We parked in Halifax Street and Mum and Dad walked around to the rear hall with us. They left Ruthy and I there and we found our classes at the big trestle tables. Everyone was a bit nervous, and Mr Walters, who was in charge of making sure all the exams were done properly, was strutting around giving out orders. I heard Mum say ‘Pompous git’ under her breath, which made Ruthy and I giggle very quietly and feel quite pleased with her, because we thought he was too.

Mum and Dad then went through the middle hall to take Caleb upstairs to the baby’s Sunday school rooms, where Caleb would do his exam. They told us they would wait for us in the car. Mum had made them sandwiches and a big flask of tea, and they said they would be fine until we were ready to come home, and not to worry about them or rush our answers. A lot of parents waited out the front on union exam day. Most of them got out of their cars and had a sort of social event on the footpath, sharing what they’d brought for lunch and talking nine to the dozen. Anne King, who always finished the exam early because she just wasn’t that interested and was allowed to leave the hall, had told me the year before that my mum just stayed in the car by herself, and that some other mums thought she was sad and some thought she was stuck up because she was sort of beautiful and didn’t mind showing it. So I lost a few minutes at the start of the exam worrying about whether Mum would join the party outside of the ecclesial hall, or just be miserable by herself. I looked in front of me and could see Ruthy writing away with her pen sliding fast along the page and her tongue stuck out, so I thought I’d better get on with it too.

After the exam, I was feeling pretty optimistic. I had been able to answer all of the questions at least in part, and when I checked some of what I’d written with Ruthy, she thought I might have done quite well too. We were all together in the car driving back home from the exam, and Mum had us all singing ‘Lead, Kindly Light’ and ‘Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam’. She had a very lovely voice, and so did my dad, and sometimes they sang a duet at the family nights and everyone admired them because they were both so handsome and beautiful and sang like songbirds together. Mum was a contralto. That means she can sing a bit lower than other women. She sings the boring sort of not tuneful lines, but when you sing that way with the people who do sing the main tune of the songs, it makes it all sound rather wonderful.

I should have just sang songs and kept myself quiet, but I was so happy that I might actually do well in the exam, I heard words coming out of my mouth again before I could stop them.