When I was at school, right in the middle of the exams to see what groups you would be put into for the GCSEs I got knocked off my bike by a van.
Pow.
I was ok but I missed the maths exam.
A fortnight later I was back and they made me sit it. This fella took me to a little room and said crack on. So there I was. Not too great at maths tbh. But here's the rub.
I look over and Holy Jesus in all His Heavenly Glory what's sat on the table in the corner but everyone else's exam papers all ready to be marked.
Happy
f***ing Days.
I'd also missed the RE exam but they never made me sit that, probably figuring me not cut out for a vicaring sort of chap. They were right. But I crossed myself for the only time in my life that moment. I was that bad at maths.
And you know, sometimes you reach a crossroads in life that makes you ponder the direction you take. You take time to ponder and evaluate your options. You analyse and ponder. You weigh and measure.
Clearly this wasn't one of those moments.
I reached over and found Neil Merrit's exam paper. He'll be working for NASA or in the looney bin for torturing cats these days I'd expect.
I'm not completely daft of course.
I chucked In the odd error to throw them off the scent from Merrits 100% accuracy. No flies on me.
I sat back and waited. The teacher came. All ok? Yeh no worries sir.
I breezed out the room and went off for my holidays and I can honestly say I never gave it another thought.
Not one.
Suckers.
Come the next term I look at my timetable. That's odd. Ere. Rob. How many maths lessons you got? 3. Wtf. How have I got 9 then? Rob laughed.
Not only did they put me in the top set but they put me in another
special set of class with odd kids who only ever spoke to each other in algebra and beeping noises. I'd never f*#^*ng
seen any of them before. I think the school raised them in secretive basement splinter cells specifically to raise the Ofsted ratings.
You never them anywhere else. Neil Merrit and his big head aside was pretty normal in comparison. Some of these fellas had moustaches and back pain. They were 15 going on 66.
Anyway.
So there I was for
two years. Triple maths.
Every.
Week.
And I just sat there like a complete c$@t. Bewildered. A rabbit in the headlights. Literally drowning in maths.
Never
once occurred to me to own up and take the rap and be put in a maths group where I understood what the teacher was talking about. Where I might actually have
learned summat.
I bluffed it.
For two years.
How I got away with it looking back is a complete mystery. What the teacher must have thought is fairly elusive. It
must have baffled him a
little. Surely?
In fact the only maths I learned was at the mocks. I learned averages.
It turns out that when you get an U, that's ungradeable btw, for the special advanced exam, it's possible for just the one person, to bring the whole class average of A, down to a C.
Questions must have been asked at what can only be imagined to be a fairly executive level.
I was fairly hurriedly moved into a group of normal kids who spoke english not beeping . It turned out unexpectedly that I was about average at maths and I passed the exam proper when it turned up a few months later.
I've even grown to appreciate the beauty of mathematical patterns as I've grown older but only from the perimeters. I'll never be in on it properly.
Looking back as a grown man I do wonder what that teacher must have made of it all . I wonder if he sometimes lies awake at night and tries to drown out the memory of me subverting the whole experience of his teaching career.
But maths is not my weak point.
Its foresight.
Right.
Now I'm off to finish building a cupboard.
