a PSAT story

The trouble all began on a sunny morning in September.

Starlord found himself rushing down the hallway to the exam registration desk. In an unsightly manner, Starlord dashed toward the desk, tripped on his bootlace, and tumbled pell-mell to the ground. Shakily, Starlord righted himself and proceeded to fill out the exam sign-up paper. He then handed over the greens to the crabby looking woman who stared over her spectacles at him with a withering gaze. The crabby woman then preceded to hand Starlord a slip of paper and thankful to be away, Starlord snatched the paper from her outstretched hand and quickly shuffled away.

Now, a week having passed, Starlord found himself bent over a stretch of paper madly scribbling down the answers for practice test #5. He could hear the steady and rhythmic tick tock of the grandfather clock in the hallway, just behind his shut door. As the clock chimed, signaling midday, a thought flashed across Starlord’s mind and he found himself fiercely and rapidly erasing the marks on the paper before him. Starlord checked his watch. 12:05. With only seconds to go, Starlord double checked his answers and then gently set his paper down. Soon, the watch began to beep and Starlord paused from his flurried thinking to wipe a trickle of sweat off his brow. Starlord stood up and went to look for his father.

“Father! How am I going to get away with this?! It’s just too hard to study. And I’ve only got one more day before the test!”

“Do your best. Look on the bright side. You do have one full day of studying left. Now, time is wasting away. Go back to your room and study!”

“But father…”

“Time’s a-wasting my boy! To the study room.” Father stared pointedly at Starlord.

Starlord dashed off in a fury. His father’s obstinacy would never cease to amaze him.

That evening Starlord had a dream. He was in his testing room turning over the last problem in his head. Things just did not seem to fit together. A buzzer began to beep in the distance and right when Starlord had solved the problem! Starlord came to in his room and reached over to his bedside table to shut the alarm clock off. Today was the day of the test.

Déjà vu. Starlord was once again on the last problem of the test and found himself in a stick…again. “Hmm, that’s queer,” he thought to himself, “it feels like I’ve done a problem like this before.” And with seconds to spare Starlord remembered his dream and what the answer was. Quickly Starlord filled in the bubble and dropped his pencil right when the test proctor (the crabby woman again! who would’ve thunk it?) screamed in a rather cracked voice, “Time!”

Two months later Starlord opened an envelope labeled “PSAT Results”. Starlord immediately searched for the last question. And suddenly, as Starlord gazed upon the question and answer, he started to feel an odd tingling and everything was bathed in a bright light…