Not Smart Enough

Once upon a time, when the world was not as nice as it is today, there was a young boy with a dream. His dream was to go to the school for smart kids, in the neighbouring suburb, when he finished at primary school. He had worked hard at school all year so that he would be able to go to the school with all of his friends. He had been very careful not to annoy his teacher. He had stayed out of trouble in the yard. He had done all of his homework. He had listened and learned as much as he possibly could throughout the year so that he would be able to pass the test that would decide his fate. If he didn’t pass, he would have to go to the technical college and learn to repair things for rich people. Because he came from a poor family, he desperately wanted to go to the school for smart kids and learn how to be a rich person.

On the day of the test, the boy was playing in the yard when the bell went. Not wanting to be late, he ran as fast as he could to get to the room on time. When he got there he was happy to see that there were only two girls in front of him. “Things are looking good,” he said to himself. The teacher was surprised to see him waiting so eagerly but managed to maintain her usual grim expression and made no comment.

As the test began and the boy worked his way through the first few questions, he felt confident and thought to himself, “This is easy.” Before long he was on to the second page and feeling very pleased with himself. However, as he got toward the last question on the page he began to think that perhaps he should have given himself time to go to the toilet on the way to the classroom.

Turning the page, he tried to put the escalating pressure in his bladder to the back of his mind and concentrate on the questions. The boy struggled on but, boys’ bladders being what they are, it soon became too much for him. He put his hand up and waited for the teacher to come over. “Miss, may I please go to the toilet?” he asked, using his best grammar and manners.

“You should have been smart enough to think of that before you came to class.” his teacher said and walked away.

The boy tried to go back to his test but knew he would not be able to hold on for long. Soon he had his hand up again. This time he was not as polite as he knew he should have been. “Miss, I have to go to the toilet now! If I don’t I’ll wet myself.”

The teacher appraised the situation and said, “If you leave now you will not be able to come back and you will fail the test. You make up your mind young man.”

The boy tried to argue but was told that if he were not quiet immediately he would fail. He tried to answer some more questions but knew it was the test or wetting himself. He considered the embarrassment that would go with not being able to control his bladder. He remembered what everyone said about the last kid who had an accident. He knew what he had to do.

The following year he missed his old friends. He fell in with a ‘bad crowd’ at his new school and soon became the target of his teachers who regularly told him he had no future. After a while he came to believe them and started to skip classes and then whole days, until, eventually, he was missing entire weeks. When the truancy officers finally caught up with him his headmaster told him that school was not the place for him. “You need to get out and get a job son. You’re not cut out for school. You’re just not smart enough!”

The boy sometimes saw his old friends from primary school when their parents came in to the shop and he carried their groceries to their cars. He was always a bit jealous of their nice uniform but he understood that he was not cut out for school. He wasn’t smart enough.