Learn to Spell, God!

Matt’s POV

The atmosphere had defiantly improved greatly over the past week. Sophie was no longer depressed/semi-depressed and, as far was we knew, she was no longer taking the anti-depressants. Although, there was one thing hang on the girls consciences; they hadn’t taken their finals. They were getting more anxious with every passing day, checking their emails to see whether the exams had been sent through. It wasn’t until this morning that the anxiety was lifted.

Jenn was typing up more of her story when the email alert popped up. Her face fell slightly as she read it, her eyebrows knitting together slightly. She sighed before turning on the portable printer that was sat on the floor next to her. Moments later, the printer was spewing out dozens of pages. She collected them up and sorted them into five piles; before sorting the piles into even more piles.

“Bitches! Here!” She called; the other girls came rushing into the room.

“What’s the rush?” Pippa asked, looking confused when she saw no emergency. Jenn pointed to the piles of paper on the floor and they all groaned.

“You’ve gotta be joking.” Sophie shook her head in disbelief.

“Nope. And guess who’s pile is largest.” Jenn laughed.

“I really don’t want to know.” Danni moaned.

“Tough, I’m gonna tell you. It’s the freak who wants to be an engineer.” Layla groaned again as Jenn said this and then slumped over to the piles and picked hers up.

“No fair. Just ‘cause all my subjects are hard, that gives them no right to make the papers longer!” She complained.

“Apparently it does. Hey! No peeking at the papers!” Jenn snatched the papers back off Layla as she began ruffling through them.

“Where are we gonna do these?” Pippa questioned.

“Simple, the bus. We’ll get the guys to invigilate.” Jenn smirked over in my direction as I took in what she said.

“Invigilate? What the hell is that?!” I exclaimed, confused.

“You watch us do the papers and make sure we don’t cheat. Simple.” Sophie told me.

“Why’d we have to do that?”

“School said so.” Jenn shrugged.

“Urgh. Fine. When are you gonna do these exams?” I asked them. They deliberated for a few moments.

“Ten minutes. Go find your band mates. We’ve gotta get all our stuff ready.” Danni said as the other four wandered off towards the bunks, presumably to find their equipment.

I, on the other hand, went off in search of my band mates. They weren’t too hard to locate; Zack was in the kitchen, making coffee, Brian was fixing his hair in front of a mirror and Jimmy was hiding behind a door, waiting to ambush someone. The girls had sent Johnny down when they reached the bunks, presumably he was sleeping. I briefly told them what we had to do, with some complaints on their part, before the girls rejoined us.

They each were carrying several objects in their hands, mostly different although an iPod was a regular occurrence with each of them. They scattered themselves around the room; on the couches, on the floor, at the mini table, and dumped the contents of their arms onto the nearest surface, all in complete silence.

They all turned to look at us, expectantly. What did they want? Seeing the looks of confusion on our faces, their heads turned to the piles of paper that were still lying on the floor. A sudden wave of realisation swept over me. They wanted us to hand out their papers. I sighed and walked over to the papers, picking up one pile and read the top page.

“Okay, who took Rock History?” I asked, Jenn raised her hand. I passed the pile to Jimmy who then passed them to Jenn. This continued through the other piles until I came to the last pile and had to double take. Electronics, Physics, Math and Further Math? What was running through Layla’s mind when she chose these? I shook my head in disbelief and passed the papers to her.

The moment the last pile was given out, they all started writing. I glanced at Brian, who was stood there in shock. I don’t think he has ever seen a group of people actually enthusiastic about exams. Well, I suppose he’ll just have to get used to it because, by the looks of things, these exams are going to take a while. I think the girls are happy that we’ve got a day of travelling today so they won’t be disturbed.

About an hour in, we were all already monumentally bored. Johnny had already resorted to playing card games by himself. The examinees, however, were still content. They all had their iPod’s on and music blasting, completely unaware of what was going on around them; it was like they were in bubbles. It was slightly creepy though; I don’t think the bus has ever been this quiet, not even when we had Val, Michelle, Gena, Lacey and Leana on tour with us.

Sophie was the first to finish. And, even then, she took at least four hours. She put the lid back on her pen, stood up, handed me the papers and then skipped up to the bunks. Pippa finished next. When she handed me her papers, I smiled at her; the smile I received seemed half-hearted, the papers must have been hard or something. Unsurprisingly, Layla was the last to finish. When she closed the final paper, she pulled her headphone out of her ears and exclaimed:

“Fucking finally!”

We all laughed at this, we being Avenged Sevenfold. The rest of the girls were all up in the bunks. Layla handed me her papers before trailing up the stairs to join her friends.

“How long did that take?” Brian asked just after a loud clatter emitted from the bunks. Zack shrugged in reply as I checked my watch.

“Six hours.”

“Jesus, that’s too fucking long. Never again.” He exclaimed.

“Why? Do you feel out of your depth now ‘cause you’ve never finished a single exam and you’ve just seen five teenagers collectively finish twenty?” Jimmy laughed at him. Brian simply glared at him.

***

Screams echoed around the arena as we finished our second to last song.

“You guys have been great tonight!” More screams. “But, if you don’t mind, I’d just like to congratulate our support band; they spent the entire day completing their finals so they could be sent back to their school and marked, enabling them to graduate. Go on, give them a scream!”