The ACT: A Horror Story
We all know that feeling. It’s eight in the freaking morning, you’re sitting in a strange chair that for some reason is attached to a desk, and there are three freshly sharpened number two pencils sitting in front of you. That pancake you had for breakfast sits uncomfortably in your stomach, and you ache for a bathroom break so you can make a run for it. The ACT. (Or SAT, but you know, same difference.) The test drags on, and you fill in bubble after bubble, answering questions about how camels give birth or something else completely irrelevant to any common life situation. Unless you’re an aspiring camel doctor, in which case this test should be the best. After three subject tests, the worst part of all comes.
“You will be writing an essay, you have forty five minutes.” The administrator drones, and I become a little confused. Forty five minutes for an essay? Hadn’t, like, all of my teachers told me that I can’t write a good essay in just one day? And wasn’t it kinda weird that I had to take a bunch of tests right before this? I felt kind of burned out… Cautiously, I rose my hand, the teacher lady looking up.
“Yes..?” She seems confused, as if no one had ever spoken to her before.
“How is it that this test- the one that basically decides whether or not you’re heading to a good college- isn’t separated into different days?” My voice shook, hesitant to display such blatant criticism. The administrator’s eyes widened, and she suddenly pulled out a walkie talkie, urgently shouting into the device.
“A student has become self-aware! Get her!” The door came crashing down, wood splintering as men in suits came in, guns raised.
“WHERE IS SHE?” they shouted, and I let out a small squawk (like a duck) when the old lady pointed at me with her chewed on fingernails. They did a few ninja rolls, probably to show off, because, honestly, it was pretty cool, and made a few other awesome poses as I sat there, dumbfounded. “GET HER!” The men in suits squeezed between the tiny aisles, careful to not touch the answer document of any student. I was hauled up in the air, and I kicked and screamed.
“No please! At least let me take my super chewy chocolate deliciousness granola bar®!” The agents looked at each other for a moment, their eyes invisible behind their radical sunglasses. Suddenly, one of them grabbed the super chewy chocolate deliciousness granola bar® from my bag, opened it, and chomped down on it. My head started spinning as I saw the last bits of my super chewy chocolate deliciousness granola bar® disappear into his mouth, and that was when I really lost it. “You MONSTER! How could you?” Tears streaked my face, and everything was blurry after my traumatizing loss.
Time no longer had meaning, and my ears rang as I was taken down the hallway and out of the miserable high school. I was thrown carelessly into a trunk, and everything went dark.
I woke up in a cold, gray room with no windows. I was tied against a chair- one not attached to a desk, thank god- and I struggled against the rope, the knots rubbing against the bare skin of my arms. I began to panic, my throat constricting as I searched for an escape. There weren’t even mirrors in this room- what kind of an interrogation was this?
Suddenly, men in suits came in. They might have been the same people who had taken me away, but there was no way to tell. Wait? Was that a bit of chocolate on that one guy’s mouth? My super chewy chocolate deliciousness granola bar®.
A new fire ignited in me at the remembrance of my lost love, and I scowled, determined to get out of this place. The men sat in front of me, their faces blank. “Well aren’t you gonna say something?” I spat, crossing my arms. They smiled really weirdly, and before I could make another sassy comment to show how awesome I was, they peeled off their faces, revealing green scales below their face. Oh my gosh, they were lizard men! Those dank memes were right! Lizard men did exist! I freaked out, screaming a little bit as they continued to peel off their suits to reveal more scales. It got boring after five minutes of them struggling to wriggle out of their suits, so I stopped screaming.
“Well, now you know.” They hissed in unison after a while, slightly sweaty as they had been having trouble getting out of their suits.
“Know what?”
“Who the real creators of the ACT and SAT are!” They smiled brightly, but I looked at them in confusion.
“Lizard men?” I asked. They looked at each other, laughing as they smacked their faces.
“Oh we forgot!” And then they peeled off their disguise- another five minutes of my time gone- revealing, gasp! Hilary Clintmom and Kylie Jenner! It suddenly all made sense… Hilary Clintmom was 68 years old, 68 backwards was 86. Add 86 years to when the SAT was created (1926) and you get 2012. 2012 minus the zero and one is… 22! One of Kylie’s lipsticks was called 22! And the ACT… ACT rearranged spelled TAC. Tic tac. Tic tac can be yellow, therefore resembling minions. Minions was an awful movie, and both Hillary and Kylie were awful! It suddenly all made sense!
“But why? Why would you want to make these standardized tests?”
They opened their mouths when some lady in a suit kicked the door down, for the sake of the story length, a huge weapon thingy in her arm. The evil pair screamed at the sight of her, and she pulled off her mask really dramatically, dark hair spilling over her shoulders.
“Carly Rae Jepsen?” I cried out, clapping my arms excitedly, the ropes slipping off my arms. Wow, she was so powerful that she untied my ropes with a single glance.
She nodded, smiling that classic Jepsen smile. “Hey! I just met you, and this is crazy, but I’m here to save you,” she dropkicked Hillary and Kylie, maintaining eye contact with me. “So call me maybe!” Well that was weird. She totally messed up the lyrics of her own song, haha! Classic Jepsen!
“We need to leave!” Carly shouted, as if I needed to be told that, and hand in hand, we ran out.
