Chapter 17
Three weeks goes fast when you’re going between training, school and sabotaging campaign events. Without noticing, Finals Week was upon me and my friends. Stassia offered to have us all over at her place to study on the Monday. None of us had a final that day. A lot of my team had the same subjects which meant we could all help each other study. Darcey, Megan and Peter had mostly science-based subjects so they all huddled around several textbooks with each of them stopping the conversation at times to talk to someone else about another subject. Darcey often kept asking questions about our joint Classics final while Peter would get side-tracked when he started talking to Stassia about engineering. For me, I talked to nearly everyone. I talked to Stassia about World History and French. Sometimes the subjects overlapped. Mr Goodwin, our history teacher had given us three topics to chose from for our finals; Bastille Day, Waitangi Day and Indian Independence Day. Both Stassia and I had chosen to do Bastille Day. I had chosen Bastille Day because I had been given a simple crash course on the topic in French last year. I don’t know why Stassia chose Bastille Day. Either way we got to talking about it. Sometimes in French.
“Quelle année a été l’assaut de Bastille?” Stassia asked. I looked up from my Classics textbook
“1789,” I replied, “1790 was the Fete de la federation. Bastille Day marks both occasions,”
“Cool,” Stassia replied, “Any idea what the French call Bastille Day?”
“Formally? La fete national but more commonly le 14 julliet.”
“Como sabia ella lo que Stassia estaba diciendo?” Alyssa asked
“Mucha practica,” I replied. Alyssa looked shocked.
“How?”
“I take Spanish as well,” I shrugged, “But you have a much better handle on the language than I do,” Alyssa blushed.
“I… I think you do too,”
“Thanks,” I smiled, “Hey do you want to meet up on Thursday? We could help each other with the Spanish finals,”
“Uh… I have my final on Thursday,”
“Wednesday then. I help you, you help me?” Alyssa nodded.
“Cool,”
Tuesday had two finals for me; Math and English. I had given Clint, and the other Avengers, notice that my team was not going to be pulled out of the most important tests of the year unless it was an emergency involving family. The English Final was first. It was made of three parts. The first was answering general questions about a written text, the second was about an oral or a visual text while the third part was just general writing. During the test I felt that I was doing okay up until the third part. This year the prompt was difficult. The person who wrote the exams wanted us to write about the times they had been saved. It was almost as if they wanted people to relive their worse memories. I had nothing to write about. I had never been saved. That meant I had to think outside of the box. With only an hour left of the exam, I decided just to go with my gut and hope for the best. With an hour and a half break between morning finals and afternoon finals, I had lunch with my friends as we started stressing about our math finals. By the time that the math final was over I took the train back home and collapsed on the couch in Clint’s living room.
“Sounds like you’ve had a hard day,” Clint said.
“I hate finals so much. And I still have like four more to do,” I groaned.
“I know you do,”
“Why do we let one test determine our whole lives?”
“Cause that’s what the government says,”
“Well the government sucks,”
“Tell me about,”
“Can we have pizza for dinner?” I asked, “I don’t think I could handle anything else,”
“As long as you pay for it,”
“Sure,”
Wednesday morning was Spanish study time. Alyssa and I had decided to meet up at a small café a few blocks away from the school as both Alyssa and I had finals in the afternoon. I always wondered what it would be like hanging out with Alyssa one on one. I remembered what Stassia had said about Alyssa during our training day at Avengers Headquarters. Alyssa was inexperienced in the superhero business. I only knew very little about Alyssa. I think she liked it that way. Even though I was as emotionally aware of things like Stassia was, I did notice that Alyssa was jumpy, nervous and a lot scared. I arrived five minutes before I was supposed to meet Alyssa. Knowing I had the time, I jumped in line for the checkout. It took me two minutes to get to the front of the line and another minute to order a medium sized hot chocolate and a chocolate muffin. Stepping away from the cashier, I brought my phone out of my pocket.
“Uh… Abigail…” A quiet voice said. I turned around to see Alyssa standing behind me. Alyssa was wearing an oversized grey jumper, Ugg boots and a pair of jeans. She also had her simple backpack on her back.
“Hey Alyssa, do you want to order a drink and some food – I’m still waiting for mine,”
“Um…”
“Do you want me to order for you Alyssa?” Alyssa nodded, “What would you like?”
“Can I have a hot chocolate?” Alyssa asked, looking at her feet, “And a chocolate muffin? Please? I’ll pay you back”
“Of course. You okay to grab my order if I’m still in line? It’s under Abigail,”
“I’ll try,” Alyssa said.
“Thanks,” I smiled at Alyssa before going back to stand in line. Once both hot chocolates and chocolate muffins were collected, I found a booth in a corner and away from the crowd for us to sit down. Once we had set our food and drinks down, I pulled out my Spanish notebook and my pens. Alyssa did the same.
“So, I was thinking you could help me with my pronunciation. I mean I’m good at speaking Spanish, but I’m not great. Not like you,” Alyssa blushed at the compliment, “And you can tell me what you’d like some help with,” Alyssa nodded. I took a sip of hot chocolate as Alyssa took my Spanish notebook. I started to eat my muffin as she continued to look through my notes. She stopped on my page of notes that had been entirely written in Spanish. It was the notes that my teacher had said were perfect.
“¿Como hiciste esto?” Alyssa asked in Spanish.
“ Mucha práctica Trabajo duro. Y un poco de buena suerte, supongo,” I reply in the same language.
"¿Podrías enseñarme a escribir como tú?"
“Voy a,” I smile at Alyssa who smiles a little. We spend the next hour speaking Spanish and correcting each other’s work. As the time for our finals drew closer, we packed up our Spanish books and rubbish.
“¿Dónde aprendiste a hablar español?” I asked. Alyssa looked down at her feet.
“Está bien. No tienes que decirme,”
“Pasé algunos años en Sudamérica,” Alyssa said, before running off. Although I knew that I still had a long way to through to Alyssa, we’d just taken the first step to break down her walls. I smiled to myself and put our rubbish into the bin before making my way to my impending French final.
Thursday was another two finals – Classics and World History. Darcey and Stassia had crashed overnight with me as we all wanted to study for the last time. Stassia’s engineering final was the same time as mine and Darcey’s Classics final so we parted ways when we got to school. The Classics final wasn’t too bad. I actually enjoyed Classics a lot and I had studied extensively for my chosen topic. Darcey left after the Classics final to prepare for her other finals while Stassia and I decided to walk up down and grab some takeaway for lunch. Over burgers, we questioned each other’s knowledge of Bastille Day. We were so engrossed in testing our brains that we almost forgot to watch the time. Lara told me as we walked out of the final that she thought that Stassia and I weren’t going to make it. Friday was my Spanish exam. Thanks to Alyssa’s help, I felt super confident in my oral part of the final. Maybe too confident, but only time would tell. After collapsing on the couch, Clint gave me some interesting news.
“I got a call from Hamilton’s office today. He wants to get in contact with you. Something about doing a live interview,”
“Can I think about it tomorrow?” I got my answer when Clint’s phone started ringing.
“Hello, Clint speaking,” Clint answered, “Yes of course Mr Hamilton, I’ll hand the phone over to her,” Clint handed me his phone. I glared at him as I took a hold of it.
“Hello, Abigail, speaking,” I said.
“Hello Abigail, it’s Hayden Hamilton,”
“Oh, hello Mr Hamilton, how are you?”
“I’m good thanks Abigail. How are you?”
“Tired to be honest. I just finished my last final,” I replied, “What can I do for you Mr Hamilton?”
“Remember how I said that I wanted to talk to you back when we first met at the opening of my campaign?”
“I wouldn’t be able to forget it,”
“Well, I have unfortunately come across several problems that would make it impossible for us to meet. However, my wonderful wife has suggested that during my television spot in a few weeks’ time we have that chat. It would give my campaign a more youthful side and really encourage the younger voters to vote,”
“Umm… that sounds like a great idea Mr Hamilton. When exactly would this interview of sorts happen?”
“Three weeks from now. I have the 7pm slot on the Friday,”
“I’ll save the date Mr Hamilton,”
“That’s great Abigail. I’ll arrange everything for you next week,”
“Okay Mr Hamilton,”
“Have a good weekend Abigail. Good bye,”
“Good bye Mr Hamilton,” I ended the phone call and put the phone on the couch next to me. I sighed and rubbed my eyes.
“I think I just agreed to be on TV with Hamilton,”
“I think you did,” Clint said, “Are you going to be okay with that?”
“I will be,”