Chapter 12: 12. Sadly, School is Horrid

_____Teacher Wang_____

Teacher Wang, also named Wang YiRan, looked upon her homeroom students. There were over sixty of them, she thought with a sigh. At least there was less than last year. After the horrible gaggle of eighty to ninety students per class which had plagued all the teachers in more recent years, the government had decided to build a second school down the block. It was a life saver in Teacher Wang’s opinion. Memorizing sixty names was pittance compared to ninety.

Class Six, her homeroom, was particularly nice this year. There were no kids with rich parents to tread carefully around, or poor and abused kids to wonder what the heck to do with. There were some… underdeveloped children, some with low intelligence, but that she could handle. It was a nice batch. Except for one.

Wu Aby. The child was a pretty little thing, Teacher Wang thought. Or that was her private opinion. She had light blonde hair that fell around her head, and her eyes were a luxurious color- very, very light brown. Her mother was from Europe or something of the sort, that was what she had heard. Rumors traveled quickly in a Chinese neighborhood.

She was a distant relative of Father Wu. She was ill, and so she had lived with her grandmother for a while until, of course, the poor old woman went to heaven. Kind Father Wu had taken her in.

It was a pity. The child’s legs and arms were paper thin, and her skin a sickly brown. And she only wasn’t sick physically. She was also mentally ill. Father Wu had given Teacher Wang a head’s up, but it wasn’t needed.

She stuck out like a sore thumb right from the start. With a red eye and skinned knee along with her eye-catching features, naturally she did. When she pulled her over to ask the child how she had gotten hurt, the child had simply said she fell over. It must be the sick constitution, or maybe she hit her eye on something. She probably wasn’t the athletic type.

The mentally ill part was even more obvious.

Who would ever introduce themselves with, ‘my grandma is dead’? Teacher Wang thought indignantly. There were things to say and things not to. The child was clearly mentally challenged, and also unstable. It may be the death of a loved one that did it. Children were so fragile.

Teacher Wang was, at heart, a good soul. She clicked her tongue. She would do everything she could to keep Aby welcome at school, she decided. It would be a bit of a bother, but she felt like she needed to.

Little did she know, Aby was already being disappointed…

______Wu Aby______

“We start with some basic counting.” Teacher Wang smiled. She turned to the board and drew two large circles on the board. The kids oohed and ahhed.

I didn’t smile.

“Yi, er, san!” The speakers sang. Teacher Wang made gestures with her hands. The other kids copied her in a frenzy of excitement:

“Yi, Er, San, Si!”

Was this a joke? I thought. For what reason were we singing? Yes, we. Since the teacher required me to sing, I would. I couldn’t disappoint her on my first day of school. And well, I thought disapprovingly, all people deserved a chance.

I sang, and my voice mixed along with the other students, creating a horrible racket:

“YI, ER, SAN, SI, WU, LIU, QI, BA.”

“Very good!” Teacher Wang said, seeming to be excited. “Is there anyone who knows how to count?”

“Who wants to tell me how many apples there are?”

Hands went up. As I didn’t want to tell my teacher how many apples there were, I stayed silent. Inwardly, I wondered if the teacher had some sort of brain damage. If not, how was it that she didn’t know how many apples she herself drew on the board?

Teacher Wang picked a boy at the front.

“Five,” he said with a lisp. “Five, five!”

“Correct!” Teacher Wang handed out a big yellow star sticker. The boy put the sticker onto his chest. It would fall off in a few hours minimum, I observed. He shouldn’t have put it on his wool sweater. The boy still looked pleased about his plastic sticker that would inevitably fall off, land onto the ground, and be extra work for someone to pick up and place into the trash can. All the people at school were weird.

“And what about… this?” Teacher Wang drew two mice on the board. She was a good artist, I thought. Her hands had precision. In the apocalypse, she could make a nice ally. “How many mice are there?”

Teacher Wang picked a girl this time. MeiHui stood up.

“There are two mice!” She said proudly. Teacher Wang put a sticker on her chest.

“I learned this all in preschool.” MeiHui bragged. “This is easy.”

“That’s nice, dear.” Teacher Wang said distractedly.

And now the entire class was bustling, with kids holding their hands as high up as they could, not even bothering to listen to Teacher Wang’s next question. Not that they needed to. It was obvious what she would ask.

“ME!” A kid screamed.

“I learned counting in preschool, too!” It was the boy with a lisp. “ I even know how to add. My preschool was better than yours.”  MeiHui turned to him angrily.

“I went to the best preschool in the world.” She said, “Mama said so. So you must be lying.”

“Am not!”

“Is too!”

I was getting annoyed and tired. It was funny. You live out your life dreaming of a certain thing, but when you get it, you realize it’s not as good as you think it is. Why were the classes so boring? The schedule clearly read ‘Math’. This wasn’t math. 

Chinese language, I had predicted it would be about learning Chinese. Perhaps its origin, advantages, and different types. Instead, we frolicked and introduced ourselves. Art, I had assumed it would be about learning the prices of different artworks. Maybe we would also have metalworking and painting, and crafting. Artifact crafting. Instead, we drew squiggly shapes with chalk. And now even Math was a dud. I just… I just couldn’t understand.

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School was supposed to be a place to learn, but instead of learning, I was currently stuck doing silly things to amuse the teacher. And the bickering. I finally understood why the seats at the edge were better. I was right in the middle of every fight, and I didn’t like it.

There was only PE left. That, and- the bell rang.

“Lunchtime.” Teacher Wang announced. She sounded relieved. “Single file, class.”

That and lunch. I smacked my lips. Now that was something even this horrid school couldn’t ruin.

Lunch was awesome. I dug into my rice, spinach, stir-fried pork, and fish-head soup. There were also grapes, and a very small mooncake just a bit bigger than my thumb. The pork was spectacular. I licked my plate, then I popped the grapes one by one into my mouth and savored their sweetness. The mooncake I put into my pocket. Dinner, I thought dreamily.

The food made school all worth it. I could still taste the smooth texture of soup and the crunchy spinach on the tip of my tongue. I wished I had saved some pork, though I knew it wasn’t allowed. Maybe I could sneak a small portable box, just a really small one. The teacher took one look at my plate, then instructed me to place the plate on the end of the table.

The cafeteria was large. The entire underground floors were all it, so there was plenty of space.

“You can go to the yard and play.” Teacher Wang said. “Remember to come back to class when the bell rings.” I nodded, then headed outside.

The cafeteria was large. The yard was enormous. The playground, not so much. It wasn’t small, but there wasn’t enough equipment for close to four thousand kids. And that was only the amount of kids that were finished with their lunch.

The swings and slides were impossible to get near. There was no separate sandpit. The entire yard was one, so none were needed. Some kids were playing dress-up with leaves and mud, and the boys kicked balls around the yard. A couple of girls, I noticed, were playing with twigs and wood sticks. They play-fought, using the sticks as weapons. They were a lot bigger than me, however, I wasn’t afraid. A lot of people were bigger than me. It was interesting. I walked closer to them.

“Take that, Mulan!” A girl with pigtails yelled as she lunged forward at one of the other girls, who blocked the hit. The girl grinned. “Can’t hit me!” She yelled back.

“The Huns are getting closer!” Another girl cried. “Ladies, attack!”

“Excuse me.” I interrupted excitedly. “May I also partake in your activity?” I looked around for any suitable sticks but there weren’t any- they were all being used by the kids. Maybe the girls would let me share one, I thought.

The girls all stopped.

The girl with the pigtails looked at me weirdly. “How old are you?” she asked.

This again. Why was everything about age? It wasn't like me being younger meant I was an idiot, or a lesser person. And besides, I thought crossly, it wasn't like they were adults, either. “Eight.” I answered. The girls looked at each other.

“We’re ten.” A short, curly-haired girl said proudly. “Which means you’re older than you. So you can’t play with us.”

“If you want to play then you have to act as a servant.” Another girl said. “A private can’t go on important missions.”

The girl with the pigtails prodded her. “What's a private?” She whispered curiously. She glanced at me from time to time, as if she was embarrassed displaying her lack of knowledge.

“It’s the weakest soldier.” The girl said. She peered at me. “You’re too weak and small. I bet you're not even eight. You probably ran away from preschool.”

She said it disdainfully. I felt a rush of irritation. “Why does age matter?” I asked, my voice rising. I had used polite speech to them, not because they were older, but because I had deemed them beings worthy of respect. However, I was on the verge of abandoning it. If they were not going to respect me, I wasn't going to respect them.

The girls laughed.

“Get out of here.” The girl with the pigtails said.

I saw no point in trying to play with people who didn't like me, so I did so. Small minded people never lasted long, anyway. It was a pity. I thought they could become my new comrades, instead, I watched them as they played among themselves. They were ignoring me. Should I look into kids my own age? I wondered. Maybe they would be more friendly. There wouldn’t be anything for them to take issue with. I looked into the direction of the smaller boys, who seemed to be around my age. They were kicking a leather ball.

“Hey!” I called as I walked towards them.

Did everyone already know each other? The boys huddled together and whispered among themselves. A while later, they ignored me. Again, nobody listened to me. Apparently I wasn’t very popular among the students.

I stopped walking, feeling unhappy. I didn’t know why, I just felt unhappy. But I was familiar with controlling wild emotions in my head. The sadness soon shut itself up. I sighed. The bell rang brightly and made a beautiful noise. I bolted into class for the final lesson of the day, feeling weirdly relieved. Next time, I would have to bring a book, I thought. I stretched, then yawned. Now, I could finally rest. However, I had forgotten what the final lesson was.

“Line up, kids.” Teacher Wang said, leading the kids to the playground. “It’s the end of school, great to end with a bout of dodgeball, yeah?”

“Yeah!” The kids yelled back.

“Wanna win?”

“Yeah!” The kids yelled.

I was getting a bad feeling about this.

“If your student number is even, you can go to the left court. If it’s odd, right court. Evens verses odds.” Teacher Wang said. "If any of you don't understand the rules, you can ask me."

The students didn't mill around. They quickly dispersed into formation. I stood at the left. The teacher took out an orange ball.

I watched as she threw it in the air. The kids all whooped and yelled. What the heck was happening? I wondered. There were two boys at the front. As the teacher threw the ball, they both jumped up to get it, as if it were a prize. One escaped without the ball, and the other boy grabbed the ball. He immediately turned towards us, grinning, brandishing the toy like a weapon. And for the first time that day, I learned something.

I learned that I was horrible at dodgeball.