Part 3
I managed to avoid my parents all night and into the morning. I could pretend it wasn't intentional--I just didn't feel comfortable around them at the moment.
Walking back to campus, I could feel the bitter gusts of wind cutting through my jeans and freezing my legs. I ducked through the doors of the Swift Building and paused to let the blood run back into my extremities. Ancient Civ 301; Here goes nothing, I thought, taking a deep breath and pushing open the door.
Many classmates were sitting at their desks staring dejectedly at the sheafs of paper in their hands. Professor Heathers caught my eye from behind her desk and waved me over.
"Ah, Pris! Good, you're on time--I'm just giving everyone a few minutes to look over the results of that quiz on the decline of Sparta we took a few weeks back. Here's yours," she handed me a wrinkled packet and waved me off.
I forced myself to hold the papers face-down until I reached an open seat, next to my study-buddy, Caroline.
"Moment of truth," I murmured softly, flipping it over onto the table in front of me.
A large, black "B-" captured my attention, complete with a smaller "29/36" circled underneath it.
"Oh hey, Pris; what's up?" Caroline's voice reached my ear. She must have noticed the expression on my face.
I slumped over the table and let my head fall into my hands. "What's up?" I grumbled back at her. "B-minus, that's what!" How could I have missed so many? I scanned through, checking for Ms. Heathers' markings. "I thought I had this in the bag! I swear, we went over this stuff--" I pointed to one of the multiple choice questions. "See? 'Where did the first battle of the Second Messenian War take place?' The answer is in the name, right? The Battle of Deres--don't you remember figuring out where that was?" All the information I had been studying for my various courses swirled and eddied in my brain. How could I have missed such an important detail?
Caroline shook her head. "No, Pris--we didn't locate it. That's the whole point, that's why there is the option 'D. The precise location is unknown.' The other choices are just red herrings." She caught another correction further down the page. "The Battle of Thermoplyae? Wait a minute..." she checked her own test. "Yeah, I don't see how you could have missed that one. See? I still have the text evidence notes." She dove into her backpack and pulled out the familiar stack of index cards. I had one just like it, back in my desk at home. "See? The answer is 'B', taken verbatim from the textbook." She squinted and gave me a pitying smile. "Did you change your notes after we studied so hard?"
"Of course I didn't!" I didn't recall ever writing such a statement--but we had made the exact same stack of cards, so why would I write something different? "I answered everything exactly how we memorized it."
Caroline was flipping through to my paragraph responses, liberally annotated by Professor Heathers. "Yeah, Pris--like here, where you say that Sparta remained free and independent through the first century CE, when in fact the Spartan state was absorbed by the Roman Empire in the mid-first-century BCE."
I frowned. "The Roman Empire?" I struggled to remember anything about the Roman connection. The markdown rankled me. I couldn't think straight. All that ran through my head when I thought of Sparta was the image of my dad, his tank-top twisted in an X across his torso, the long hair flying as he shouted in his reenactment of the brave, elite Spartan forces during the different battles. "Through it all," he had told me once, "Sparta remained a state unto herself. Not even Alexander the Great could vanquish her spirit. The most he could do was ignore her, and she kept to herself, so long as no one tried to dominate her again."
I saw that same mentality in the words of my paragraph response--and noted the disapproval from my professor for those "isolationist views." I lost credit on my test because my dad was an unforgettable storyteller.
"All right, everyone!" Professor Heathers called for our attention. "That's enough reviewing. Take your results to heart, and see what habits or strategies worked, what didn't, and try to discover what else you can do to improve your score on the next test. Moving on!"
Two hours later, I'd made it through Ancient Civ and then a College Algebra tutoring session, and then it was time for lunch. I hefted my bag onto my shoulder and trudged off campus, feeling like Sisyphus and his stone--every time I made just a little progress, something would happen to push me all the way back to the beginning, forcing me to start the learning process all over again. I'd had about enough of it.
I dropped my bag next to the couch and slouched my way to the table in the sunroom, where Mom had set out a plate of fresh-grilled panini. I pushed my plate aside and plopped my elbows on the table to catch my head.
"Priscilla?" I heard Mom's voice. "What's wrong?"
Everything's wrong! I wanted to whine at her. You're wrong--I'm wrong... I just knew she would try to tell me that I was being overdramatic.
Her hands caressed the back of my neck, a cooling sensation that spread through my whole body. I sat up so she could see my face.
"I bombed a test today when I should have aced it," I answered. "I'm just so frustrated!"
Mom tilted her head, her dark eyes radiating comfort and concern. "You failed, darling?"
I sighed. "Well, not totally--I still passed, but I got a way lower score than I was expecting."
"Did you not study correctly for it?" She took the chair next to me and set sandwiches on the two plates in front of us. "Were you too distracted by other things?"
"That's not the problem," I huffed. "I studied with Carrie--she's got the best study techniques of anybody I know--but when it came down to actually answering the test questions...." I trailed off and took a bite out of my sandwich. The pungent garlic and basil in the pesto warmed my tongue as I chewed. I swallowed and finished my statement, "I really think it's because of the way you and Dad would talk to me about history. I got those details mixed up with the things that we were supposed to memorize from the textbook, and hence it counted as a wrong answer on the test."
Mom chewed and swallowed a delicate nibble, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a napkin before speaking. "Priscilla, dear, your father and I have worked together in the field of archaeology and ancient civilizations for much longer than some of your professors have been teaching these college courses--I would not think the information we've learned in all our travels, firsthand from many expert sources, would contradict your educational sources so badly!"
I pulled a piece of turkey out of the middle of my sandwich and ate from my fingers. "And yet, here we are. All those stories you would tell me about Ancient Greece and the Mediterranean civilizations were so compelling that those things stuck in my brain when it should have been the information from the textbook that would at least enable me to answer the test questions accurately!"
"They weren't all stories, though," Mom answered, keeping the same even tone through the whole conversation. "Most of what we told you was accurate."
I frowned. "Then how do you explain the fact that some of the information directly contradicted the historical records quoted in the textbook?"
Mom always sat with perfect posture, not a single movement out of place. It made me feel stiff and plastic just looking at her. She regarded me over half a sandwich. "Maybe it is not we who are inaccurate, but these textbooks are outdated and in need of upgrading."
I wagged my head. "That may be true--but, outdated or not, the quizzes and exams are tied to the textbooks, and if I want to get a good score, I have to go with what the textbook says, and--for now, at least--ignore the fanciful stories spinning through my head."
Mom continued eating her sandwich in silence, as did I. Talking about those old bedtime stories reminded me of seeing the face in the rain the night before, and I nearly brought it up to Mom, just to see what she thought it might be, but after a few minutes of uncomfortable quiet and just biting and chewing, I decided against it. This was a moment to put aside my studies and just munch on good food while staring out the window from which we could see at least two whole neighborhoods to the north of us, and I didn't want to do anything but sit there and soak up the view.
All too soon, the break was over and it was time for me to head back to campus for my afternoon classes.
I made it all the way across campus to Stuart Hall a full ten minutes before class would begin. I had just rounded the corner down the hallway to Mr. Gorden's class when I saw the lanky boy with the thick dark hair that I'd been missing for the last couple days. I sped up to meet him just a few doors down from our destination, and nudged him from behind with my shoulder.
"About time you showed up, stranger!" I needled him.
Tony turned around, and the moment I saw his face, I regretted trying to make a joke of it.
He was pale--not just It's cold outside blanched, but like I shan't expect to live long pale. That and the fact that the skin around his eyes and ears was a brilliant red gave him a ghastly pallor. Suddenly I could tell what adults meant when they said someone "looked green." I dropped my grin and went in for a side hug. "Hey, are you okay?"
He put his arm around me, at least. "Yeah, I'm fine. Hey, sorry I didn't respond to your texts. I've been kind of... out of it, lately."
"Yeah, the TA--Ryan--gave me my notes back and said that you'd been, like, sick or something?"
He gave a wry smirk. "Yeah, that's the short version."
I squinted at him as we sauntered into class side by side. "Is there a long version?" What was happening to my friend, and why couldn't I figure it out sooner?
"Yeah, so..." Tony stopped and turned to face me so he could bring his voice down really low, "I have this... condition--a blood disorder, really--that crops up sometimes as it affects my immune system, particularly my liver, kidneys, and pancreas, and I get toxins building up in my bloodstream and I'm really susceptible to illnesses--"
My jaw dropped and my eyes got wider. "Oh my god, Tony! Are you dying?"
He snorted, but there was no missing the glint of fear in his eyes as I said it. "Not anytime soon if I can help it! I have to take a bunch of medication, and I get infusions of enzymes and things that will help--but the doctors keep telling me that it's only a matter of time before my body just deteriorates beyond what these treatments can offer." He watched me stand there, paralyzed by shock and horror. My own friend--dying by inches, and I never knew! He threw his arms around me and pulled me into a real hug then, holding me tight, as if to reassure me that his muscles still held a great deal of strength. "I promise, Pris, I'm not dying yet," he whispered in my ear. "And when it happens, I know I've made my peace with it."
I hugged him back, clinging to him as I tried to process this information. How could he be so calm? I knew if I had to live every day under the shroud of facing my own death, I'd find any and every way possible to fight it or avoid it, at all costs!
Mr. Gorden called us all to our seats from the front of the room. I saw that Edgar Montaine was back, and a few others with him, fiddling with the projector at the front of the room. The first slide came up, at the front of the room, and the title sent a thrill down my spine: FOURTOUNA: A FOUNTAIN OF ANCIENT HISTORY.
Once we were all seated and hushed, Mr. Montaine stood at the lectern and leaned close to the microphone.
"Yesterday I introduced you all to the basics of what I and my organization are trying to do in and around Macedonia. Today, I've invited some friends out to share with you more firsthand details of the dig on Fourtouna, and one more opportunity to join us to find treasures that haven't been seen or touched by humans for hundreds, if not thousands of years--every discovery could be the find of a lifetime! Are you ready to make history with me?" His eyes seemed to scan the entire room until they came to rest on Tony and me. His voice dipped even lower as he murmured, "Do you think you have what it takes?"
>>>>>>>>>>>
Walking back to campus, I could feel the bitter gusts of wind cutting through my jeans and freezing my legs. I ducked through the doors of the Swift Building and paused to let the blood run back into my extremities. Ancient Civ 301; Here goes nothing, I thought, taking a deep breath and pushing open the door.
Many classmates were sitting at their desks staring dejectedly at the sheafs of paper in their hands. Professor Heathers caught my eye from behind her desk and waved me over.
"Ah, Pris! Good, you're on time--I'm just giving everyone a few minutes to look over the results of that quiz on the decline of Sparta we took a few weeks back. Here's yours," she handed me a wrinkled packet and waved me off.
I forced myself to hold the papers face-down until I reached an open seat, next to my study-buddy, Caroline.
"Moment of truth," I murmured softly, flipping it over onto the table in front of me.
A large, black "B-" captured my attention, complete with a smaller "29/36" circled underneath it.
"Oh hey, Pris; what's up?" Caroline's voice reached my ear. She must have noticed the expression on my face.
I slumped over the table and let my head fall into my hands. "What's up?" I grumbled back at her. "B-minus, that's what!" How could I have missed so many? I scanned through, checking for Ms. Heathers' markings. "I thought I had this in the bag! I swear, we went over this stuff--" I pointed to one of the multiple choice questions. "See? 'Where did the first battle of the Second Messenian War take place?' The answer is in the name, right? The Battle of Deres--don't you remember figuring out where that was?" All the information I had been studying for my various courses swirled and eddied in my brain. How could I have missed such an important detail?
Caroline shook her head. "No, Pris--we didn't locate it. That's the whole point, that's why there is the option 'D. The precise location is unknown.' The other choices are just red herrings." She caught another correction further down the page. "The Battle of Thermoplyae? Wait a minute..." she checked her own test. "Yeah, I don't see how you could have missed that one. See? I still have the text evidence notes." She dove into her backpack and pulled out the familiar stack of index cards. I had one just like it, back in my desk at home. "See? The answer is 'B', taken verbatim from the textbook." She squinted and gave me a pitying smile. "Did you change your notes after we studied so hard?"
"Of course I didn't!" I didn't recall ever writing such a statement--but we had made the exact same stack of cards, so why would I write something different? "I answered everything exactly how we memorized it."
Caroline was flipping through to my paragraph responses, liberally annotated by Professor Heathers. "Yeah, Pris--like here, where you say that Sparta remained free and independent through the first century CE, when in fact the Spartan state was absorbed by the Roman Empire in the mid-first-century BCE."
I frowned. "The Roman Empire?" I struggled to remember anything about the Roman connection. The markdown rankled me. I couldn't think straight. All that ran through my head when I thought of Sparta was the image of my dad, his tank-top twisted in an X across his torso, the long hair flying as he shouted in his reenactment of the brave, elite Spartan forces during the different battles. "Through it all," he had told me once, "Sparta remained a state unto herself. Not even Alexander the Great could vanquish her spirit. The most he could do was ignore her, and she kept to herself, so long as no one tried to dominate her again."
I saw that same mentality in the words of my paragraph response--and noted the disapproval from my professor for those "isolationist views." I lost credit on my test because my dad was an unforgettable storyteller.
"All right, everyone!" Professor Heathers called for our attention. "That's enough reviewing. Take your results to heart, and see what habits or strategies worked, what didn't, and try to discover what else you can do to improve your score on the next test. Moving on!"
Two hours later, I'd made it through Ancient Civ and then a College Algebra tutoring session, and then it was time for lunch. I hefted my bag onto my shoulder and trudged off campus, feeling like Sisyphus and his stone--every time I made just a little progress, something would happen to push me all the way back to the beginning, forcing me to start the learning process all over again. I'd had about enough of it.
I dropped my bag next to the couch and slouched my way to the table in the sunroom, where Mom had set out a plate of fresh-grilled panini. I pushed my plate aside and plopped my elbows on the table to catch my head.
"Priscilla?" I heard Mom's voice. "What's wrong?"
Everything's wrong! I wanted to whine at her. You're wrong--I'm wrong... I just knew she would try to tell me that I was being overdramatic.
Her hands caressed the back of my neck, a cooling sensation that spread through my whole body. I sat up so she could see my face.
"I bombed a test today when I should have aced it," I answered. "I'm just so frustrated!"
Mom tilted her head, her dark eyes radiating comfort and concern. "You failed, darling?"
I sighed. "Well, not totally--I still passed, but I got a way lower score than I was expecting."
"Did you not study correctly for it?" She took the chair next to me and set sandwiches on the two plates in front of us. "Were you too distracted by other things?"
"That's not the problem," I huffed. "I studied with Carrie--she's got the best study techniques of anybody I know--but when it came down to actually answering the test questions...." I trailed off and took a bite out of my sandwich. The pungent garlic and basil in the pesto warmed my tongue as I chewed. I swallowed and finished my statement, "I really think it's because of the way you and Dad would talk to me about history. I got those details mixed up with the things that we were supposed to memorize from the textbook, and hence it counted as a wrong answer on the test."
Mom chewed and swallowed a delicate nibble, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a napkin before speaking. "Priscilla, dear, your father and I have worked together in the field of archaeology and ancient civilizations for much longer than some of your professors have been teaching these college courses--I would not think the information we've learned in all our travels, firsthand from many expert sources, would contradict your educational sources so badly!"
I pulled a piece of turkey out of the middle of my sandwich and ate from my fingers. "And yet, here we are. All those stories you would tell me about Ancient Greece and the Mediterranean civilizations were so compelling that those things stuck in my brain when it should have been the information from the textbook that would at least enable me to answer the test questions accurately!"
"They weren't all stories, though," Mom answered, keeping the same even tone through the whole conversation. "Most of what we told you was accurate."
I frowned. "Then how do you explain the fact that some of the information directly contradicted the historical records quoted in the textbook?"
Mom always sat with perfect posture, not a single movement out of place. It made me feel stiff and plastic just looking at her. She regarded me over half a sandwich. "Maybe it is not we who are inaccurate, but these textbooks are outdated and in need of upgrading."
I wagged my head. "That may be true--but, outdated or not, the quizzes and exams are tied to the textbooks, and if I want to get a good score, I have to go with what the textbook says, and--for now, at least--ignore the fanciful stories spinning through my head."
Mom continued eating her sandwich in silence, as did I. Talking about those old bedtime stories reminded me of seeing the face in the rain the night before, and I nearly brought it up to Mom, just to see what she thought it might be, but after a few minutes of uncomfortable quiet and just biting and chewing, I decided against it. This was a moment to put aside my studies and just munch on good food while staring out the window from which we could see at least two whole neighborhoods to the north of us, and I didn't want to do anything but sit there and soak up the view.
All too soon, the break was over and it was time for me to head back to campus for my afternoon classes.
I made it all the way across campus to Stuart Hall a full ten minutes before class would begin. I had just rounded the corner down the hallway to Mr. Gorden's class when I saw the lanky boy with the thick dark hair that I'd been missing for the last couple days. I sped up to meet him just a few doors down from our destination, and nudged him from behind with my shoulder.
"About time you showed up, stranger!" I needled him.
Tony turned around, and the moment I saw his face, I regretted trying to make a joke of it.
He was pale--not just It's cold outside blanched, but like I shan't expect to live long pale. That and the fact that the skin around his eyes and ears was a brilliant red gave him a ghastly pallor. Suddenly I could tell what adults meant when they said someone "looked green." I dropped my grin and went in for a side hug. "Hey, are you okay?"
He put his arm around me, at least. "Yeah, I'm fine. Hey, sorry I didn't respond to your texts. I've been kind of... out of it, lately."
"Yeah, the TA--Ryan--gave me my notes back and said that you'd been, like, sick or something?"
He gave a wry smirk. "Yeah, that's the short version."
I squinted at him as we sauntered into class side by side. "Is there a long version?" What was happening to my friend, and why couldn't I figure it out sooner?
"Yeah, so..." Tony stopped and turned to face me so he could bring his voice down really low, "I have this... condition--a blood disorder, really--that crops up sometimes as it affects my immune system, particularly my liver, kidneys, and pancreas, and I get toxins building up in my bloodstream and I'm really susceptible to illnesses--"
My jaw dropped and my eyes got wider. "Oh my god, Tony! Are you dying?"
He snorted, but there was no missing the glint of fear in his eyes as I said it. "Not anytime soon if I can help it! I have to take a bunch of medication, and I get infusions of enzymes and things that will help--but the doctors keep telling me that it's only a matter of time before my body just deteriorates beyond what these treatments can offer." He watched me stand there, paralyzed by shock and horror. My own friend--dying by inches, and I never knew! He threw his arms around me and pulled me into a real hug then, holding me tight, as if to reassure me that his muscles still held a great deal of strength. "I promise, Pris, I'm not dying yet," he whispered in my ear. "And when it happens, I know I've made my peace with it."
I hugged him back, clinging to him as I tried to process this information. How could he be so calm? I knew if I had to live every day under the shroud of facing my own death, I'd find any and every way possible to fight it or avoid it, at all costs!
Mr. Gorden called us all to our seats from the front of the room. I saw that Edgar Montaine was back, and a few others with him, fiddling with the projector at the front of the room. The first slide came up, at the front of the room, and the title sent a thrill down my spine: FOURTOUNA: A FOUNTAIN OF ANCIENT HISTORY.
Once we were all seated and hushed, Mr. Montaine stood at the lectern and leaned close to the microphone.
"Yesterday I introduced you all to the basics of what I and my organization are trying to do in and around Macedonia. Today, I've invited some friends out to share with you more firsthand details of the dig on Fourtouna, and one more opportunity to join us to find treasures that haven't been seen or touched by humans for hundreds, if not thousands of years--every discovery could be the find of a lifetime! Are you ready to make history with me?" His eyes seemed to scan the entire room until they came to rest on Tony and me. His voice dipped even lower as he murmured, "Do you think you have what it takes?"
>>>>>>>>>>>
No comments:
Post a Comment