End of time

Stop lying!

I snorted, pretending not to take his provocation in good part. I took my assignments from his hands, then my jaw dropped. 

“You finished eight multiple-choice questions in only 15 minutes?”

 Halley replied calmly: “Yes.”

 “Was it right?”

 “Guess.”

 Halley threw the little formula at me while he was saying: 

“Write it down as you come back home. Learn it carefully.”

 In fact, Halley learned by heart all these formulas, so buying this “mathematics notebook” was unnecessary. He hadn’t even looked at it once. But he found it useful to me when going to the bookstore so he bought it and gave it to me.

 “I’ve finished reading it. You’ve probably never seen this book before, right?” Halley lied so smoothly.

 I honestly replied: “Yes. I’ve never bought some sort of Math formulas from the bookstore.”

 Halley: “…”

 I was terrible at Math. I knew I wasn’t smart, but the more I tried, the more frustrated I got, culminating in the summer of my 9th grade when I had to cramp for the tenth grade exam. I bit my pen while stretching out on the desk.

“I understand nothing.”

 Argon Halley raised his head up from the pile of papers and frowned. 

“Don’t understand what?”

 I dejectedly pushed the sample test paper away: “All.”

 Argon Halley sighed, knowing that since I pulled out my baby tooth, my mathematical knowledge accordingly was ‘pulled out’. He stopped complaining about me but continued his problem solving before he said:

“Anyway, you registered for social studies, you just need to have enough score to pass it.”

 Argon Halley applied to the 1st ranked school in the province. This was how things would be. The talented must be in a suitable environment. I didn’t have any idea for this school and just planned to apply to a normal school. But after looking at several schools, I found it really hard to enter these schools because of their high scores last year. I was going to ask my mom what would happen if I failed the high school’s entry examination. However, everything became silent as I saw my mom’s dirty face and forehead beaded with sweat.

My mom seemed to read the hesitation in my eyes, said:

“Just go to the school that fits you best. Money doesn’t matter, and it was my problem.”

A fifteen-year-old son like me had to try not to rush to hug my mom and cry out loud in the road. I could stay calm to others’ teasing, could be insensitive to one called me a fatherless child but couldn’t get a hold of my emotions in front of the one I loved.

The school that I applied for was a 2nd ranked school. I just had to choose one of two options: Natural Science or Social Science. This made him extremely grateful. I was not good at Math but had a knack for memory-based subjects. History and Literature classes were my era.

My talent got so prominent when I revised those lessons with Halley. As soon as the clock rang showing that 45 minutes had passed, when Math had to leave the spotlight to Literature, I was so pumped up, my eyes gleamed.

 “Did we study “Village” in the last lesson?”

It was Halley’s turn to get glum now. He hummed, then sighed, reluctantly opened his notebook.

 “Although Mr. Hai loved the village so much, if his beloved village defected to the enemy, it would become his enemy. When facing that tough choice, Mr. Hai chose to… Hey, Argon Halley!”

 I closed my notebook and woke Argon Halley up. He gave a loud yawn and strongly justified himself.

“I heard it all. Just keep reading.”

 I frowned: “Really understand?”

 Argon Halley nodded firmly: “For sure.”

 “So can you use that idea to write a similar paragraph?”

 This time, Argon Halley kept silent.

Actually, Argon Halley didn’t need to revise Literature, as long as he passed the demanding score. He could spend time competing for the valedictorian position of the entire province, then took this as a priority to pass the exam. Halley was very good, much better than I thought. During the middle school years, he took part in several provincial contests, from Math and Physics to Chemistry and English and won prizes. I still thought that he was perfect and invincible until one day, the teacher gave the exam back with an angry face.

 “This time our class had one below average score in Literature, which is the lowest and the most shocking one I have ever scored. Does anybody know who that is?”

 The entire class was in widespread stir.

“Who is that?”

 “The student teacher has mentioned probably studies terribly.”

 “Stewart, is that you?”

 Stewart justified: “Literature is my best subject of all.”

 “Or Harris?”

 Harris jumped up and argued: “My worst is five points.”

“Stop lying. Last time, you only got 4.75 points. The teacher rounded it up to 5.”

 “Huht.”

"It's hard for you, Harris."

"Ahh, shut up!"

Stewart turned around and talked to his “big brother” without realizing that his face was getting more and more down.

 “Monitor, sounds like this guy was worse than Vuong Dang Trieu. Who’s that bad?”

Vuong Dang Trieu butted in: “Probably the teacher had to listen to Buddhist sutras as grading to forgive the karma of the one writing this.”

A girlfriend glared at him: “Don’t talk nonsense like that!”

The teacher hit hard on the desk as if she slapped that student’s face. She read it out loud: 

 “The owner of this 3-point exam is Argon Halley!”