It was the middle of exam time, and there was a nervous tension all
over the University. You could feel it just walking up University Avenue,
students brisk and urgent on their way to the library or one of the many exam
halls. I was similarly agitated,
but it was a bright clear day in late early summer and my head was a mixture of
pharmacology and the call of the open countryside just half an hour away. I
looked to my left before stepping off the pavement to cross the street, and it
was then I saw it, lying in the gutter. A squirrel. It was perfectly intact,
not a spot of blood or any sign of trauma, but it was dead as a doornail and
rigid with rigor mortis in a Shakespearean pose. Without pausing to think, I
scooped it up and carried on to the exam hall. We filed in immediately,
dropping our bags and coats against the wall, clutching our lucky pens, a
packet of polos and whatever superstitious trinkets we had brought. I placed
the dead squirrel on the desk for retrieval afterwards.
The exam was rigorous and demanding, and within
a couple of minutes I was fully absorbed in a panicky world of my own. I hadn’t prepared well, and I was
struggling to triumph over the negative marking system: one point for a correct
answer and one point deducted for a wrong one or a pass, meaning you need to
get at least 75% right. I knew about half. A further quarter I could whittle
down to two possible answers. The rest were a complete guess.
When the invigilators announced our time
was up, I couldn’t get out of there quickly enough and down to the union for a
sorrowful pint before going home to prep for more exams the next day. I grabbed my bag and rocketed out the
door.
It was several hours before I realised what
I had done. I had taken a dead squirrel into a vet exam, and left it there, on
a desk.
Nobody ever mentioned it.
