a mental note of that and continued reading through the paper, where the topics tested covered practically everything they'd studied, from hostage negotiation to the complexities of interrogation to serial killers.
"Short Answer Question Four: What is Secondary Victimisation? Give an example of a case type in which it often occurs, explaining the criminal justice system's role in Secondary Victimisation. 5 marks"
Her heart sank a little and she swallowed. She knew the answer. She would become an expert on this next week, and not in a good way. Secondary Victimisation is when a victim of a crime is further traumatised and stigmatised through their reporting of the offence and their participation in the court process – common in sexual assault cases. Already Olivia had experienced this. Having to give her statement again and again at the hospital was traumatic in itself, and having to face Harris next week in court would only be worse. She shook her head and tried to shove out her thoughts of dread. She had a three hour exam to write – that was enough to worry about for now.
Jacobsen announced that they could start writing their responses, and suddenly the room filled with the sounds of scratching pens and flipping pages. Olivia wrote frantically until her hand cramped up, but there was no time to stop. She just cracked her knuckles and kept on writing. 94 minutes left…68 minutes…45…22…3…
"Pens down!" Jacobsen declared.
Olivia let her pen slip from her sore hand and fall to the hardwood floor of the hall. It made a soft clanging sound. She stretched and shook her hand, laughing lightly with relief along with the other students.
Jacobsen had the other examiners gather up all the papers. "Alright, everyone!" he said in a booming voice. "I'm sure you're glad that you've finished Paper One of your Forensic Psychology finals. We'll have you leave the exam room for a 20 minute break before we call you back in to begin Paper Two."
The whole room went dead silent and Olivia's stomach clenched. There was a Paper Two?
Jacobsen's deadpan face broke into a huge smile and he laughed. "Nah, I'm just messing with you. You're all dismissed. Congratulations."
After they laughed off the initial shock of his prank, they all cheered and ran out the door in a massive stampede. Olivia found Charlie and gave him a massive hug.
"We did it!" he exclaimed, laughing and twirling her around. "Come on, Liv, we have to go get ready for Muck-Up Day!"
By now it was just after midday, and Muck-Up Day was officially in motion. The teachers had decided to let them have it as long as they kept it outdoors, no criminal offences occurred and they cleaned up afterwards. The Secondary Training students were still only half-way through their course, so it was only the first years who got to celebrate, but the older recruits would probably join in the fun anyway. Olivia and Charlie went to get changed into old clothes they could afford to get dirty and gathered all the prank-playing equipment they'd need for the rest of the day.
When they were prepared for all sorts of mischief, they headed down to the grounds of the Academy to a massive pirate flag someone had planted on the top of Little Hill. For hours the first years did idiotic but hilariously fun things to make each other forget that they were actually scared to death of their exam results. It started with water pistol fights. It was a lot like when they'd played paintball in PT to learn tactical team techniques, but this was a lot less serious. Some of them chose to put fish oil or coke in their water pistols to make whoever they targeted all sticky and smelly.
This later progressed to a rotten food fight. Some of the local store owners had been saving old, squishy fruits and vegetables for the students to buy in bulk just for this day. Soon enough, they were all running around the grounds pegging food at each other. Suddenly two strong arms wrapped around Olivia and spun her around. She wriggled trying to escape the man's grasp as he continued to swing her and they collapsed onto the grass together.
"Peter!"
"Hey hey, sweetheart! How's Muck-Up Day going?"
She looked down at herself and laughed. She was covered in fish oil, sugary soft drink, flour and squishy old food. "Uhh, I think my shirt is a good representation of how this day is going."
"Looks like you've been having fun," he said, pulling half a tomato from out of her hair. "Never a dull day at The Academy, right?"
"What are you doing here?"
"What, I'm not allowed to come and visit my girlfriend?"
"Peter."
"Alright, alright. I'm here mostly to advertise the bar's end of exam party tonight. We've got this DJ coming out from DC, one of Akim's friends. Cheap drinks. Open all night. You guys should come."
She nodded and gave him a quick kiss. He smirked as he pulled away. "You taste like old peaches."
She laughed. "So what's all this advertising you speak of? You don't look like you're doing much."
"Well, I'm not doing much, but they are," he said, pointing behind her to three cows wearing advertising signs on their sides. Already recruits were ducking underneath them and using the poor things as shields in their water fights. "Akim borrowed a couple from the farm next door. He donates them to Muck-Up Day every year in exchange for free advertising on campus."
"Which one's Gene?"
"Uh, number four."
Olivia looked over to the three cows again, seeing that on their sides were painted bright blue numbers: 1, 2, and 4. She glanced around, a little concerned. "Where's cow number three?"
He laughed. "There isn't one. The numbers are just to make the teachers supervising all this freak out."
She looked up to see some security guys and lecturers on phones, scanning the grounds frantically for the missing cow. She laughed and smacked him on the back of the head. "You're mean."
"Oh whatever, it's all in good fun. You know fun's not bad Olivia. There's actually more to life than exams and textbooks, believe it or not."
"Wow. Aren't I lucky I have a cultured young man of the world as a boyfriend to teach me these things?"
"You know, you should talk about me like that more often instead of hitting me so much," he teased, but all he got was another light smack on the back of the head. He gave her a cheeky smile. "You've got food all over you," he chuckled picking little pieces off and leaning in to kiss her face clean.
As she was kissing him, she reached around for an old mango and squished it against the side of his head. He leapt back slightly, surprised. "Oh, you're in for it," he growled. He straddled her and started tickling her mercilessly as she squirmed beneath him.
"Stop!" she laughed, gasping for air. "Please!"
"Hmm…I don't know…"
"I won't do it again, I promise. Stop, I can't breathe. Please!"
He finally released her. "Sorry, I couldn't resist." He leaned down to give her another kiss just as Charlie ran over.
"Man, this is nuts. Quantico's gone all Baghdad and shit," he said, panting and covered in stains. "I just took a pear to the face!"
"Be grateful it wasn't a pineapple."
"Yeah, but then some punk-ass Second Year stole my shoes! That just ain't right, man." He finally caught his breath from all the running. "By the way, Brandon's stuck in a tree."
"What do you mean Brandon's stuck in a tree?"
"Some Second Years ran after us and chased him up there. Now he won't come down because their circling it and throwing mangoes at him until he concedes."
"Oh that I have to see," said Peter, getting up and dragging Olivia with him. They followed Charlie over and sure enough, there was Brandon, a few metres up while Second Years pegged fruit at him.
"Please, have mercy!" squealed Brandon as he got hit by a mouldy nectarine.
Olivia turned to Peter. "So do we help him out or do we leave him there?"
"Let's let him stew for a few minutes. Then we can get him out. He's too hilarious to speed up the process just yet."
"Hey guys," yelled Astrid as she and the others ran over. "Have you seen Brandon?"
"He's in that tree."
"No way! We're gonna get him out, right?"
"Eventually."
"Well, how long's he been up there?"
"Ten minutes, maybe," said Charlie.
"Come on, enough of this," said Olivia, filling up her water pistol. "I'm going in."
"Me too," said Charlie. "You guy's coming?"
They all gathered fruit and other weapons, painted war stripes on each other's faces and crept around through the bushes near Brandon's tree. When the time was right, they attacked the evil gang of Second Years from behind and started a massive battle between the trees. Eventually they managed to distract the other team enough for Brandon to be able to leap down from the tree before exacting his revenge. Once the Second Years were chased off the campus grounds, they all caught their breath and Olivia looked at Peter, bursting into laughter.
"What?"
"You're covered in food. You look ridiculous."
"But I look good enough to eat, right? You know you want to." He winked. She rolled her eyes. "Besides," he said with a gleam in his eye. "You're looking quite edible yourself."
He started to approach her with tickling hands and she ran until he tackled her playfully back onto the grass. They wrestled in the leaves a little but before long they broke into kisses and lay back together on the grass watching the clouds as the rest of the world raged in an absurd chaos around them.
"I can't believe it went by so fast," she said.
"Yeah, it's crazy how that happens, huh? You never realise how quickly good things slip away from you."
"I just feel weird. I mean, I've spent so much time on this campus just studying or in class. I can't think of a single time where I just laid back on the grass like this and forgot that there was anything to worry about. I feel like I haven't really taken the time to stop and appreciate all this. I'm really going to miss this place, I think."
He brought her into his arms and nudged her cheek with his nose. "I don't mean to pressure you for an answer or anything, but have you given any thought to us staying together after you leave?"
"I've kind of had exams for the last week and a half, Peter. And Harris' trial is next week. I really haven't thought about -"
"You're right, sorry. I shouldn't have asked."
She bit her lip and buried her face in his shirt. "Listen, about the trial…"
"Yeah."
"Do you want to be there?"
"I'll be where you want me to be."
"I think you deserve to know what happened if you want to here it. But it'll be hard for you, and I don't want to cause you pain. I'm already causing you more pain than I can deal with."
"Hey, don't worry about me. I'm a big boy. I can take care of myself. But I'd be happy to support you while you and the other girls testify, if that's what you want."
"I'd like you to be there, but Peter…it's going to hurt you. I know it will. You've never even seen Harris before, and when you do…I need you to promise me that you won't lose it and try to hurt him again. I don't think I could take seeing you so angry again. Peter, I need you to promise that you'll be there to support me, not to kill him. OK?"
Peter gritted his teeth and pulled her a little closer. "OK. I promise."
She turned his face to hers and gave him a sweet, gentle kiss. "Look, things are good today. If anything, Muck-Up Day's making me feel like you have to appreciate good things while you have them. Let's just forget about Harris, forget about me finishing the course – just let ourselves be happy for a change. Just for today."
"OK," he whispered, pulling her in for a kiss. They lay back in a comfortably intimate silence as they watched the clouds move in and out of shapes above them, forgetting even for a moment that soon their whole world was about to fall away beneath their feet.
Please review! Coming up next: Harris's trial