High School Years and the Memory of the Geography Exam

We were in the ninth grade. At that time, geography class was a complete black box to us; the lessons were never particularly engaging. As usual, I was walking with İrem, my closest friend since fifth grade, down the school corridors. One day, a senior from the eleventh grade—known by the nickname "Hedgehog" because of his hair—approached us. He was on good terms with our geography teacher and told us the teacher had accidentally left the exam papers in his classroom. "Pay five liras each, take a photo of the questions," he said. Five liras was a lot of money back then... İrem didn’t have any, but I set aside ten liras—for myself and for her. Our desire to pass the exam overrode our better judgment.

^{The moments we thought no one could see... It turned out a pair of eyes had recorded everything."(Generated by Artificial Intelligence.)}

Hedgehog had convinced us; he would take the photos and return the papers to the teacher’s bag. We knew he had no camera—we had secretly checked the locations near the principal’s office!—so we took the photos in a secluded corner. But the ironic part was this: we were such conscientious children, so averse to cheating, that even while looking at the photos we had taken in that moment of carelessness, we felt uneasy. Moreover, our geography knowledge was so limited that despite having the questions right in front of us, we could not even begin to study or answer them. We entered the exam with the irony of knowing the questions but not the answers. Result? I scored 50 on that exam—seeing the questions had not been enough to save us.

We thought no one had noticed our actions, but it turned out Hedgehog had made the same offer to nearly all ninth-grade students. The teachers realized something was wrong because everyone had scored 100—except us, the ones who scored 40 or 50. One day during class, a “survey” was distributed: questions like “Geography exam questions were stolen—who do you suspect?” We were certain Elif, a girl who disliked us, had seen us. Shortly after completing the survey, the deputy principal walked into the classroom right in the middle of the exam. We froze. His voice echoed: “Eda Tekin and İrem Yıldırım, come to my office after the exam!”

We realized our names were on the list of suspects. Our innocence lay hidden in our failure. While others took the questions and returned with perfect scores, we wrestled with our conscience and, despite knowing the questions, ended up with the lowest grades because we could not answer them. The fear we felt walking through that office door would remain one of the most unforgettable, most “lesson-like” moments of our high school years.

^{The moment everything fell apart, when only the sound of heartbeats could be heard. (Generated by Artificial Intelligence.)}

This incident taught us one thing: shortcuts do not always lead to the goal; sometimes they only bring greater fear. Especially when you are so far removed from the subject that you cannot even answer the questions, stealing them burdens only your conscience. İrem and I still laugh about it, recounting how we paid ten liras and ended up with a 50.