Page 72 of The Missus
Keira looked down at her test. Question number one.If A is love and we subtract B (friendship), what is the product? Divide by abject sorrow and lives ruined.
Keira didn’t know the answer. She didn’t even understand the question.
‘Five minutes!’ Sandra called.
Keira looked up, shocked. ‘What!? The test just started,’ she tried to say. But it came out as a whisper. She needed help, but she didn’t know how the hell she was going to get it. Who could help her?
She looked around her and saw someone she sort of recognised. Pollyanna? Was that her name? She was reading a magazine, ignoring her test altogether. She couldn’t help.
At last, Keira spotted Alanna, several desks away. The relief to see her was enormous. She would help. Keira tried to wave at her. But Alanna’s head was down, and she was working hard. She looked confident, scribbling away. Suddenly, Alanna’s desk was right next to Keira’s. She looked over at Keira. ‘This test is like a Fiat Spider,’ she said. ‘Or maybe a Porsche?’ Keira didn’t have a clue what the hell that was supposed to mean, but then Alanna nodded at Keira’s hand.
Keira looked, and she was holding a calculator. This would help, surely? She stared at her page, and the original problem had turned into baffling numbers, a long stream of them. Keira began to tap the first number on her calculator, but she hit the wrong button. She cleared it and started again. But she couldn’t seem to hit the numbers she wanted. Every time, her fingers jumped and tapped a different button.
She looked up to ask Alanna how to fix her stupid fingers, but she was gone.
‘Time’s up!’ Sandra yelled. ‘Turn in your papers.’
Keira examined her completely blank piece of paper. She had failed. Sandra appeared and snatched the paper away. She had a sneering look at it. ‘I guess you can’t go.’ She turned to the room. ‘Everyone else, head out! Your parents are waiting to take you home!’
Everyone began to troop out—except for Keira, who was stuck in her chair. But that didn’t matter. No one was waiting for her anyway.
She saw Alanna at the door. She looked back at Keira with disappointment. ‘Everything’s a joke to you.’
‘No, no,’ Keira said. ‘I was trying.’ But Alanna was already gone. Keira was left with Sandra.
‘You don’t even know how to try,’ she said.
‘Yeah, well, you tried to fuck a fake astronaut,’ Keira said to her angrily.
Sandra sighed. ‘That’s not on the test. No wonder you failed.’
‘Whatwasthe answer?!’ Keira demanded.
Kelly, who Keira hadn’t realised was still in the room, suddenly plonked herself on the edge of her desk. She looked down at her. ‘You know the answer. You told me.’
‘What?’ Keira said, confused.
Kelly rolled her eyes. ‘It’s the same answer as it always is, you stupid little orphan.’
Kelly got up and walked out. Keira, finally able to get out of her chair, followed her to the door. But the handle was stuck. She banged and screamed at the glass pane. She saw Alanna walking away, almost gone. The hall seemed to stretch for miles, and she was almost a dot. ‘ALANNA—’
***
‘Come back!’ Keira screamed as her eyes popped open. She was in her room, and it was morning. It took a while to make sense of that.
‘Keira, what’s the matter?!’ Alanna said from beside her. Keira turned, confused to see her. She was gone, wasn’t she? No, she was here. It was just a dream. A very stressful and upsetting dream. She didn’t understand why it had upset her as much as it had.
‘Keira! You’re crying!’
Keira wiped at her face. There was indeed a tear. ‘Sorry, I’m… I don’t know what the hell’s…’
‘You were having a nightmare. It sounded bad.’
‘I was trying to use a calculator, and it was really hard,’ Keira explained and then paused. ‘It’s worse than it sounds.’
Alanna smiled gently. ‘I don’t doubt it. You were flailing around. You said something about trying?’
That brought a lot of it back. Not that she would tell Alanna that. She didn’t understand exactly what her dream meant, but she knew it would tell Alanna too much. ‘Yeah, it’s kind of fading now. Not sure what it was about.’ She sniffed.
