Danny stared at the clock in disbelief. He looked down at his exam paper, disappointment gripping him. His spidery scrawl spelled out his first chosen question on an otherwise blank page, yet an hour had already gone by.

He picked up the sheet of questions again, fighting to make sense of them. They could have been in Hebrew for all he cared. He knew nothing about the theme of mortality in the poetry of Keats, and even less about the use of personal epiphany in Dubliners.

He idly flicked through his copies of the exam texts but they yielded no new wisdom. Trying to fight the rising tide of panic, he gazed around the room. He blanched; his fellow students were all bent over their desks, scribbling furiously as they only paused to check a quote.

Sighing deeply, Danny picked up his pen. He scrawled a number beneath the question, the only thing he could remember from a book. As he stood up to leave the exam, he paused to read his single answer.

42.

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