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I turned over the paper and whizzed through the first few questions. Even though I'd missed the final cramming session wandering through a subterranean tunnel, some of the homework Mum had made me do over the last few weeks was paying off. I turned the page and started to study the next problem: "If (a) Jenny is twice as old as Peter; (b) Peter is one third as old as Mary; and (c) Mary is 35, how old is Jenny?"
I scribbled workings into my exercise book, wedging my workings between lambs. If Jenny = J, then Peter = 1/2 J; and Mary = 3(1/2J) = 35. 1.5J = 35. J = 23.33. Jenny is 23 and 1/3. I moved on to the next question.
"Hey - why'd you turn it over so fast," whispered Mark from behind me. "I didn't catch the last answer. What is it?"
I ignored Mark, and focussed on the test.
"Move a bit to the right, Paddy. I can't see your answers."
Although Mark was a mate, he was becoming a pain in the neck. I struggled to concentrate, and time was leaking away. With a squeak, I dragged my chair to the left and covered my answers with my hand, lowering my head closer to the desk to block snoopers access.
"Hey," muttered Tim. "What are you doing? Show Mark your book. He needs the answers." I shot Tim a dirty look and nearly dropped my pencil. Tim hadn't even opened his test paper, and was staring blankly at the cover page. He was unusually pale - even for him - and his brow was armed with a cache of sweat-bullets. Was he sick?
"Paddy. Don't make me make you," hissed Mark.
"Get lost, Mark," I said. "You're not copying off me."
Like a pink slipper thrown at my head, Mrs Dixon suddenly loomed. "Can I hear talking?" she asked, not really asking.
"No ma'am," said Mark and I in unison.
"Good, Paddy. Because if I did, I would have to fail you," she said sternly.
Typical Mark, I thought. Gets everyone else in trouble, but let off scott free. Half the teachers, including Mrs Dixon thought he was some sort of prodigy. Mark was very smart. But the other half - the half who'd been around long enough to see Mark's dark side - were too scared to touch him. Mr Walker had once put Mark on detention for deliberately tripping up a team mate during basketball practice. According to Mr Fisk, Mr Barker had made a call to the principal, Mr Lyons, and Mr Walker had quietly rescinded Mark's punishment, instead inflicting it on the kid who Mark tripped. For provoking Mark! It helped that Mr Barker was both the president of the P&C and the largest benefactor of the school.
I looked at the clock above the blackboard. This was no time to rail against favouritism! Time was running away from me. I refocused on the problem, punching the heavy buttons on my calculator. My best guess at the answer flashed up on the screen. But before I could transcribe it onto the test paper, I heard splintering wood and felt the chair go out from under me. Mark had kicked out one of my chair legs.
I went down like a sack of spuds, upturning my desk as the chair collapsed. I landed heavily on my left arm, winding myself. My test paper, book and calculator flew up in the air and scattered. The class erupted, the excitement shattering the tense silence of test conditions.
"What is the meaning of this, Paddy?" hollered Mrs Dixon over the din, flapping her arms up and down and she strode toward me. "I've had about enough of your -"
She stopped mid-sentence. She must have seen the broken chair leg and me in a heap on my back, struggling for breath. "Oh Paddy! You OK?"
"Yeah," I gasped. "But can I go to the bathroom? To clean up."
"Of course," soothed Mrs Dixon squatting down beside me. She was close enough to see I was on the edge of tears. "Do you want me to help you?"
"Help him go to the bathroom, miss?" asked Mark, feigning innocence. "Doesn't he know how to do that himself?"
The whole class roared with laughter, and I felt tears leak from the corners of my eyes.
"Silence, Mark!" shouted Mrs Dixon, standing up to shield me from the class, like a pink, planetary eclipse. "We don't need any smart words from you. You'll stay back after the test and write the class an apology for making stupid comments when you should have been helping your classmate."
Everyone gasped and Mark's face reddened, then blanched with obvious fury. Mrs Dixon looked surprised at herself. No-one spoke to Mark like that. No-one.
Mrs Dixon ignored Mark's glare, helped me to my feet and led me to the door. "Off you go," she whispered, opening it. "Take your time, I'll add twenty minutes to your finish time. Sure you're OK?"
I nodded, immensely grateful to my teacher for saving me the embarrassment of bawling in front of the class, and went out in to the hall. My wounded feet hurt. "Everyone else, back to the test," cried Mrs Dixon. She winked at me and closed the door behind her.
Composed, I trudged down the hall and into the bathroom. The fall had come as quite a shock. My arm was OK, just jarred, and I didn't feel like crying anymore. Mrs Dixon had saved my day shouting at Mark. He'd probably had a bigger shock than me! He wouldn't be happy about being told off, especially after his birthday fiasco. Mr Lyons would probably get another call from Mr Barker sometime soon! I hoped Mrs Dixon wouldn't land in trouble for shouting at the brat.
I poured cold water into the long, silver sink-trough, then cupped some and splashed my face with it. There'd be time to think about Mark later. Stranger things were going on in my life than his weird idea of blind loyalty as friendship. Mark's tantrums seemed trivial compared to what Mr Seth had told me about Dad and the discovery of Dad's trunk right where Mr Seth had told me to look. But, first things first, I needed to re-focus and get through the test.
My train of thought was derailed suddenly by a blood-curdling scream! Ours was the only classroom on the school's third floor, so it didn't take me long to guess from where the scream had come.
I bolted back down the hall, ignoring the pain in my feet, threw open the door and ran into the classroom, smashing head first into a bull-rush of kids stampeding the other way, desperate to get out. Tables and chairs had been overturned and Mrs Dixon was hunched over a small figure in the L-R section, wrapping her pink-felt jacket around it. The whole place reeked of blue cheese and petrol fumes.
"What happened?" I shouted, but Mrs Dixon ignored me, desperately bandaging her stricken patient with her white scarf like a war time nurse. I raced over and recognised the figure: Mark. He was sob-wailing, his voice hoarse from screaming earlier. I pivoted around Mrs Dixon and kneeled down at Mark's head. His right arm had been torn open in several places and bright gouts of blood still jetted from the wounds like dirty water from a bubbler, despite Mrs Dixon's best efforts to staunch the flow with pressure.
"There, there Mark," sang Mrs Dixon, struggling to stay calm. "The ambulance is on its way. And so's your father's secretary."
Mark's eyes rolled up into his head and he lapsed into unconsciousness.
"What happened?" I asked the teacher.
"Paddy, please go outside with the others," said Mrs Dixon. "I need to focus on Mark right now."
I nodded. She was right. There'd be time for questions later. I gathered my exercise book and pencils and stashed them into my bag, which I found beneath my upturned desk. As I turned to leave, Mrs Dixon muttered, seemingly half to herself. "Animal. Must have been feral to have caused so much damage. So fast. Didn't see it."
I walked over to the exit. "I did," whispered Joke, stepping out from behind the door.
I jumped back with a jolt. "You scared me," I said.
"Sorry," Joke replied. "But I saw what did this to Mark."
"What? What was it? You have to tell Mrs Dixon. So she can tell Doc Vass-"
Joke shook his head and looked down. "No-one will believe me. I barely do," he said, soccering my too-heavy calculator into the hall with the side of his foot, the closest thing to sport I had ever seen Joke perform. The calculator skidded away from us. We chased and caught it.
The case was slick with smeared blood. "I saw Mark," said Joke quietly. "Your book flew into the H-K section when Mark kicked out your chair. He was cop
ying your answers while you were in the bathroom. I was going to dob on him. But then it changed."
"What?" I asked. "What changed?" Joke was making no sense.
"That thing," he said nodding at the calculator. "It sunk its spurs into Mark's arm and twisted them around. It looked like it was enjoying itself. It was wallowing in Mark's flesh!"
I stooped down, scooped up the calculator, and wiped it on my school trousers. Joke snatched the black case out of my hands and threw it into my open school bag, like it was covered in nettles.
"Careful," chided Joke. Then he zipped up my bag closed with such violence that I nearly fell down.
"You need to take a break from the books once in a while, Joke," I said, steadying myself then yanking the bag away from Joke's hands. "You're hallucinating. Whatever did this to Mark was a wild animal, not an old adding machine!"
"That thing is no calculator, Paddy," said Joke, frowning. "Where on earth did you get it?"