COVER STORY
Last month, we saw the three siblings Leena, Inaya and Jasir prepare for final exam season with a trip to the bookstore, where they stocked up on new textbooks for Jasir and past papers for Inaya. Back home, Leena receives a letter from the Women’s Community College rejecting her application to transfer online college credits and continue studying there.
“What does that mean, they won’t accept your credits?” Inaya looked shocked. “You’ve almost completed two semesters of online college and your grades are good. Why won’t the Women’s Community College accept them?”
“It’s not about my grades.” Leena was looking fixedly at the wall behind Inaya, avoiding her sister’s gaze. “They just won’t accept online college credits.”
“You still haven’t answered my question.” Inaya crossed her arms and shot Leena a look. “Credits are credits.”
Leena sighed and ran her hands through her hair in frustration. “You know how these colleges are. They don’t like to give full credit when you transfer from another college in the first place. When it comes to online college, they want to make it as difficult as possible, so they don’t count those credits at all.”
“They’re just being mean for no reason, you mean.” Inaya exhaled long and hard through her nose. “This is ridiculous! It makes no sense at all.” Hot tears slipped down her face. Leena walked over and put her arms around Inaya, holding her close. Inaya started to cry harder. Leena waited until Inaya was done crying, then she held her by the shoulders and looked closely into her face.
“I’ll find a way out,” Leena said with a weak smile. “Don’t worry.”
Inaya sniffed. “Look at me. It’s your college education and I’m the one getting all teary-eyed about it.”
“I understand that.” Leena’s smile was stronger this time. “We go through the experiences of our lives together to the extent that it feels like we live both our own life and each other’s life at the same time. You’re crying my tears.”
Inaya reached out in the direction of the tissue paper box and Leena handed it to her. Wiping her face, Inaya said, “Are you going to tell Papa?”
“Of course,” Leena said without hesitation. “He’s on board with the whole thing, so it doesn’t make any sense to leave him out at this stage.” She sighed again. “I don’t think there’s anything he can do about it, but it could be that he has an idea on how to deal with it that we don’t.”
After tea time, the girls brought Papa into their room to talk about the matter.
“What is this all about, then?” Papa adjusted the cushions around himself, so he was more comfortable. He looked down at the collection of candy in front of him. “I’m seeing types of candy I’ve never seen before in this pile of yours,” he said, reaching out to take a coconut flavoured one. “I need to know where you find these.” Looking up to see his daughters’ expectant faces, he added, “So what is it that you called me here to discuss?”
Leena looked at Inaya before saying, “Papa, I have some bad news about the Women’s Community College application to transfer my credits. They rejected my application and told me to apply all over again to study from the beginning.”
“Those fools.” Papa crunched the candy loudly between his teeth before continuing, “They don’t know what they’re missing, rejecting a star student like you.” He swallowed. “Don’t worry about it, my dear. Keep studying at the online college. Once you’re done with college, we’ll apply to a good master’s programme. If the master’s programme turns up their noses at your online college degree, we’ll find an online post graduate programme for you. With the way the world has changed, I won’t be surprised if you end up getting your first job online as well.”
Leena, who had been listening carefully, her eyes widening in surprise with each sentence, sat back in her seat and laughed. Papa smiled brightly to see her happy. Inaya blinked rapidly and said, “Is that going to work?”
“Why won’t it work?” Papa started twisting the candy wrapper into a mini envelope. Looking at him, Inaya was reminded of Jasir and the way he was always doing something with whatever he had in his hands. “You girls need to have some more confidence in yourselves and not measure yourself according to how the educational system measures you. You might be such a good fit for one institute that you are declared the queen of academia. In another institute you might be classified as supremely average. Once you’ve finished your education you will realise how many different factors matter other than which college thinks you are good enough to be admitted.”
Inaya dragged her heels against the carpet and said, “When I look at how hard it is for a good student like Leena to get into college, I think that I have no chances.”
“You’re already improving your chances by taking the O Levels exams again this year,” Papa said. “You spent a whole extra year on this. It shouldn’t be a matter of concern. Put in the effort and you will get the results. Once you have the grades, then you can think about colleges.”
Once Papa had finished the discussion and left the room, Inaya spoke into the silence. “Isn’t he being self-contradictory when he says don’t care about how colleges measure you, but then he says work on your grades first?”
“Grades matter to a certain extent, but don’t wear yourself out chasing them,” Leena said.
“Easy for you to say,” Inaya said.
Leena threw her hands up in surrender. “I don’t want to argue with you right now. I just had a great weight taken off my mind and I need some space.”
“Take all the space you need.” Inaya turned to the bookshelf and began to sort out the new past papers.
Over the next few days the family saw Inaya slip into a waking dream state where she lived and breathed past papers. She divided up the booklets into sections and carried them around so that she had them within sight at all times. She was so distracted at mealtimes that she would miss her mouth when aiming a spoonful of food at it, so occupied she was by the possible exam questions dancing in her gaze. Falling asleep on top of her books was old news. Now she set timers on her phone to check whether she still remembered the past paper she had studied two hours ago. Forgetting a question sent her into a panic, where she would ruffle through the answer keys and note down the points she needed to remember. She snapped when talked to, if she replied at all. Mama made her tea and snacks that went ignored or forgotten. Papa would look repeatedly in the direction of Inaya’s room when she was missing at the tea table as if that would call her out to sit with the family. Jasir tried pranking her by folding her loose sheets into paper planes to see if she would notice. Not only did she notice, she made it very clear by her explosive reaction that nobody was to interfere with her study material in any way whatsoever. The family settled into a pattern around Inaya’s past paper addiction, making room for it when required and ignoring its side effects when necessary. Finally, when Leena saw that no family member was brave enough to stick a hand into the past papers nest to drag Inaya out, she went to Jasir.
“Jasir, I have something I need to talk to you about,” Leena said, stopping Jasir in his tracks on the way out the door to play street cricket in the neighbourhood’s empty lot.
“What’s more important than cricket?” Jasir didn’t take his hand off the doorknob, ready to fling open the door and run off any moment.
“It’s about Inaya.” Leena looked over her shoulder, then leaned in. “You know, about the way she’s addicted to those past papers, day and night.”
“Yeah, that is a bit scary.” Jasir looked thoughtful. “What does that have to do with me, though?”
“I need your help on a very important mission.” Leena chose her words carefully to appeal to Jasir’s adventurous spirit. “I need you to help me free Inaya from the jail of past papers.”
Will Leena save Inaya from past papers land? Will Jasir agree to help? We will find out in next month’s episode of Hackschool Project.