Examination Desperation Ch. 02

Note: The students in this story are at the end of their senior year of high school. They have all turned 18.

*

A year after wetting her pants during the university entrance exam, the young woman crouches behind a bush at the edge of the school oval, watching the library through binoculars. This year's calculus students are filing in and taking their seats while Mrs Hope holds the door open for them. She fights the urge to charge across the oval and choke the woman. She has waited a year. She can wait a few more minutes.

Time passes slowly. Finally the doors are closed, the students are seated and Mrs Hope hands out exam papers. The young woman pulls her balaclava down over her face. She shoulders her backpack and picks up her crossbow. Where she lives, it is illegal for civilians to own guns yet legal to own crossbows. She takes a final peak through the binoculars. Mrs Hope is seated, and the students are writing away furiously.

Letting the binoculars dangle from the strap round her neck, she bolts across the oval. She was a champion sprinter in her school's athletics team, and she hasn't lost her talent. She covers the distance to the library before any of the students, preoccupied with their exam, can notice her. She charges through the doors.

"NOBODY MOVE!"

Every hand stops writing; every head whips round to face her.

"I'm taking over! I'll be... officiating this exam. Mrs Hope!"

The teacher jumps.

"Come out here. Bring your chair with you."

The teacher emerges from behind the reception desk, pushing her castered chair ahead of her.

"I want you to sit in front of the class, in the centre."

Mrs Hope obeys.

The young woman produces a two-litre plastic bottle from her backpack and proffers it to the teacher. "Drink. All of it."

"What is it?"

"It's just water. Drink up." She neglects to mention that it is spiked with a diuretic.

Removing the cap, Mrs Hope raises the bottle to her mouth and tilts her head back. She gulps the water down until she gags. "I can't... I can't finish it."

"Why, you've still got more than half left. Come on!" She presses the crossbow bolt against the teacher's face. "Bottoms up!"

She raises the bottle to her lips and resumes drinking slowly, one belaboured swallow at a time. She lowers the bottle again when it is still one-third full. "I think I'm going to be sick."

The young woman takes the bottle from her. "Don't throw up. You can have a five-minute break." She turns to the students. "Okay, all of you, I want you to continue with your exam."

Everyone just keeps staring at her.

Pointing the crossbow at the student sitting nearest her, she screams, "All of you, heads down, pens in hand! Keep going on with the test!"

This time they oblige.

"Who are you?" Mrs Hope asks. "Do I know you?"

"No questions. We've got students trying to concentrate on an exam here." She glares down at the teacher, a thirty-something long-haired brunette in a grey business suit.

Mrs Hope cringes, unable to hold the young woman's gaze, and looks away.

There is silence. The young woman lets it continue for fifteen minutes.

"Here, time for another drink. And this time you'd better finish it! No excuses!"

Mrs Hope takes the bottle with trembling hands. She drinks at a more moderate pace this time and manages to finish.

Meanwhile, some of the students have stopped writing and are watching the exchange.

"Back to work, class!"

The students quickly lower their heads.

And now the young woman waits. Twenty-five minutes pass. Mrs Hope begins to fidget. Forty minutes pass.

"Excuse me, madam ― I don't know your name ― can I please go to the bathroom?"

"No. You should've gone before the exam."

Under her breath: "I did go before the exam."

Fifty minutes pass. She is now breathing through puckered lips and sweating profusely, like a woman in labour. Her thighs, which have been pressed tightly together for so long, are trembling visibly. The young woman is grudgingly beginning to admire the teacher's stamina.

"Please let me go to the bathroom. Please. Don't let me wet myself in front of the class."

The young woman ignores her.

Ten minutes pass. Mrs Hope slides off her chair onto her knees. "Please! I'm begging you. Let me go to the toilet. Let me go, please."

The young woman thrusts the tip of the crossbow bolt against Mrs Hope's ribcage. "Back in your seat, woman!"

Mrs Hope does so but does not stop pleading. "You could let me go behind the reception desk. I know you're probably worried that if you let me outside, I'll run and tell the police or get help or something. Just let me go behind the desk." She looks up at the young woman expectantly. "No? I could go down one of the aisles, then." She pointed to one of the aisles between the rows of bookcases. "You could keep an eye on me. I won't try to run away or anything."

She thrusts the crossbow against Mrs Hope's neck. "Shut up, woman!"

And she does. For about ten minutes. By now her face is red from the strain. She gets up and begins to unbutton her pants.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm just going to squat right here and do it, okay?" She unzips her fly. "I can't hold on any longer."

"Not so fast!" The young woman presses the tip of the bolt between Mrs Hope's pleading eyes. "Zip it back up!"

"Surely you're not going to let me wet myself in front of everyone when I could just go on the floor?"

"I'm not going to ask you again."

Tears begin to trickle down Mrs Hope's cheeks as she reluctantly complies with the demand. "I'm going to wet myself," she mumbles.

"Back in your chair!"

When Mrs Hope does so, the young woman lowers the crossbow.

"I'm going to wet myself. I'm going to wet myself! I'm going to wet myself! I'M GOING TO WET MYSELF!"

The young woman slaps her across the face. "Get hold of yourself, woman! Show some dignity!"

She regains and maintains composure for perhaps five minutes but then loses it again. "Oh, God, please don't let me wet myself! You can't let me wet myself! I'll do anything! Please, nice lady, let me go to the toilet! I've got to go right now! If you don't let me go, it'll be too late! Please don't make me wet myself in front of everybody! What kind of a person are you?" Crying, she unabashedly presses her hand to her crotch while writhing on her chair.

Minutes elapse. "Oh, God, please let me die! Don't let me wet myself in front of everybody! Everyone'll laugh at me!"

And then she suddenly goes very quiet and very still. She takes her hand away from her crotch and stares. A dark spot appears on the crotch of her business pants. It grows.

"Oh, no! Stop! Stop!" She flaps her hands.

The young woman can hear a soft hissing as the speed with which the pee comes out increases. It's not the loud hissing the young woman herself had made on her plastic chair; Mrs Hope is sitting on a cushioned office chair. The cushion absorbs the pee for a while, but eventually it becomes saturated and pee trickles onto the carpeted floor.

The young woman grabs Mrs Hope by the arm. "Get up!" She pulls her to her feet.

There is a dark stain on the crotch and seat of the woman's pants, and now that she is standing, it begins to spread down the inside of her legs.

"Class! I want you stop your test for a moment. Put down your pens and look at this pig standing here pissing her pants. Now I want you to start oinking like pigs. Because Mrs Hope is a pig."

The students oink. Some just say oink over and over. Others make snorting sounds, others squealing sounds.

"Oh, God, please make it stop!" Mrs Hope hangs her head.

When the teacher finally stops peeing, the young woman orders the students to silence, then tells Mrs Hope, now standing on a soggy patch of carpet, to take her shoes off. The shoes are filled with pee. The teacher empties them out on the floor.

"Now your pants. That's it. Now take off your knickers and put them over your head."

Mrs Hope has pale pink cotton briefs that are stained a darker pink from the gusset to the seat.

"It stinks," Mrs Hope says, her terrified bulging eyes staring through the leg openings of her knickers.

"Now put your pants and shoes back on."

Once Mrs Hope is dressed, the young woman grabs her by the arm and leads her over to a corner where the students can still see her and tells her to sit.

"You've been a very naughty girl. I want you to sit here in the naughty corner until your knickers have dried, and think about what you've done. You're supposed to be a grown woman, but if you're going to behave like a little girl, wetting your pants, I'll treat you like one." She turns to the class. "Okay. Back to your exam."

"Who are you?" Mrs Hope asks.

"Do you remember last year's calculus exam, Mrs Hope? When one of your students wet their pants because you wouldn't let them go to the toilet?"

"Marni? Marni Roberts? Is that you? Why are you doing this?"

"Why? Because of you, I didn't get into university. I failed my calculus exam, and I was too embarrassed to come back to school to sit my other exams. And now I'm stuck working in a supermarket — a job I hate. I'm a smart woman! I could've been anything!"

Mrs Hope never says another word.

Marni supervises the exam while Mrs Hope rocks back and forth in the corner. At noon, Marni claps her hands. "Pens down, everyone. Time's up. Please remain seated while I collect your papers."

She has to set her crossbow down on the reception desk, of course, and while she collects the papers, Mrs Hope jumps up and grabs the crossbow.

"Look out!" a student yells.

But Mrs Hope flees the library and runs onto the oval. Removing the knickers from her head, she puts the crossbow bolt in her mouth and pulls the trigger.

Several male students rush forward, tackling Marni to the ground. It was worth it, she tells herself as she goes down. Worth every moment you'll spend in prison.