Academics
Vincent
The next day, I woke up to hear ‘Punzel humming happily in the bathroom while brushing her teeth. It was Fizz’s turn to make breakfast, so she was already in the kitchen. I could hear Sandy showering so I went and sat on the sofas while I was waiting for my turn in the bathroom.
I saw all four of our cups of hot chocolate cold and untouched in the excitement of yesterday’s findings. The table had a new sheet on it. I went to look at our schedule for today. It said, ‘Academics’.
Cho
At breakfast, Snowy showed us our schedule for the day. It said simply, ‘Academics’.
“What does that mean?” asked Sandy. He was drizzling maple syrup on what Fizz called ‘a waffle’. The ‘waffle’ was quite tasty if you covered it with butter and honey, nothing like the food I got at home.
“What room does it say?” I directed my question at Snowy.
He replied, “Room 4D. And it says you need to bring a notebook and a pencil case.” As if on cue, four white satchels appeared on the table, which undoubtedly contained the requisite stationery.
Zacharias
After breakfast, we started towards the 4D class. Inside the elevator, we were watching the dial. When it said ‘4’, the doors opened straight into a room. It resembled a classroom insofar as there were desks at one end and a board at the other.
The desks were strange ones, though. They were in the form of a semicircle and no doubt seated four so that one cabin could sit together.The board was not the customary chalkboard, it was a white board, which was being used as a computer monitor due to a projector. A stylus nearby allowed you to write on it as well as access teaching materials.
Angelina
Many students were already sitting down on the benches when we entered. The few benches left were the ones right up front. Shrugging, I sat down on one of them followed by Sandy, then ‘Punzel and finally Snowy. We sat for a few minutes in anticipation of the teacher.
“Where is this guy?” asked Sandy.
“Or girl,” I reminded him.
“Well, he, she, or they, is late!,” exclaimed ‘Punzel looking quite annoyed.
Vincent
“Quite right class,” came a clear, crisp voice from the front of the class. That is not the kind of voice you forget. “Miss Chang is right. I am late. I apologize.”
‘Punzel was turning redder by the second.
“Oh and for future reference, Cho, ‘she’ will do just fine,” Fa C smiled a catlike smile.
We exchanged glances. This was going to be a very interesting day.
Cho
“Class,” called out Fa C, “We’ll be beginning with Geography.”
A boy with pink hair called out loudly, “We’re gonna be spies. Why do we need to know Geography?” The class murmured in agreement.
Fa C swept her eyes across the class. The murmurs stopped instantly. “Contrary to what seems to be a popular belief, Spies are not, in fact, illiterate. You need to be intelligent and well read to do this job. Take Geography, for instance. Your missions may be all around the world. You need to know about each country’s culture in detail to blend in well.”
Zacharias
“Bleh Bleh Bleh! Geography’s so important! We need to know culture. Spies aren’t illiterate,” mocked Fizz two hours into what had to be the most boring class so far. Worse than History of Spying, even. Fa C was showing s presentations and videos about different parts of the world. Every video said stuff that I already knew. I yawned loudly, stretching my arms behind me.
“Do you need something, Mr. Smith?” asked Fa C icily. “Since you are so bored, it must be that you know everything I’ve been showing the class.”
Before I could retort that I did, in fact, know everything that she was showing the class, she asked me a question.
Angelina
“What is the capital of Kazakhstan?” asked Fa C.
Without even blinking, Sandy responded, “It was Astana, but now it’s Nur Sultan.”
Fa C looked shocked, by which I mean her eyebrow moved a quarter of an inch upwards (That’s ‘shocked’ for Fa C). Then her eyes narrowed and she leaned forward.
“How many countries border Russia?” “14!” was the instant response. “What’s the world’s youngest country?” “South Sudan, which gained independence in 2011.” “How many countries in the world begin with ‘United’?” “3 - USA, UK, and UAE”
Vincent
The questioning continued in that vein for about fifteen minutes (Fizz says she thinks it was 3 hours - but it wasn’t). After that Fa C leaned back in her chair a little with a small smile on her face. “Is there a reason for your remarkable geographic knowledge, or do you have such knowledge in every subject?”
Sandy relaxed his defensive posture slightly. “I’m good at almost every IB approved subject, ma’am. Geography isn’t even my best subject.”
Fa C opened a drawer and took a sheet of paper out of it. Handing the paper to Sandy, she said, “Go and sit on the empty bench at the back of the class. Solve this in as little time as possible. The average time taken is about an hour, but as you are clearly not average, finish it in 45 minutes.”
Cho
Sandy did as instructed. In the meanwhile, Fa C had switched off the presentation. “I hope you all have been taking notes, class, for I am testing you all now.” I looked down at my own neatly written notes and then at the rest of the class, most of which was looking frantically in search of their nonexistent notes. In the time that it took for Fa C to distribute the question papers for the quiz, Sandy came back with his own completed test.
Fa C looked at the test paper absently. “How long did you take?” “Fifteen minutes.”
Fa C shook her head and went to her own table. She corrected the paper and called Sandy. After a quiet discussion Sandy left the room.
Zacharias
The paper that Fa C gave me had one page devoted to each subject being tested. The questions were difficult, but not any more difficult than I usually encountered. The 45 minute time limit was a joke, of course. I didn’t need that long to finish the paper! A newborn baby could do it in half an hour! For goodness sake, even Fizz could do it in half an hour! (Ow! That hurts! Let go of my hair, Fizz!)
After correcting the paper, Fa C realized that I had gotten all the questions right (no surprises there!). Fa C told me she would take me on as an academic student as my extra class. Since I already knew all the material she was teaching the class, she asked me to go and spend the day in the library.
Angelina
In school, I never scored badly in my tests. I didn’t push myself very hard, so I only got average results. Academics class was like one day in which half a year’s school syllabus was covered. As the class progressed, I was finding it difficult to keep up the pace, but I wasn’t completely lost at any point. Nobody in the lass was. I realized that I felt unintelligent only because I was surrounded by other extremely highly intelligent people. Not one child in that room was unintelligent by any means. Wow! The selectors had done their job well!
At the end of the day (we had been served lunch and tea at our desks and ate while studying) we had completed all the that would have been studied had we still been going to school. Fa C made sure that none of us got left behind by the education system.
Vincent
At around 9 in the night, Fa C told us that we were free to go. Just before dispersing us she announced, “Since you children worked so hard today, the next two days will be free.” A loud cheer was heard around the class. “You can spend them however you wish, though I would suggest you spend them going over your term’s coursework.”
“What?” asked Fizz in astonishment, “Whyever would we do that?”
“Because, Miss Johnson, three days from today, there will be a cumulative test of all that you have learnt this term. Be warned, it will not be like the tests that you have in your schools. The team that scores the best in these tests will receive a prize to be announced after the event.”
Cho
While walking back to the room, we met Sandy outside the library who told us about what had transpired between him and Fa C. We, in turn, told him about the ‘test’ that Fa C had told us about.
“This is great, you guys!” said Sandy enthusiastically.
Everyone turned to stare at him. “What do you mean great?” asked ‘Punzel confusedly.
“Well, I spent the day at the library today, you know, and I learnt three things. One - that the library has a section full of newspapers but not a single one of them has any information regarding the DeLuca emeralds or any other heist.”
Zacharias
I continued, “Two - The prize for completing the midterm first is that you can ask for whatever you want for an hour. Like - literally anything. No exceptions. It’s probably for motivation or something. If we ace the test, we can ask for a computer with connection to the internet! We can research everything about the DeLuca emeralds and Shrai A. Upa!”
“True! This is great, Sandy, but what about the third thing you learned?” asked Fizz.
“Well,” I said. “I learned that the school actually does have a cafeteria, but I would recommend starving.”
Angelina
Everybody laughed at that. ‘Punzel seemed a little excited. “A penny for your thoughts, ‘Punzel,” said Snowy.
“A penny! They’re worth at least a dollar!” cried ‘Punzel indignantly.
Snowy chuckled, “All right, a dollar then. What are you thinking about?”
“I was thinking that, well, you guys remember when Fizzz and I went exploring, well, we found a room -”
“The break room!” I exclaimed, seeing where she was getting at. When we had been exploring, we saw a room close to where we had our ER101 classes. We called the room a ‘break room’. Basically, there were four lane-like divisions. A group would go in front of one division and input something into the computer. They would design the obstacle course on the computer itself and then enter the room. These obstacles would form inside the room and the team would have to pass them within 30 minutes.
Vincent
When Fizz explained to me about the room she and ‘Punzel had found, I was quite intrigued. It would be a good place to practice teamwork and coordination. But I had one question, “Why do you call it a ‘break room’?”
“Well,” said ‘Punzel softly, “we called it that because everyone in the room seemed to somehow or the other break the obstacles.”
“Makes sense,” I said, smiling at her. She smiled back.
“Hello!” called Fizz loudly, waving her hands in between our faces, grabbing our attention. “This is not the time!”
Both of us turned red and hurriedly looked away from each other.
Cho
“So, what’s the plan?” I asked.
Snowy replied, “We spend the next few days studying, helping everyone else at what you’re good at and improving your own weaknesses. But stay focused on your strong points, because we’ll all be together and it will be useful to have one person who is really good at solving an obstacle and not many people who are mediocre,” switching into full captain mode.
“So we’ll study for one day and use the break room the other,” clarified Fizz.
“Yup, that’s the plan,” said Sandy. “It’ll be good to use the ‘break room’ because I feel like we haven’t used our weapons lately, and that will be a good opportunity to use them.”
Everyone nodded and then got ready for a long day of revision.
Zacharias
After an entire day of serious revision, where most of us worked very hard on our studies (No! I refuse to believe that! You were not ‘resting your eyes’ Fizz), we decided to check out the ‘break room’ the girls were talking about. ‘Punzel was leading the way, and I was quizzing everybody as we walked.
“Snowy, what’s the capital of South Africa?”
“Uhhhhh, Capetown and Pretoria and... ”
“Bloemfontein. ‘Punzel, what’s the cube root of 2197?”
“14, or wait, 13, I believe it is.”
“Fizz, who started the first German church free of papal control?”
“I know this! Martin Luther King!”
Angelina
Everyone chortled. ‘Punzel corrected me softly, “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but Fizz, I think that the person you are thinking of is Martin Luther, who established the Lutheran Church, not Martin Luther King, the leader in the American Civil Rights movement.”
“She’s right,” said Sandy, “Fizz, you need to brush up on your History.”
I yawned and rolled my eyes, “Alright, Professor Sandy, I’ll work harder on my history.”
Luckily, just at the moment we would have started bickering, we arrived. ‘Punzel had intelligently pointed out that since the entire school would be having midterms, this room would be in great demand. In order to quickly claim a lane, we all woke up very early and rushed here.
Vincent
We were all wearing loose black track pants and a white shirt. I was wearing a half sleeved T shirt, Sandy was wearing a polo shirt, Fizz was wearing a tank top, and ‘Punzel was wearing a knot front.
After selecting the most unobtrusive side lane, we got to work on understanding how to work the equipment. It was fairly simple. The computer first showed us the design option. We had to choose from a variety of shaped blocks, bridges, and ropes. Each obstacle could be either stationary or in motion. There were even obstacles that would appear or move based on a timer. Fizz was one for groaning and moaning every time a difficult obstacle was chosen. After every test run, Sandy would give a hilarious account of the failures that had occured.
By the end of the day, we were all truly bruised and battered but more confident about the test that was to come.