Contents

MEGAN’S

SCHOOL EXAMS

OWEN JONES

DEDICATION

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

1 THE PEP TALK

2 SWOTTING

3 THE EXAMS

4 THE RESULTS

5 WACINHINSHA

GLOSSARY

MEGAN’S

SCHOOL EXAMS

A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!

by

OWEN JONES

Copyright © January 7th 2015 Owen Jones Author

All rights reserved.

Megan’s School Exams

By Owen Jones

Published by Megan Publishing Services

http://meganthemisconception.com

The right of Owen Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. The moral right of the author has been asserted.

In this work of fiction, the characters, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or they are used entirely fictitiously.

All rights reserved.

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Other novelettes in the same series:

The Psychic Megan Series

A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!

The Misconception

Megan’s Thirteenth

Megan’s School Trip

Megan’s School Exams

Megan’s Followers

Megan and the Lost Cat

Megan and the Mayoress

Megan Faces Derision

Megan’s Grandparents Visit

Megan’s Father Falls Ill

Megan Goes on Holiday

Megan and the Burglar

Megan and the Cyclist

Megan and The Old Lady

Megan’s Garden

Megan Goes To The Zoo

Megan Goes Hiking

Megan and the W. I. Cookery Competition

Megan Goes Riding

Megan Goes Yachting

Megan at Carnival

Megan at Christmas

DEDICATION

This edition is dedicated to my friend Murray Bromley, who helped me and my Thai family more than he will ever realise in 2013.

Karma will repay everyone in just kind.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

1 The Pep Talk

2 Swotting

3 The Exams

4 The Results

5 Wacinhinsha

Glossary

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Thanks are due to the artist who did the cover for me,

Rachel Maduro

1 THE PEP TALK

Megan woke up in bed, still thinking about what she had been told in school the day before.

There would be exams before the Christmas holidays. These would be the first ‘real’ examinations that she had ever sat, as far as she was concerned, because the others were ‘just tests’, for school kids, but now she was in a real school – one for adults, or teenagers – near-adults – anyway.

This time she would not be testing herself against a bunch of local kids, but against all and the best in the town and it was scary.

Megan wanted to talk to someone about it, but she knew not whom. Despite the fact that Wacinhinsha knew about most things, she somehow doubted that he would know about 21st Century exams in her local school.

Still, time ticked on, so she patted Grrr, who was lying beside her as ever, got up, showered, put on her school uniform and went downstairs to greet her parents and have breakfast.

“Good morning, how are you?” she said to anybody who was listening. Her father was reading the paper and her mother was frying something in the kitchen.

“Good morning, darling,” said her father, lowering the paper for a moment.

“Morning, Megan, here’s your breakfast. Did you sleep well?” asked her mother as she put two plates down, one for Megan and one for herself.

“Yes, thanks. And you?”

“Oh, like tops, as always. Your Dad and I always just fall fast asleep, as soon as our heads hit the pillow. You know what they say: ‘No sleep for the wicked!’ and that is not us, is it, Robert?… Robert!…”

“What’s that, my dear?”

“I said ‘No sleep for the wicked is there?’ and that is not us.”

“No, of course not, that is not us. Why, who can’t sleep now?”

“I’m not talking about anyone in particular, Robert, it was just a general observation.”

“Oh, I see, dear, yes, a good point.”

Megan had witnessed these morning non-conversations almost every day of her life, and sometimes, just to stir things up a bit, she threw a wobbly in.

“Well, I must be wicked then, because I didn’t sleep very well at all.”

That got their interest. Her father put the paper down and actually folded it up and her mother put both her knife and her fork on her plate.

“Why? What have you got troubling you so much that you cannot sleep? Please don’t tell us that it it’s that boy from the party, will you?” asked her mother.

Megan was quite taken aback. She had thought about Rod quite a few times since that night, but she could not yet imagine why her mother might think that that could be a problem.

“I don’t know what you mean, Mam! It’s nothing like that! I’m not interested in boys. It’s just that Mrs. Henshaw told us in school yesterday that we will be given written and verbal exams in four weeks time.”

“I’m not sure what that means… I’ve only had ‘ tests’ before.”

“Yes, I see,” said her father, “well, I have to go to work now, but if you want to talk about it when I get home, we can do so… no problem, but for now, don’t worry, there is no difference between tests and exams. ‘Examinations’ is just a posh word for tests.”

Robert put his paper in his briefcase, kissed them both on the forehead and left.

“Your father is right, love, exams are only tests, but let’s talk about this tonight when you get back from school and your Dad gets back from work.”

Her parents’ advice did ease Megan’s mind and she even had the confidence to explain the same to some of her friends who had also been worried, but did not have the benefit of a mother or father who cared enough to explain it to them.

When they sat down to tea ten hours later, the first item on the agenda was food, but when the eating was over, Megan’s father said to his daughter:

“How was school today, my dear? Any more news about your exams?”

“Yes, Dad, they said that there would be five days of exams and that they would be held every afternoon next week. It is all very official and very scary. Why can’t they just give us the tests and be done with it?”

“Well, my dear Megan, it is to do with your preparation for the real world. Mmm, that is not a good way of saying it, you are already in the ‘real world,… I mean the ‘adult world.

“You see, even adults have to sit exams from time to time, if they want to progress in their career. Lawyers sit exams, manager sit exams… All sorts of people, policemen and women, doctors, all sorts… in the ‘real, adult world’ and calling them tests is, well, it sounds a little childish, but it’s only language. It is the same thing really.

“I have to, because I want to, of course, sit examinations every few years, in order to get a better job, more money. It is normal… and you are being prepared for that, our, adult way of life now, because you are thirteen and nearly an adult. As a ‘near adult’, this is your training. Your apprenticeship into adulthood, if you like.”

“Yes, I can see that, Dad. Do you really have to sit exams too? I did not know that.”

“There are many things that you do not yet know, Megan,” said her mother, “but that is how it should be at your age. You will find out soon enough. You are young, you know things about being young that we have forgotten, but you will be an adult longer than you will be a child, so it important that you learn your lessons well… not only your school lessons, and do as well as you can, because if you don’t do it now, you’ll be struggling for the rest of your life.”

“Your mother is right, Megan, school is the big one, but not the last one. After school, you still have the whole of your life left to prove yourself, but it is better to prove that you are clever now. Get some qualifications and then later on you only have to prove that you are a good human being, mother or father… well, not father, but mother or teacher or nurse or bank manager or whatever it is that you will become, person, at least.

“Do you see what we are talking about?”

“Yes, I do, but it seems like a huge task and I’m only thirteen.”

“Yes, well, that is the thought that you have to get out of your head… You are not ‘only thirteen, you are five years away from university or becoming an adult. Now is the time to stop being a child and start looking forward to becoming a grown-up. It is tough, I’ll give you that, darling, but your next ten or twenty years, perhaps all your life, will depend on the results of your decisions every day from now on.”

“But that is a lot of pressure for a kid, isn’t it, Dad?”

“Maybe it is. In fact, I’m sure that it is, but there is worse to come, and I can promise you that,” said her father with a wry smile, “but there’s a lot of satisfaction too. You see, the pressure is being put on you now to see if you can take it – as a thirteen-year-old kid, I mean. If you can get through this, then an employer will know that you are tough. If you can get through university, an employer will know that you are tough and smart, but if you can’t hack it, then that shows the opposite or that you are a slow developer – not that that is a bad thing, but then you will be sitting exams all your life, like I was.”

Robert looked at his wife, who caught his eye, but did not want to express what she had thought for a decade. Instead she said:

“Listen to your father, Megan, he knows from experience… We both do. Learn from us and don’t make the same mistakes as we did. Never forget that you only get one first chance.”

Megan caught the implication and found it embarrassing; the three of them were avoiding each other’s eyes, so she took the opportunity to go to her room.

“Mam, I have some homework to do, is it all right if I go up stairs?”

“Sure it is, dear, you go on up,” said her mother.

Megan left the room as fast as she could, but it was not quickly enough for her parents, who began to argue the moment she had gone.

Once in her room, she cwtched up to Grrr who was lying on her bed.

“Why do they have to do that, Grrr? We are a happy family, aren’t we? Why do my parents have to snipe at each other like that? It just doesn’t make sense to me… does it to you?”

Grrr rolled onto her back, feet in the air and purred.

Humans were silly creatures, thought Grrr, they don’t know what’s going on.

“What would you know anyway, you’re just a tiger?”

In fact, she knew a lot. Her parents had fought too and she knew what damage a pair of 300 pound tigers could do to each other, even if they were only playing. Angry, a tiger was a killing machine – there was no known animal that could withstand a tiger attack, except perhaps an elephant, but all skilled tigers knew that male elephants were weak in the genitals.

Anyway, there were no elephants where she came from any more, not since the mammoths had died out and she was proud of the stories that her parents had told her about her ancestors bringing those huge, hairy beasts down.

The only wounds that her father had ever suffered after settling with her mother were from his wife and he could not even touch her in anger despite being larger, because she was more agile and more fierce than he was.

Grrr understood emotions, but no human tongue. She knew what Megan was thinking about, but she could not tell her what she knew. What every animal knew and what some of the smartest humans knew too, that every living creature has to go through stages and that there are many, many of them and we are not all at the same stage, but we are all heading in the same direction, upwards.

Grrr knew this, but she also knew that everyone has to learn it for themselves and that humans had the worst time of learning it, because they had lost touch with nature. She also knew that they would catch up again one day.

She would have liked to be able to say that to her friend, Megan, but she could not and she accepted that too. Grrr, like all wise creatures, accepted what she could not change.

However, Megan did not know any of this yet, so she just rubbed her friend’s tummy and said:

“You’re lucky you are, you don’t know what it’s like to have parents like mine.”

But Grrr did, it was just that they hadn’t spoken human, wore beautiful magnolia and black coats and walked on all fours and that was more than three hundred years ago.

Megan got on with her homework without realising what was on Grrr’s mind.

2 SWOTTING

All of Megan’s previous tests had been more or less impromptu, so she had no idea about how to prepare for ‘real exams’. However, the school headmaster, Mr. Hughes, via Mrs. Henshaw, tried to put the students on the right track.

“The first thing to realise, children, is that I cannot tell you which questions will be coming up, and so, I cannot give you the answers either. You will have to use your own judgement about what you think are the most important points in your studies. However, although I don’t know what is going to come up, I can help you try to decide what is important.”

Megan listened and made notes about the mathematical equations they had learned and the battles that had been fought and when. Mrs. Henshaw gave them just about as much of a tip about what would come up as she could and Megan made as much use of that insider information as she could too.

“You will not be having examinations on every subject, that will come at the end of the final term next year. You can see these exams as ‘mocks’, if you like. Their purpose is to give you some experience with real exams, so the results will not be used to grade you, but they will be used to judge how well you are coping with school