“Dear God, is this an extra year?” I murmured.
It was a joyous moment for us because after almost seven years of studying a five-years course, we were about to finally sign out of the undergraduate stress. It was a beautiful moment because we had carefully planned what our Final Year week celebration would look like.
Monday for corporate wears, Tuesday for themed wears, Wednesday for jersey wears, and the most important day was the mini-owambe party before the final big party that would happen on a weekend. Oh, and there was the sign out day. A day when we would finally drop our pen and change status to graduates.
I had two friends in my department in my finals whom we planned our outfits, our days, and exam days together. We would read and revise together and looked out for one another before entering the exam hall.
We stayed at different locations, but my apartment was the meeting point. For every exam we had, we would study late into the night because it was a very delicate stage for us. Why? Because we had some lecturers that were on the lookout for us wanting us to fail because according to them, “we had celebrated too lavishly”. Actually, we did celebrate, but it was nothing close to lavish. We were only excited to finally be getting out of school.
One day, one of our lecturers sent a message to our class representative to add him to our class WhatsApp group because he wanted to know what we talked about, especially if we were talking bad about any of the lecturers.
He did add him, but as students, we found a way to frustrate him out of the group, so we were certain that we were already in some kind of trouble.
Our lecturers were quite predictable, or so we thought. We knew what exactly to expect in our next exam in relation to questions, mood, strictness, and their attitudes in total, so we all prepared for it. alas, they were ready for us in a way we never imagined.
Normally, anyone that comes to the exam hall at ten to fifteen minutes after the exam started would be allowed to join the exam, as long as no one has submitted yet, but on this day, all of us were settled in the hall by 8:45am because the instruction that reached us at 8:00am was that anyone that comes in at 9:01am would miss the exam.
Our lecturers do not bluff, so we knew we were about to witness some real drama.
I rushed to the exam center when I saw the internal memo directed at my department especially, so I couldn’t even wait to eat because I had to get to school early. I don’t take my phone to the exam halls for the fear of losing it or getting it seized.
On getting to the exam hall, I looked around for my friends, and I saw one of them already seated at the front row. Then, I tried to look for my other friend, but I found him nowhere. I tried to remember his number so I could at least use someone’s phone to call him, but I was too destabilized to remember the last four digits.
I panicked, prayed, hoped, and looked around until I entered the exam hall.
The time was 8:55am now, and the hall was about to be shut, but my friend wasn’t around yet.
He probably turned off his phone or disconnected the internet, else, he should’ve seen the memo too. “How do I reach him?”, “What can I do now?” I kept asking myself.
“Hey, you. Shut that door!”, the supervising lecturer said in a voice that could be mistaken for a scream like he caught someone cheating.
“It’s finished now. My friend just had an extra year”, I murmured. I looked back one last time, and I saw my friend running towards the door when the door finally shut on him. He went to the window to plead with the lecturer to let him in because it wasn’t even close to ten minutes past nine yet, but all the lecturer said was, “you were warned”.
A few minutes later, a voice from outside called.
“Hello, who’s in this hall?”. It was the Dean of our department. He was moving around for his usual routine check to see if exams were going on fine.
“Good morning, sir. I am in charge, sir”, the supervising lecturer responded.
“I’m just wondering why these students are outside because it’s barely 9:05am. So, why are they here?”, the Dean asked to which the supervising lecturer had no answer.
“If the time was 9:15am, I would’ve sent them home, but it’s just 9:10am now, so, please, let them in so they can join their peers in finishing their exam in time”, the Dean said while he pushed my friend into the exam hall.
We finished the exam and couldn’t stop talking about the gift of the ten minutes left before the Dean showed up, else, my friend would be on his way to preparing for another year in school.
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