The exam period was almost ending and I couldn’t wait to leave school. It was the eve to our last exam day at school and everyone was talking about the festive Christmas holiday and what they always did.

In the evenings, we usually debated on the significance of New Year’s Day as compared to Christmas. Most students weighed the scales in terms of how much fun they had on during this period.

I silently watched my fellow students argue and I enjoyed every bit to it. We were like a big happy family. However, though we were a big happy family, we were not a wise one. It was third term and most of us were not reading seriously. 

We just assumed that we would automatically get promoted so we wasted time. Students like me who had very strict parents, always did last minute cramming. However, this time I was reluctant.

The conversations were so engaging, consuming and captivating. The fun was sweet and nothing in this world could have made me walk away to read books.

I relied on what my friends had convinced me that every third term, all exams were easy because the teachers intended to make all students pass. So, that night we slept unusually late.

The next morning as I walked into the examination room, my eyes were tired. My head felt blank. And, unfortunately it was a mathematics logical paper that required much thinking.

As I sat and waited for the exam to start, all I could recall was the previous night’s funny Christmas stories. The situation became worse when I opened my paper and realised that the math exam was complex.

I tried to push the image of Christmas out of my mind to think math, but it was impossible. I was really getting tired because I was straining. I was ‘brain dead’.

I looked around and others were concentrating. Midway through the exam as I tried to scan for what I could attempt, I felt dizzy.

Later, I learnt that the invigilators tried to wake me up twice but to no avail. It was only a shout that rocked me out of sleep as an invigilator told us to stop writing and stand up.

When my father got the report from school later during the holidays, he asked me why I had drastically failed math. My face pretentiously showed shock as I fumbled for an answer.

The good news was that I had passed! Thanks to the other papers that I had highly passed in, my overall average was high.

Ends