The homeroom teacher looked around the room and addressed the class. "Please try your best to finish everything on your own. Do not copy others' answers. Keep your eyes on your own sheet."
She paused for a moment, then continued, her voice growing sharper. "And do not think that just because I am your homeroom teacher, I will let you off if I catch you cheating. Never think that. I will not let anything go easily."
She returned to her desk and sat down.
Ketto was worried. He hesitated, doubting whether he should continue helping Hanky. If the teacher caught him, what would he do? He wanted to refuse Hanky's request now, but that was also difficult. Saying "no" to Hanky felt impossible. So he was conflicted and nervous. He told himself to be careful. He also thought that if he refused, he would feel sorry and guilty toward Hanky.
Hanky, meanwhile, was spinning his pen with his fingers.
The homeroom teacher noticed and looked at him. Hanky knew she was watching, but he didn't care.
"If you like spinning your pen so much," she said dryly, "you must be very confident. Like you're going to get a hundred percent."
Hanky put his pen down on the desk. He didn't respond. He didn't want to reply.
Lucas laughed quietly. The teacher immediately turned to him. "Are you laughing? Don't laugh at others. There is no big difference between you and him. You are in the same position. Recognize that and remember it."
Lucas lowered his head and said nothing.
The homeroom teacher then asked the students sitting near the window to open it. "Let some fresh air in," she said. "There is an odor in this classroom."
Billy whispered under his breath, "You are the most troublesome one."
Lisa heard him. She immediately raised her hand. "Miss Ho! Billy said that you were the most troublesome person."
Billy's heart sank. You are a bitch, he thought. Out loud, he denied everything. "No! You must have misheard. I did not say that. I did not say anything like that."
Miss Ho looked at him with a cold, knowing gaze. "Stop," she said. "Whatever you said or not, I will be watching your report card. If you get a bad result, I will deal with you."
She went back to her seat.
Billy now hated Lisa with a burning passion. In his imagination, he shot a hundred arrows toward her. Lisa glanced at him with disdain and stuck out her tongue. Billy deliberately turned his head in the opposite direction, refusing to look at her. Every time he saw her, he felt disgusted.
---
The waiting time was dull. The homeroom teacher sat in her chair and examined her nails, seemingly bored.
Lucas glanced at her and thought to himself, You criticize us, but look at yourself. Do you think you're any better? The same. So ridiculous. But he kept his thoughts to himself. He would never say them out loud.
Then the bell rang.
Miss Ho began distributing the exam sheets herself. Unlike other teachers, who divided the sheets into piles for each row and passed them forward, Miss Ho handed out the sheets one by one, personally walking to each desk.
Lucas complained quietly. "Such a waste of time. Is she crazy?"
But Miss Ho didn't care. She believed this method prevented mistakes and confusion.
Everyone received their sheets. Like the previous exam, they first wrote down their names and seat numbers. Miss Ho walked around to check.
Before long, the bell signaling the start of the exam rang. Everyone picked up their pens and began.
Hanky had no intention of working on the exam himself. He sat still, pen in hand, doing nothing.
Miss Ho noticed. She walked to his side and pretended to cough twice. Then she knocked on his desk once.
Hanky looked up at her. He still didn't move. He just sat there.
Miss Ho wanted to scold him. If this had been her regular class, she definitely would have. But this was an exam, so she suppressed her anger. She returned to the front desk and began scanning the room.
---
Billy hated having Miss Ho walk around. He thought she was like a ghost—very scary. Every time she approached his seat, he would cover his answer sheet. He didn't want her to see what he had written. He had answered randomly, and most of his answers were wrong. He was afraid that if the teacher saw his sheet, she would say something bad to him. So he covered his answers as discreetly as possible.
Miss Ho just gave him a rolling of the eyes and moved on. In her mind, she thought, He must not know how to solve any of the problems.
---
When Ketto finished a page of his exam, he placed his answer sheet in the usual spot—the corner of his desk closest to Hanky, positioned at an angle for easy viewing.
Hanky began copying.
But every time Miss Ho passed by, she would push Ketto's answer sheet back into the proper position, hiding it from view. This was very embarrassing for Ketto. Every time she left, he would move it back to the original place. And every time he sensed her approaching again, he would quickly return it to the correct position.
Hanky was also unhappy. Sometimes he had only copied half of a page when Ketto moved the sheet back, making it impossible to see. He could only wait.
In this exam, Hanky did not copy as successfully as he had in the previous one. In the last exam, he had deliberately made some mistakes to protect Ketto—to make it less obvious that he was copying. But in this exam, because of the homeroom teacher's constant vigilance and the inconvenience of the situation, Ketto tried to let Hanky copy everything he could.
At one point, Miss Ho seemed to sense that something was strange. She didn't leave Ketto's area. She hovered nearby for a long time, wandering around the same spot, until she was satisfied that everything was in order.
Time flew by.
Then the bell signaling the end of the exam rang.
Miss Ho immediately began collecting the sheets herself, just as she had distributed them—one by one, personally walking to each desk.