Jac Morris was a rather ordinary sixteen year old schoolboy to the naked eye, although he was five foot eight inches in height, had a head full of ginger curls, which he was often teased about, and was in possession of a daft grin. Dressed in his school uniform he looked like any other student with a dark green blazer, black trousers, a white shirt and a green and blue striped tie. He was frequently called 'an upside down carrot'. Jac was in the middle of sitting his GCSE exams and whilst he was a diligent and well behaved student his report cards often read 'Jac is bright but lacks direction'. A lack of focus and dedication plagued Jac in all walks of life, not just in his studies; from an early age he flitted from one hobby to the next, much to the annoyance of his mother; he started off playing for the school basketball team but then got bored with that and joined the school choir and when he realised he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket he took up football. Scoring the winning goal for the school's football team was probably one of the proudest moments in Jac's life but soon after he dropped out, he didn't know why, he just didn't want to do it anymore. His mother was running out of patience with him, why wouldn't he just commit to something? Outside of school he didn't have many hobbies; completing his homework and binge watching his favourite TV series was the highlight of Jac's weekend, never setting foot outside the front door, his father often joked Jac was 'allergic to fresh air'.
Jac was the eldest of three siblings: Dylan who was twelve and attended the same school as Jac and Derwen who was eight and was still at primary school. The three boys lived with their parents Llewelyn and Ffion in a small village in South Wales. The five of them were crammed into a one hundred and fifty year old stone built cottage with the original features, no garden to speak of and no room to swing a cat. Jac shared a bedroom with his youngest brother Derwen and this situation caused many rows within the household as Jac saw it to be unfair that Dylan had a room to himself and he didn't even though he was the oldest. Ffion's reply was always that Dylan had autism and needed his own space. Jac did understand but having an eight year age gap with his younger brother meant they had nothing in common, and Jac had no privacy or space to study in peace and this led to frustration and resentment. Llewelyn worked full time as a GP and rarely spent any time at home, always having early appointments and house visits in the evenings. When Ffion wasn't doing school runs, cleaning, washing, ironing or cooking she worked a few hours each week at the local shop. She loved being a mother but she needed time out of the house to talk to adults, to be Ffion again and not just 'mum'. The Morris family were strict Christians and attended church every Sunday. Being from a very religious background Llewelyn and Ffion were very strict parents with stratospherically high standards that the boys never felt they could meet. Dylan didn't mind going to church but got restless half way through each service and either his mum or dad would have to take him outside and Derwen hated going to church, he didn't believe in God at all. Jac liked going, he felt like he had someone to talk to, someone who would never answer him back or laugh at him or make him feel stupid but he knew if anyone at school found out he was a practicing Christian he would be bullied for the rest of his life, so praying was something he only did on a Sunday.
Living in such a small village where everyone was of a certain age made Jac feel very isolated and although he had his parents and his brothers he never felt as though he belonged anywhere. The village was beautiful with rolling countryside views in the distance and rows of small adjoined cottages that were identical to look at with stable doors and little Georgian bar windows either side of the front door. The village comprised of a shop, a tea room, a butcher, a baker, a church and at the heart of the community was the pub. Every important event drew in the whole village, from the old to the young; wedding receptions, funeral wakes, christenings, engagements, birthdays and every football match Cardiff played in, the pub would be packed out. It was a place you needed to be of a pension drawing age or at the very least you needed a car, as shops, schools and colleges and anything else a teenage boy would want was a bus ride away with buses running once every two hours. This further isolated Jac. He loved his parents but they were his parents and not his friends, he had nothing in common with them and they were always so busy with work and housework they never had much time for their sons other than to chase them to do their homework or tell them off for having messy bedrooms.
May 15th, two days before Jac's last exam and he was studying at home or at least he was trying to. He knew that he didn't know enough about quadratic equations or algebra and did question when he would ever need to know these things in later life. However, Jac was aware that to get anywhere in the future he needed to pass this exam with at least a C grade. That wasn't looking likely. He picked up a past paper and stared blankly at the first question;
'Greg is n years old. Sian is three years younger than Greg. Nessa is half Sian's age. Write an expression for each person's age'
Suddenly three years of Mr Cormack's dynamic maths lessons had been forgotten and Jac felt as though he had never seen an equation like this before. Fear overwhelmed him and subsequently his concentration was lost. Jac put away the maths paper deciding that burying his head in the sand was the best thing to do today. The sound of Ffion approaching her son's bedroom was muffled by the sound of the music Jac was listening to, so as to distract himself from the worry of his looming examination. If Jac had been forewarned he would have jumped back on the books to save the argument that was about to follow;
"Jac Morris are you mitching off again?" she began shouting, not giving her son the chance to explain himself. "How do you expect to pass any of your exams or go to college, never mind university or have a career or any sort of life if you don't put the work in?!"
"Mum…" Jac tried, and failed
"You kids these days don't know you're born, when I was at school…"
Jac whispered under his breath "Here we go"
"How dare you speak to me like that good boy, I'll have you know we didn't have days off to prepare for exams, we didn't get practice questions and mock exams, you just turned up on the day and if you failed you failed and that was it for the rest of your life"
"But mum it's so hard, I just don't understand it" he tried again
"Well you should have listened harder in lessons then shouldn't you?"
"I did listen, I just don't get it"
"Then why didn't you ask for help? These bloody teachers are so soft these days, in my day teachers were people to be afraid of. You should have spoken up my boy"
"I wanted to but everyone laughed at me, they called me names, I was too scared to mum"
"We need to toughen you up, you can't go through life with that attitude, it won't get you anywhere"
"Please mum, I'm trying"
"Oh you are very trying Jac Morris"
"You never listen to me!" Jac shouted at his mother
"I don't know what is wrong with you, your teachers always say you're such a pleasure to have in school, happy, friendly, polite, hardworking, but at home it's a different story! Is it us? Do you just not like living with us? Would you prefer to live with your mates, or your teachers? You seem to be happier when you're around them"
"No mum, I love living here, it's just…"
Ffion cut her son off "Oh so it's me then, I've failed haven't I? I've failed as a mother"
"No of course not mum" Jac desperately tried to reassure her "I'm struggling mum, and I don't want them to see it because they wouldn't get it, so I pretend to be happy and jolly around them, I do my work so they don't worry about me falling behind, so I don't get picked on for being the dumb one but I'm just not happy mum, I don't know why"
It had taken Jac many years and much courage to finally admit to his mother that he was struggling and he thought she would understand, be supportive even, but he didn't expect this;
"So it's ok for you to be a weight around my neck, as long as your school mates aren't worried about you?"
"No, that's not what I meant"
"What do you mean? Spit it out boy"
"You're my mum, you're the only one that I want to help me, I was just so scared of disappointing you, of letting you down"
"Well you have disappointed me, you have let me down. I mean what on earth have you got to be unhappy about good boy? All you have to worry about is getting up in the morning, turning up at school on time and doing your homework. In my day your uncle and aunt and I had jobs at your age, we helped our parents with chores around the house, we were up at the crack of dawn every day; we didn't know what I lie in was! And you have the audacity to tell me you're struggling! I despair of you, I really do"
"I'm sorry mum, I'm really sorry, I think I'm depressed and I really need your help"
"Pull yourself together for God's sake, it's not a good look in a boy of your age, you're almost a man. Now get to it, this exam won't pass itself" And with that Ffion left the room, slamming the door behind her.
Tears welled in Jac's eyes as he tried the fight the urge to crumble at his desk and although his breathing became erratic, he clenched his fists, took a deep breath and told himself falling apart was not an option, it would be weakness in his mother's eyes and the perfect excuse for her to tear into him again, instead he would go back to his revision and pass this exam. Jac turned over the answer sheet and read the answer to be
From the question, Greg is n years old.
Sian is three years younger than Greg, so Sian is n-3 years old.
n-3
2
Vanessa is half Sian's age, so take Sian's age and divide by 2. This gives Vanessa's age as
n-3 over 2
It still made no sense to Jac, however he ploughed on through the questions, answering the ones he could and looking up the ones he couldn't. This was last chance saloon for Jac as far as his mother was concerned. The countdown was now on.