[CryCandice]

Synopsis: When Jack Walker is faced with failing his seventh grade finals, what does he do? Guess, of course!

I twitched in a panic, tapping my pen on my desk. This test was the worst. I had never seen anything more confusing.

‘What is the probability that a red marble will be picked after a blue marble and another red marble, respectively?’

What the hell is this? I thought.

Math was never my strong point. Probabilities were one of my worst areas, too.

So I did what any sane human being would do. I guessed. Guessing always feels good. It makes hard problems seem so simple that you don’t even need to look at them.

They only thing is that I know that I need to look at them. But once I do something, I get a little carried away. So I kept filling out random letters.

A, D, E, A, B, D, C, E.

I had been making an attempt before that first guess, but now it was too late for me. I filled in circles with a vengeance.

“Five minutes to go, children.” No problem.

Within a few seconds, all of my blanks were filled, and I was done.

The truth was that this was an important test. It was a final. If I had good grades, this test wouldn’t be very important, but I was sitting on a C-. So this test decided if I passed seventh grade or not, and I did not have the patience to take this year again.

I leaned back in my chair, hands behind my head and I waited for the moderator to tell us to put our pencils down. I stuck my own pencil in my mouth and chewed at the eraser, a little nervous about what I’d just done.

It wasn’t very smart. Mom would kill me.

Maybe I should go back and check my answers… I let my chair land on all four feet and I scooted forward to take a last look at my answers.

I flipped my test booklet open to the page with the probability problems. After taking a quick look, I decided that my life sucked. Just from a quick glance, all of my answers seemed wrong, and I was screwed.

I pulled my pencil from between my lips. I started to erase the first answer, but it smudged everywhere from the wet eraser.

Dear God, why do you hate me? I dried the eraser on my pants and erased the smudges.

“Time to put your pencils down,” The dreaded words were spoken. “That means you, Jack.”

I froze. I had been filling my erased answer back in. I slowly raised my eyes to see that he and everyone else were staring at me. My face was red, my brow was sweaty.

Never had a test affected me so. I just didn’t want to retake this year. It was crucial.

“Pass your tests in, please.” I grabbed my test and held it to my chest. No one was taking this.

“I’ll take that, Jack.” Dear God, why did you make this test so hard?

I reluctantly handed him the paper. I hoped that I hadn’t just bombed this test.

After the test was over, all of the students were dismissed. I dragged my feet as I walked to my mother’s car, hoping that she wouldn’t find out. Maybe I should act happy so that she won’t suspect anything. Good plan, great plan, but happy wasn’t possible.

I got an earful that night. I always told my mother the truth, and I always regretted it. I couldn’t lie for my life.

The next day at school, all of our tests had been graded. Today was the last day of my seventh grade year… I hoped. The soul purpose of this day was to answer one question: pass or fail?

Pass was the answer I was looking for. It wasn’t the one I was expecting.

I waited as the students in my class were called to the office to receive their final grades.

“Walker, Jack. Grade seven.” the intercom called to me.

I trudged to the principal’s office, preparing myself for the worst. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say.

I reached the door to his office and waited for him to tell me to come in.

The handle jiggled and the door jarred open as a depressed student walked out of the office.

“Come on in, Jack.” Didn’t sound mad… I think.

“Hello, Mr. Smith.” I mumbled.

“So Jack, I’m afraid I have some bad news,” I looked down into my lap. Great. “I can’t tell you you’re grade as of right now. I need your mother to be here. She’s agreed to a conference immediately after the last bell.” This was not good. This had never happened before.

He dismissed me back to my classroom.

I was the last person in my class to be called, because of the whole Walker thing. Alphabetical order had it’s advantages sometimes. At least I got a delayed blow.

Aaron Brown wasn’t so lucky. He’d failed. Looks like I’m going to have a friend next year.

When I got back to class, the final bell rang and I trudged back to the office. Hmm, this seems like déjà vu. I quickly reminded myself that now was not the time for humor.

My mother beat me to the office. By the time I’d slipped through the door, my mother was already waiting in the chair that was sitting in front of Mr. Smith’s desk.

“So, there is something that we need to discuss, Mr. Walker.” My knees shook and I felt as if my body would collapse at any minute.

“Well, what I really want to ask is this: would you like to go to eighth grade next year,” He paused as I looked up at him. “or would you rather skip to ninth grade?”

My mother gasped and looked at me in surprise.

“What?” What a sick joke.

“It seems that you’ve received the highest score on the seventh grader finals that I’ve ever seen in my five years here. We purposely design those test to be extremely difficult. An A equivalent on that test would be about a sixty percent. It seems that you scored a ninety. So my question is this: eighth or ninth?” He said slowly, waiting for me to comprehend.

“B— but how?” I stuttered.

“It seems that from the probability section on the second test, math,” He enunciated every vowel, treating me like a chimp. “every answer was correct. So how’d you do it?”

“Eighth.” I said only this, and left his office.

Dear God, why are you so amazing?

I blanked out. Every answer after probability was right. Every single guess was correct.

Now seriously, what was the probability of that?

Author's Note: This is my first submission so the Recycled Flashback bit may not make sense. I was thinking about using this for a novel that I'm currently writing, as I begin each chapter with a flashback. The thing is, all of the flashbacks I need for the novel should describe a character's personality, tell a big part of his past, or help the audience understand Jack. This flashback accomplishes none of these, so it's been edited out(thus recycled).

[Peppy]

Not much description of anything, really. There's just the voice of Jack Walker we have to listen to. Reading about Jack and the school setting was interesting, though I thought Jack needed a "chill pill" on the test. Your ending was strangely funny, for me anyways.

One last thing. He told his mother the truth, why didn't she speak up or say anything to Jack. I kind of found it odd she was emotionless.

I thought I had more to say. Hmmmmm... Maybe