“WHAT WERE YOU GUYS THINKING?!” Clara cried out loud, aggressively scrubbing the mud off her previously perfect uniform.
“Exactly! I couldn’t believe I thought of that either,” Lavina said innocently, trying to wipe the mud off her face, only to make it worse. “I’m such a genius.”
Clara's expression darkened, in contrast to Greta’s, who, as usual, seemed detached from the on-going world around her.
“ARE YOU CRAZY?!” Clara screamed, frazzling her neatly pulled back hair.
“Probably” Bea smirked.
“We could get suspended for that stunt, or worse, expelled!” Clara tried to reason.
“Really?” Bea scoffed, wiping her face, “be rational, you really think they’d expel their only four students on the very first day of their brand new school wing?”
Clara splashes water on her face and stares at her reflection in the mirror wondering how it all came to this. “Still, it’s only our first day, and we’ve already defaced the principal! How’s that for a first impression?!”
“Utterly memorable, absolutely hilarious, completely exhilarating, need i go on?” said Lavina as a matter of factly as the four of them strode towards their would-be classroom.
“Look, guys, we don't even know how they’re going to react to this” Greta piped up, taking the others by surprise.
They enter the bleak, matchbox classroom that was surrounded by clear glass walls anyone (Mr. Veles) could spy on the students through. It was situated far away from Autumn Ridge Academy’s cardinal SLC wing- like a testing facility shielded from normal life (literally).
Next to the room resided the school’s supposedly most important personalities- the familiar principal, Mr. Veles; his boss, the curriculum director; and his boss’s boss, the correspondent.
The four of the test subjects opened the glass door to find an angry teacher, fuming in silence.
“What ma, is this how you behave on your first day?! You four are supposed to be the pillars of this school!” shrieked their HRE.
“But ma’aaaaaaaam it wasn't even our fault.” Bea lamented.
“You see, the pots sir gave were very slippery and fragile, ma’am” reasoned Lav, raising her eyebrows exaggeratedly.
The teacher rubbed her head, thoroughly exasperated. “See, children, don’t shift the blame onto sir, can’t you see how lucky you are? Sir is giving this chance to you, you won’t get this again. Please. Don’t ruin this once in a lifetime opportunity.” she took a deep breath “Now sit quietly, please. Let’s start with number lines. Open your notebooks and copy what I write on the board.”
“Now isn’t this very international, so unlike anything we’d do in SLC” mumbled Bea.
“Psst” whispered Lav after a few minutes of boredom, her call yielded no attention.
“PSSST”, louder this time.
“HEY!” Not really a whisper.
“WHAT?” grunted Bea, finally being the hapless one to answer her calls.
“Regrettably, as it turns out, I may have forgotten my stationary at home.” Lavina heaved a theatrical sigh as she stared at everyone with wide, pleading eyes. “Care to be a savior and help this poor unfortunate soul?”
“No, not particularly, you’ve been rescued by this savior one too many times,” said Bea flatly, not looking up from her notebook. Clara paid no heed to the pauper, and continued rushedly duplicating every stroke that befell the board impeccably.
“You really are such wonderful friends” said Lavina, her voice dripping with mock betrayal, “I thought you were–”
Greta shoved a pen at Lavina, a gesture not of generosity but one of frustration, begging her to shut up. Lavina smiled sweetly, “Thank you. You’re the absolute best,” before turning to Clara and Bea, “unlike some people, who really are just very self–”
“What ma Lavina, why can’t you just sit quietly and do your work?” Their maths teacher interrupted her monologue. “The board exam is in 2 years, how will you get an A*? Go sit in the corner. Don’t disturb the class. Please.” She went back to scrawling on the board, having banished Lavina to the back of the class.
Slowly, and not as discreetly as she thought, Lav made her way back to human contact. She shuffled, inches at a time, until she reached close to Greta and Bea.
After a few more minutes of boredom she started scribbling noisily on paper, she wrote “Hey” and pushed it near the two.
Greta offers her paper a gracious glance, then completely ignores her.
“This class is boring, let’s
“This class is boooooring, let’s play! You too Greta, or are you just scared of looooosing?”
Lav miserably lost every single game.
“That was a fluke. Let’s have a real, actual game- a tic-tac-toe tournament. We’ll play each person, and the winner should be called the most distinguished” she paused, “the most eminent,” she took a deep breath and was about to deliver her ‘dramatic flair’, “the undisputed conqueror of tic tac toe!!!!”
Unfortunately, Lav failed to become the most distinguished, the most eminent, the undisputed conqueror of tic tac toe. In fact, she did not even qualify for the finale. She lost every single game. Her victorious competitors snickered quietly as Clara glanced back every so often annoyedly.
“HEYYYYY! that's not fairrrrrrrr” she whined.
“We won fair and square, now just watch the final round; can't help that you suck,” sneered Greta, of all people- that made the sting worse.
“You probably cheated!” Lavina accused dramatically, a finger pointed at them and a palm over her supposedly broken heart. “And to think I called you the “absolute best”. You are no longer worthy of my divine attention, you corrupt villainous fraud of tic-tac-toe.”’
Clara looks back, incredibly displeased, as though someone had disturbed her eons of peaceful slumber. She tries to whisper, in a tone as careful as possible. “Guys, stop that! Ma’am’s going to hear!”
Upon her classmates' dissent, she ventures to advise them some more, (in a harsher tone- she told herself, they’d get them in trouble again!) all while Lav silently and sneakily dropped a speck of ink on her neat, well-organized notes.
Clara could not bear such blasphemy, such ruin, such catastrophe- this disgusting mark that had caused her perfectly structured notes to turn into disorderly chaos.
Her eyes widen, aghast with fury and she rips the page clean off, making a very noticeable noise.
This act of rebellion had broken the complete concentration of their teacher who, hitherto engrossed in number lines and lost in their mysteries, was incredibly displeased, to say the least. She turns around for once, and bellows, “WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?”
The bell rang the end of her tempestuousness and the start of recess.
“Give me the remote, Lav, now!” Clara shouted with as much authority as she could muster. “Please” her voice dropped down to nothing short of a beg.
“There’s no way we’re keeping the AC at 16 degrees again” shouted Lavina with matching enthusiasm.
“Just give her the remote,” Greta says, completely fed up with the girl’s feud.
“How on earth can someone survive without the AC?” Clara tried to reason.
“Didn’t you ever study? Our body functions well only at 37 degrees, not 16. Are you trying to murder us?” Lavina said with real resignation in her eyes.
“Girl, we’re endotherms, what happened to homeostasis?” said Bea, equally fed up.
“Not helping, Bea. And we haven’t even started that chapter yet.” She said extremely annoyed.
“What’s going on here?” A looming figure enters the class, immediately silencing it. ”You’re international students, you're not supposed to behave like this–” , said Mr.Veles; he then went on to talk about how CFCs are bad for the environment and how every modern house has AC’s. And how we should listen to our grandparents because they hold traditional values to preserve the environment, unlike this new generation.
Boring. Monotonous. Uneventful. Tiresome. Mind-numbing. Soul-crushing. These were only a few of the words running through the girls’ heads as they sat through Mr.Veles’ lecture, eyes transfixed on the white of the board, the white of their blank notes, the white reflection off his head. Surprisingly, Mr.Veles, who otherwise paid no heed to the state of those around him, notices.
“Now, back to the lesson” Veles decided after three quarters of the class had passed. “Today we’re going to carry a serious observation test”
“Oh, what now?” nagged Bea.
“Now, now students,” Mr Veles said, clapping his hands, “I want you to stand on one leg and cross your arms across your chest”
And so the lecture had transformed into a yoga class, with some like Lav and Greta emerging victories with perfect stances, and others like Clara and Bea victoriously imitating a plastic bag drifting through the wind (wanting to start again 🎶).
“Children these days, they have no sense of balance, when i was young, i used to — “
“Climb up Everest upside down,” Lav smiled disparagingly.
“In just 10 minutes five times a day?” Bea sneered quietly.
“Make that 2 minutes and 50 times a day” Lav snickered.
“What was that, students?” Asked Mr. Veles, straining an ear. “Oh i’ve never climbed Everest before, for when i had finally got the permission to do so, it was withdrawn for no apparent reason.”
“Why am I not surprised?” said Bea with a huff.
“So students, tell me, what do you feel?”
“I feel like I'm going to fall over” remarked Greta offhandedly.
“No students, what I meant was–”
“My arms are hurting sir, I feel like the weight of the world is crashing over me” Clara whined.
“Exactly Clara, now what do you feel that’s causing that weight?”
“I feel like i’m going to unlock some profound wisdom” Lavina rolled her eyes sarcastically, “why are we posing like a flamingo in this class, again?”
“Perhaps he’s teaching us the behavioral adaptation of the flamingo, that allows it to stand on one leg for hours, to reduce muscle fatigue and conserve heat?” said Bea
Lavina looked at Bea, her eyebrows furrowed and her head tilted, “What?”
Bea shrugged, “it’s in the next chapter.”
“Girls girls, you’ve got it all wrong, what you’re feeling is gravity, it’s the—”
Fortunately for the girls, the bell rang, stopping Mr.Veles from going on an hour-long rant.
“Saved by the bell” sighed Lavina in relief, “what class is it now?”
“It’s lunch time” said Greta candidly.
“I’m surprised sir didn’t mention the incident this morning” said Clara, rather nervously.
“Doesn’t he apparently have the memory of an elephant?” Bea chuckled.
They had powered through half of their tiresome first day, an act like this warranted celebration, and a 30 minute recovery. Finally, it was their lunch break.
The previous excitement they felt for this period of freedom had transformed into awkwardness when it finally arrived, though.
For 15 minutes, they sat in silence, eyes glued to their own lunches, save for the occasional soft munching noises and short yes/no questions amongst duos- Bea and Lav, and Greta and Clara. They had nothing to say, and saying anything now, after so long would seem strange, wouldn’t it?
Fortunately, Clara didn’t think so. Finally launching a proper conversation amongst the four, she proposed a game.
“How about we each say our favourite things? That way, we’ll get to know each other better, it’ll be fun!”
“I’ll start!” she said, after observing the room’s lack of interest.
“My favourite artist is Taila Swaithe! And I love reading self-help books. What about you, Greta?”
“Uhhhh… same. I don’t read that much.” Greta turned back to her food
“Taila Swaithe’s really popular, huh?” Bea remarked, looking at her Chaplyn Rowe-inspired nails.
“Yeah, really popular…. Who is she again? An artist? Abstract or realism?” Lavina asked, genuinely confused.
Clara’s face slowly turned as red as a beetroot. You could almost see the steam coming off her ears. “A. MUSICAL. ARTIST. TAILA SWAITHE IS A MUSICIAN.”
“Musical artist? Does she paint and play the violin at the same time? That’s impressive, I should try sometime.”
“I’m sure painting Picasso while playing Vivaldi is 100% what she meant,” Bea smirked.
Clara looked like she was going to rip Lav’s head off and throw it into a broth, when a rather inopportune turn of events happened to disrupt her master plan.
Their rather enigmatic principal decided that it was the best time to make a fuss to the students about the suit he had spoiled, after slipping in a muddy puddle like a certain cartoon pig, only he didn't wear his boots, instead donning expensive leather shoes.
“Don’t think I forgot about what happened this morning.” He thundered. “Because of your incapability and clumsiness, my brand new, lavish suit from Reyman’s was soiled and completely ruined! Do you not understand the implications of destroying such an expensive, high quality garment?! You wretched, little–”
“Do you mind if I interrupt?” The correspondent peeked in, and knocked on the door.
“Mr. Regum! Of course not! By all means, sir, please do.”
“I heard of the stunt these smart children pulled today. It was absolutely–”
“Unacceptable?’
I was going to say absolutely AMAZING. Wow, don’t we have such bright little minds as the future of the ARA, making sure we all have a good laugh?”
Mr. Veles’ face dropped. His idol had turned against him?!
“Absolutely sir, I mean, dropping a mud pot in the library? Totally amazing!”
“And the way you looked, all suited and muddy, it was utterly hilarious!” The correspondent burst into laughter.
“I know right? I was just appreciating these marvelous students,” Mr. Veles muttered through gritted teeth.
The four marvellous students shared a satisfied look, one of triumph and victory.
Wait, we aren’t getting expelled?! Yesss!
Huh, well wouldn’t you know.
🎶The chorus of Smile by Lily Allen 🎶
I’m sooooooooooooo happy I dropped that pot.
“Well anyhoo, the reason I came here was to take a selfie with our dear students, today’s their first day, and well, they already seem like quite the characters!”
“Of course, sir, anything you want, i’ll just straighten my collar, adjust my tie and–”
“Would you mind clicking it?” The correspondent asked, though it wasn’t really a question.
The students snickered in glee.
“......Of course, sir.” Mr Veles answered, humbly taking his 2000 mega ultra giga plus version iphone. Clearly there was some misunderstanding, why would his idol even consider getting a photo with these wretches instead of him. Oh the horror.
“Say cheese!” Regum smiles broadly, with the students making rabbit ears on his head, and victory signs and hearts next to him.
“Cheese!!!” Click.