Maya stared at her math exam like it was written in alien code. The classroom was so quiet she could hear her own panic.
She glanced at her best friend, Liam, who looked two seconds away from fainting over Question 3.
Maya slid him a small doodle she'd made: a window, a rope, and big letters that read "ESCAPE PLAN."
Liam blinked.
- “You can’t be serious.”
- “Oh, I’m very serious,”
Maya whispered.
- “We climb out the window, run across the roof, and boom—freedom.”
Liam swallowed hard.
- “Maya… this is a math test, not prison.”
- “Exactly. That’s why we escape.”
The clock ticked ominously.
And suddenly, the exam wasn’t just a test—it was a mission.

Liam begins to debate within his mind, should he just accept the F?

...nah

-"Ok fine! But we have to come up with something better than climbing out the window like Spider-Man."

Maya scowls but doesn't refute.

-"Well, this is what we can do! We can throw the chair at the teach-"

-"Let's not."

Liam looks around the room and notices the door, their only way of true freedom. They get out the door, and they get out of the test.

-"Ok here's my plan: we run out the door without the teacher catching us and then sprint outta the school. How 'bout it?"

Maya thinks for a while before a mischievous smile spreads across her face and she nods with approval. The two friends wait till the teacher is deeply invested into her work before leaping to their feet and dashing out of the classroom their hearts racing.

-"We did it!"

Celebrates Maya throwing her hands into the air. Their victory is short lived though as they hear heavy footsteps down the hall they both turn to find...Mr. Crumbly! He stares at the pair his eyes menacing and unforgiving.

-"Do you guys have hall passes?"

His voice fills the hallway like a flood drowning the two in sweat and dread. As he approaches them they both turn to each other each hoping the other would have an answer to this solution.

Mr. Crumbly stood in the middle of the corridor, blocking their only escape route.

Maya and Liam looked at each other hoping for an answer. Then-

Liam reached into his cargo pants pocket and pulled out an AK47.

Maya gasped. "Where the effing Christ did you get that?" she demanded in a hoarse whisper.

"Hammerspace, of course," Liam responded.

Mr. Crumbly dropped to his knees and started to blub. Liam took the old guy out with one burst of gunfire.

"Well, that was easy," snickered Maya, skipping toward the front exit. Liam poked the body with the point of his rifle, just to be sure, and hurried to catch up with her.

Outside in the precinct Maya was picking roses from the memorial flower bed and humming to herself. Liam slipped his AK back into his pants pocket and grabbed her by the waist.

"You gonna be my Valentine?" he asked, grinning broadly.

Maya pretended to be coy, hiding her face behind a big bunch of blooms.

"But first you gotta kill the rest of the teachers for me." She giggled. "then I'll be yours forever, Liam..."

"Liam? Liam?! LIAM!"

Liam woke suddenly. He was still in the exam room. Apparently he had fallen asleep, face on the desk, and now the exam paper was sticking to his cheek. He pulled it off absently.

"Wh- wha- what just happened?" he stammered.

Maya shot him a pained look. Miss Johnson the math teacher was standing over him.

"Not again, Liam." She tutted. "How many times is this? Three? Four? Son, you really need to start sleeping at night."

Well that was OK for her to say but when your dad's a rock star nights can be pretty hectic.

Lorcan 'The Face' McCracken, Irish rock star and environmental activist lay on his sofa sipping a mai tai through a tall spiral straw.

"That son of ours," he grumbled. "Feckin' school's been on the blower again."

Lorcan's current wife, Verna-Lou, who had just entered the room carrying an enormous foofy dog nearly as big as she was, huffed with indignation.

"That son of YOURS," she drawled in her Californian valley girl accent. "Liam is a good boy." She tousled the big ball of fluff's head. "Isn't he, Precious? He's a good boy, just like you. Not like his lazy-ass of a daddy."

She set Precious down on the floor where he fixed the Irishman with a blood-shot eye and growled soto voce.

Lorcan downed his mai tai in one and gesticulated at her with the spiral straw.

"If you spent more time on our CHILD instead of that oversized feather duster he might have had a chance to be something of a credit to his old man instead of mooning around in a daydream all the feckin' time."

Verna-Lou flopped down beside him on the couch and poured herself a cocktail from his jug.

"Look, honey, didn't I say you should have sent him to school in Canada. He should be with his mom Doris. Rock and Roll all day and all night is no way for a boy to grow up."

Lorcan scoffed. "You just wanted him outa your hair, baby." He stretched back. "But I did ask him if he wanted to live with his mammy and he said there was some chick at his school that he didn't want to be parted from. Some cookie piece with a hippy name, Mia or Moya or Maya. Something like that."

They both stayed quietly for a time, watching Precious chewing up some cables left behind from the session Lorcan's band held there the previous night.

Suddenly Verna-Lou sat up. "I'm gonna phone the Professor."

Dr. Doris McCracken was, wait for it, a professor of mathematics at McGill.