“Quadruped big toe. The quadruped big toe is not in alignment with the other toes, and is more suited to grasping branches in an arboreal lifestyle.” All parents are experts at human evolution. They can carbon-date their Year 13 kid back, back to an era far away and long ago – the midwife, the shopping in the nappy aisle, the Xmas Parade, the orthodontist appointments, the uniform. An entire history of childhood moves past their eyes as they fuss around their kid, now 17 or 18, preparing for the last exams of their school life. The kid has to do the work. But it’s the parents who feel the pain. They are tested to the limits of endurance.
“Frontal lobe. Planning, reasoning, creativity, abstract thinking.” Level 3 exams are just about the final rite of passage of childhood; next year is university or some other training, or gap year, or work, or the military, or the pleasures of unemployment and the terrors of some government-appointed welfare commissar getting in their face. School has finished. The sands in the glass have all tipped out of the funnel. Each grain was a day at primary school, at intermediate, at college. It didn’t go fast. It wasn’t over in the bat of an eyelid. It took most of their lives, it was epic, an era – it was the sequel to the Upper Palaeolithic. Anyway, it’s over.
“Bipedalism. The habitual walking on two legs.” We keep to a strict routine for exams. I set the alarm at 6.15am, put on the jug, turn on the heater, and go into her room to wake her up. I give her a weather report. “The morning is delicately poised. It could burn off; it could be a total flop. Right now it’s too hard to make the call,” etc, etc. The sheer boringness of it prepares her for the boring day ahead. On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday she wrote out answers to questions in Level 3 biology exams going back to 2014; 12 questions a day for those three days, plus four on Saturday, 40 all up. At the end of each day, we would go through her flash cards.
“Wernicke’s area. An area of the brain concerned with the comprehension of spoken words – the ability to listen.” I loved every moment of our routine. One last attempt at being useful. She is going to study in Otago in February. The idea of it so staggering that I can barely breathe. Her absence, her independence – all parents have a built-in obsolescence, a use-by date. It’s exciting to think of her setting her own routines. It’s upsetting to think of her setting her own routines.
It’s been like this all year, unlucky Year 13, the misfortune of seeing her off to school for one last term, one last week, one last exam … She gave the valedictorian speech at her school prizegiving, won some things, introduced me to two of her teachers, in English and history, who both seemed like the most fantastic people. Thank you, Ben Allen. Thank you, Cade Robbins. Strange to consider the feelings of teachers who will never see their students again. Maybe they are the true suffering heroes. Actually, in absolute truth, that title and that status belongs to the ones who most deserve it: time to think of the children.
Good luck to every Year 13 kid in New Zealand right now studying for the last exams of their school life. You’re all the best.
