Initiation of the Hexed

Four lone students enter the restroom, dripping in mud. There were mixed emotions- two of them were giggling, one was reconsidering her life choices, and the fourth yelled at them frustratedly.

“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 talk write” she scribbles again, and nudges it further, finally capturing their attention. They watched her draw a grid, before she exclaimed.

“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.

Admission to the damned

The library door swings open a bit too aggressively, causing a few heads to turn, some with mild annoyance. Lavina strides into the room, her cropped black hair freshly streaked purple-green bobbing up and down as she dramatically sets a half empty bag on the desk occupied by someone familiar.

Her dramatic entrance yielded an equally dramatic gasp from the wide-eyed desk-occupant, accompanied by the thunderous downward clattering of a million pens resonating off the blank, bleached walls. As though suddenly aware, her exaggerated posture shrinks as she mutters an apology to the fuming librarian staring daggers at them both.

"You have no idea what joy it is to see you here!" Beatrice bounced up and down, her red curls shaking in excitement. “How’re you- how did you- weren’t you?!” She exclaimed, completely baffled; her half-formed phrases a reflection of her muddled thoughts.

"I'm as surprised as you are. You'd think after wasting a month of holiday stuck slogging through Hakimdar Sir’s lectures for a head-start, I’d spend the rest of the year with him too. But.” She takes her time building up the suspense, as she often did because of her supposed ‘dramatic flair’.

“Disaster struck. It was only on the very last day of school, the very last moment, that poor old me realised Nurrekh ma’am had assigned this mammoth of a maths task we had to submit first thing in the morning. Naturally, I followed the only possible course of action, and came here. Methinks this school would do much better without such merciless deadlines." Lavina pants, almost out of breath, but manages to finish her story with a melodramatic “woe is me”.

“Methinks you’d plan much better without all the late night binge-athons,” Bea said matter-of-factly, head held high patronizingly. Though she couldn’t be one to talk of productivity, with nail polish smeared rushedly all across her fingers, each one a different colour, from the scene earlier that morning when she realized she had had one too many Chaplyn Rowe karaoke sessions before the bus left.

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, my dear friend,” Lavina manages, rolling her bright amber eyes, "Where are we supposed to go, again?"

 

The two girls take their seats around a small, awkward white roundtable occupied by two strangers.

“Hi, I’m Clara,” said one of them, sitting up straight. Her long, wavy blonde hair was noticeably pulled back into a perfect high ponytail. Her dress was meticulously neat, no wrinkle in sight. She spoke in a clear-cut tone, with an air of professionalism. Her entire person screamed ‘model student’.

A few awkward moments passed by before she stated, “this is my friend Greta.”

Greta was a curly brunette, and she smiled warmly before shifting her gaze away indistinctly, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. The silence continued, only interrupted by Lavina’s fidgeting and Bea shifting in her seat, clearly waiting for someone to say something.

Lavina cleared her throat. “So, uh… are you gonna miss your old classmates or ---"

"No.” Greta blurted out the word, cutting through the air like a knife.

Bea side-eyed Lavina, getting a bewildered "what did i do?" look back before Clara launched into a passionate rant.

"Oh, absolutely not. They were utterly insufferable, whispering and giggling at who-knows-what. All. The. Time. And don't even get me started on--" She paused, suddenly aware of the lengthiness of her monologue. “Uh. Anyway, I’m… really glad to be done with all that.” She looked down and awkwardly sipped from her water bottle.

The ticking of the clock suddenly became incredibly deafening.

Bea blinked. "Okay… uhm, when do you think we’re meeting the teachers?"

As if on cue, a lady heaving a mountain of handbooks trudged towards the girls, miraculously uncrushed by their weight.

“Hello students, I am Miss Marabad, and I will be your HRE” said the teacher. The four students stared back, blankly.

“HRE?” Clara questioned

“It stands for Home Room Educator. Apparently, that’s what you call a class teacher internationally.” The teacher sighed. “Here are your handbooks, keep them safe. Soon, we’ll be taking a class photograph, after which you’ll be addressed by the principal”

“Are there any other students, miss?” Bea asked.

“No, fortunately or not, you four will be the faces of this new wing of our school. The four ‘pillars’, as your principal would put it. Now, we expect you to–”

She would have gone on and on to the dismay of the four ‘pillars’; but, at this moment, a rather hefty man, with superfluous energy and a military gait decided to interrupt. God? Were you listening? Had you sent their way an angel, a savior, to rescue them from the deep pit of boredom they were pushed into?

“Good morning, sir.” The girls scrambled to their feet and chorused.

“What kind of greeting is this?! Did you not learn how to properly greet a superior at your old school? Why do you all look so pale and tired?! Have you even had your breakfasts?” The man scowled, adorning a revoltingly disgusted expression on his face, which the girls would later find is one he adorns too often.

Bea and Lavina exchanged a glance as they looked upon the apparent principal. Perhaps god is dead.

“ ‘Good morning’ ” he repeated, tasting the words for blasphemy. “Who says good morning in this age?! You students, as the faces of the international curriculum, should learn to be innovative!” He paused, scanning all the students intently, ensuring they were listening to his sermon, before resuming, “happy morning students, you may sit down”

Bea was biting her tongue, forcing herself not to giggle. For some reason, seeing Lavina choke on air and Clara almost slamming her face on the desk did nothing to help her. Only Greta managed to have a completely straight face, indifferent to the principal’s pantomime. She looked rather bored with the proceedings, so to speak.

“As you students are well aware, Autumn Ridge Academy is a well established school that wanted to expand its reach. And so, the ISEB wing was born—the first international school in the entire district."

He paused, as if expecting applause. None came.

“My name is Mr Veles and I will be your most enigmatic principal. The teachers we’ve hired are carefully selected from the SLC faculty and have spent an entire month learning the international ways.”

"An entire month? Oh, how reassuring. It’s not like they’ve spent their entire lives teaching for SLC. Of course, thirty days is more than enough to unlearn decades of practice using ‘traditional ways.’ " muttered Lavina.

“Yep, we’re screwed.” Bea whispered back

“What was that? Didn’t you learn how to pay respect to your elders? This is the first step in pioneering a new method of education. As trailblazers, forgetting such revered and protected ideals is sacrilegious, it’s obscene!” He stared fiercely at each of them, attempting to drive the message home.

“Moving forward,” his initial passion completely diluted, “you might have heard about the supposed extreme subject flexibility you have.” The principal spoke proudly.

“Yes sir,” Clara spoke up enthusiastically, “I wanted to take up Business Studies and Food and Nutrition for my course.”

“And I was hoping to drop maths and physics, sir” Greta joined in.

Mr. Veles puffed up his chest, broadened his shoulders, and raised his perfectly shiny bald head- a ritual before he blasted.

“How can you even think of dropping your CORE subjects, students! Have you no integrity? No shame?!” He calmed down slightly, regaining his professional demeanor.

“I have taken the liberty of registering all of you for all the three sciences, maths, english and a second language. And if you must know all of you are studying the extended version so that you might achieve 6 A*s. As pillars of the school, you must be nothing but the best.”

“But sir, I thought we had subject flexibility,” Lavina stepped in.

Bea whispers, “by ‘study core subjects’ methinks he’s trying to imply ‘we’re too cheap to afford teachers for four girls’.”

“You know what, my friend? Your deduction isn’t completely unperceptive” Lavina snarks, as quietly as she could.

“How can you even suggest such a thing?” shrieked the principal “I was under the impression that you would not behave like animals and take your core subjects.”

“And blindly follow your orders without question,” Lavina said under her breath, “why didn’t we think of that?”

“Now we have all that sorted out, I have a priceless gift for each of you.” Mr Veles continued, completely ignorant of the four baffled faces staring at him. I’ve gotten each of you a papaya tree, and I expect you to take care of them well.”

Four of the school’s gardeners, dressed in unusual uniforms complimentary to the principal’s donned colours, handed them the small plants in mud pots.

“No other school, none I say, would have a principal so generous. But alas, here I am, no need to thank me.” He continued, almost shedding a humble teardrop from his eye.

“I think you’ve misplaced the trees sir, this doesn’t look like a papaya tree” said Lavina, eyeing the plant suspiciously.

“More like a Guava tree,” Clara agreed, “my mother grows some of them. Papaya trees have large, deeply lobed leaves that spread out like an open hand, while Guava leaves are smaller, oval-shaped, and have a tough, leathery texture with deep veins and–”

“I know leaf anatomy, Clara. In fact, I have a degree in it.” The principal puffed up, raising his shiny head once more, it reflected the cheap fluorescent overhead lights perfectly. “These are definitely papaya trees, the blind old man who sold it to me was very particular. As I said before, you should have respect for your elders, what is this elementary behaviour?”

“A degree in leaf anatomy?” Lavina whispers. “He probably has one in the arts of narcissism too,” Bea mumbles.

Lavina narrowed her eyes on the plant and decided to be a model international student pillar by carrying out an experiment– by casually letting go of the pot.


“Whoopsie” Lavina says offhandedly, eyes shining like an innocent 5 year old who just snacked on too much candy, as the pot plummeted to the ground, splattering into a million pieces and spreading mud all over what was an impeccably clean library floor. “Did anyone notice?” she questions, batting her eyelashes.

“That’s one way to plant a tree,” said Bea, barely containing herself, her hand planted firmly over her mouth.

The room went dead silent.

Clara quickly scrambled to pick up the pieces with shaky hands before their principal would notice and go on another rambling. In her attempt to diffuse the situation, however, she accidentally knocked over her open water bottle, toppling the pile of handbooks off the roundtable and completely drenching them, sending splashes of muddy water all over.

“Great, now there’s mud all over my nails!” Pouted Bea.

“Wow! This experiment was a success” Lavina roared hopelessly in laughter,
“Can this get any worse?”

“OH NO, MY EXPENSIVE LEATHER SHOES?!!” screamed Mr Veles, before taking an unconscious step backward and slipping on the wet mud. His enormous body made a huge ‘thump’ as it almost shattered the floor tiles.

“Oh yes it can!” Lavina squealed, bursting with joy.

“Definitely worse,” admitted Bea, ”way, way worse.”

“Do you think we should make a run for it?!” Lavina asked, contemplating reality.

“Forget running, I doubt they’d catch us even if we walked” Bea said, laughing at the pitiful state of the HRE and Clara scrambling to their knees trying to lift the discombobulated principal wallowing blankly in the mud, while Greta smirked, amused.

Remembering her duty, the librarian jankily jerked the four students splattered in mud aside, and pushed them out of the room. “That’s quite enough,” she managed, attempting to assert herself; though it was evident she wasn’t very good at hiding a smile.



“Well, ladies,” Lavina sighed dramatically, observing the damage and havoc they left behind. “I think it’s safe to say, we’ve truly cursed this curriculum!”