We successfully generated enough test problems before the end of Obon break.
We managed to cover English and Math for first- and second-years, but we couldn’t exactly get our hands on the third-year textbooks, so we were forced to leave them out. Other subjects were heavily dependent on rote memorization to begin with, so we ignored those. We didn’t have enough time to make tests for every subject anyway.
Those we did finish were pretty well done. Considering how things had gone the previous year, we were confident a lot of our problems would be on the actual tests. Of course, that wasn’t very difficult, considering they were using problems right out of the summer textbooks.
Once we’d written up all our problems, the next step was to print them. We laid everything out using a computer and made the booklets as compact as we could. We were aiming for low costs and ease of distribution.
We had two subjects each for both years, but we didn’t need to mimic the format of the actual test booklets. Instead, we shrank down the font and used as little paper as possible. As a result, we didn’t have to spend too much.
With that, we finished preparing our materials.
At last, the big day arrived, and we put our plan into action. Just like last time, the faculty were on the lookout. We had to be cautious. We hammered out a detailed plan of attack, then we made our move.
We needed to distribute our booklets to every first- and second-year classroom, but we didn’t have enough time to go around handing them out to everyone individually. That would greatly increase our risk of being seen, too.
So the first thing we did was to come up with a trick to save distribution time. We decided to wrap rubber bands around bundles of booklets, then toss them into each classroom from the hall. That would make our work simple and fast.
Our next concern was the order of distribution. The first- and second-year buildings were pretty far apart, so we’d have to think through our route. We considered how many people in each class showed up early to study (among other factors) and figured out the path that would be least likely to get us spotted. We’d already determined each teacher’s patrol routes during the receipt incident.
Lastly, we made sure we would have ample chances to hide, in case a teacher spotted us. The plan was to dash into a bathroom or whatever was convenient at the slightest hint of danger. We would do everything we could to avoid being caught in the act.
Since our goal was to help out students who hadn’t attended summer lessons, we wanted to make sure we hit every class equally. That made everything harder and ramped up our stress.
We had a few scares where we almost ran into a faculty member, but, in the end, we managed to escape unscathed.
Working together, Kurumi and I managed to pull off yet another attack. And when we were done, we waltzed right back into the school, like we’d just arrived, and went about our usual routines.
Word about the booklets began to spread, starting with the students who’d shown up early to study. By the end of the day, some people had worked out that the test problems in the booklet matched those in their summer textbooks. I heard at least one mutter, “If they’re making these, why did I even bother with summer lessons?” Students who hadn’t attended sounded genuinely grateful.
And so the test problems made their way through all the students in both years, more or less evenly distributed. We had successfully eliminated the immediate advantages of attending summer lessons.
Now it was just a question of whether the faculty would find out and of how they would respond if they did.
Midterms were in September. We’d just have to wait and see.