I struggled to get used to the fountain pen. It used to leak and stain my shirt. On the days of exams, I was given a spare fountain pen in case I ran out of ink. I never had enough to write especially during exams and so that scenario remained a figment of my imagination. Ballpoint pens were not permitted. The teachers were divided in their opinion if our handwriting would deteriorate because of the use of ballpoint pens. Our Math teacher didn’t care what pen I used as long as I got the arithmetic correct. The English teacher would penalize us if we did not use fountain pens. We all knew that those who had better handwriting scored just that little bit more because of their penmanship.