Minus Eighteen.

Life has a weird way of "equalising" things. Even good things. No one can have too much of a good thing, but yeah, however much of the bad - MUCHO!! Eventually it ends up initial good being equalised by bad, but initial bad being loaded up with more bad, and more bad. And still some more. So, shit happens.

The phenomenon of "equilisation" works with grades, too. Why. I don't know.

I spend a whole day cramming up facts for the Fine Arts Theory Test and then..

I lean back in my seat at school to take a look at my question paper and there it is. Horror of horrors. Out of the five questions - each marked a BIG six - I have no idea where the last three came from! I frantically demand my teacher appear before me right now. There she is. I ask her.

"All of them are in the notes."

"..."

"Yes?"

"They are not. I think I didn't get all the notes."

"Your fault." So be it.

"But these three.. how. When. What. Huh." Dazed.

She turns to one single other FA student. "What about you?" The girl nods, feigning sympathy when I can see, almost as if in her thought baloon -
"Yes! Yes! Yes!! Woohoooooo!!! Finally. Not more than me."

Eighteen out of thirty vanish away into thin air. Simply. Kaboom.

I can register only snatches of the teacher's dialogue "Didn't you know.. how come.. must've been absent. Distributed.. long back. Very careless." Or maybe I nightmare-ed up the last "careless" bit. But it sure was there in her mind.

Sniffle sniffle. I feel my eyes filling up. On the verge. Then I feel hot all over. Then I feel this tingling. I cry.

"No problem. Do the other two. We'll see."

No problem, she says. We'll see, she says. Yeah right. The other teacher meanwhile observes me like I'm some rare specimen of an endangered species. Get a magnifying glass, Ma'am. Isn't it very interesting, Ma'am.

"You have the Practicals too. Score there." Ha!

Finally, when I care enough to get decent grades. More than decent, in some cases. Here comes someone who tells me average is okay. No, it is not. Murder. Good, so that's it then.. how did this happen? One big unsolved mystery.

Then I stare off into the distance. Down below, I see the horses going round and round as if in a circus, in the field. Galloping. Whinnying. Green grass. Blue sky. Cool wind gets in through the window with no glass.

I start writing my paper.