by Shaine Lake
There were noises, and they were getting louder. I was looking at my feet, trying to make sense of the taste of blood lingering in my mouth and regaining my orientation. I could even screw up when doing a small jump like that. What a laughing stock I had transformed myself into.
Someone gently clasped my hand, as if attempting to comfort me. Feeling grateful, I looked up at that person, as a form of acknowledgement of the concern I had received.
I saw long black hair right in front of me.
Prising my hand off from her grip, I recoiled from that girl. Then I bumped into someone behind me.
“Are you okay?”
It was a male voice.
Under normal circumstances, with a clear head, I would have just scurried away if a guy talked to me out of the blue. Additionally, I would have recognized the need to immediately peel myself away from his body. However, I hadn’t recovered from the shock of the fall and the close encounter with the corner girl. So I ended up turning around to see who it was.
I got another shock when realizing that the guy was Jareth.
The dude was staring at my temple. “The right side of your forehead—”
The fear of attention being drawn to my wound snapped me out of my stupor. I didn’t want to get referred to June. Other thoughts began to invade my brain.
What if the girls misunderstood I was interested in him? Would they have the idea that I feigned my fall to get attention from him? How was I going to face them in school if they thought so badly of me? They might spread those untrue words about me.
“I’m fine.” Keeping my face hidden from obvious sight, I pulled off my hairclip and crawled through the thin crowd around me—the apparition was no longer among them. I felt an utmost urgency to get away from Jareth.
Then I stood up and headed straight to where most of my schoolmates were.
Kenneth ran up to me while I was on my way to join the gathering of girls. “Are you really okay?”
I made a small nod.
He appeared to be clearly relieved. “Natalie, maybe you should take a break for the rest of the session. And if you feel any discomfort, let me know immediately.”
I was too ashamed to look at him in the face. “Sure. Thanks.”
After a short while, everyone was back in position and resumed what they had been doing. The embarrassment resulted from the furore hadn’t left me. I kept my head low and responded to questions with one-word answers.
When my schoolmates were trying out the other exercises, with me sitting at the side, the corner of my eyes caught Anton practising on the high bar. I had no clue on how long he had been on there, but it seemed like he was going strong, showing no sign of fatigue. Sometimes, he stopped the momentum of his swings to perform a cast handstand on the bar before swinging into motion again.
All of a sudden, he released his hold on the bar to do a twist in the air. My breath was caught in my throat as I gaped at him, worrying that he might fall. He didn’t. My heart skipped a few beats when he caught hold of the bar in time. After a few more swings, he did a flyaway: spinning and sailing through the air before executing a perfect landing. Then he walked off without striking any victory pose.
His strength and grace had touched my heart. Whatever he did, he did it for himself. There was no need for audience or attention from anyone. How I wished that I could be like him.
“He’s good on the high bar,” mumbled Mandy, her eyes were firmly on Anton.
“Yeah,” I replied in spite of knowing that she wasn’t talking to anyone in particular.
She tore her gaze away from him to look at me and whispered, “And kind of cute. This brooding and mysterious aura around him …”
I didn’t know what to say as she blushed.
Mandy pouted, then wondered aloud, “Why do the rest of the guys ignore him? Maybe he’s a lone wolf.”
I did feel connected to Anton when she mentioned the fact that he was a loner. Nevertheless, I knew I had no chance with him, especially when Mandy was interested in him too. The affection and excitement shining in her eyes were evident. As her friend, I didn’t want them to be extinguished. However, some matters needed to be clarified.
I decided to divulge the truth, hoping that she would be fine with it. “He takes the same bus as me.”
Chapter 10 Beauty?
While we were making our way to the art room, Mandy slowed down her pace to walk beside me.
“Guess what … yesterday Jareth asked about you,” she informed with a cheeky smile.
Even after a week had passed since my infamous screw-up, I was still hot topic to talk about.
“I see …” I was feeling more depressed as I dwelled on it.
She nudged my arm. “He seemed disappointed when I told him that you’d opted out of the club.”
I could understand his disappointment since everyone could no longer enjoy my clown shows. “Uh huh.”
What was the use of telling Mandy my thoughts when all the girls had good impressions of him? They would stand on his side.
Mandy crinkled her nose as she casted a disapproving look at me. “Aren’t you thrilled that he may be interested in you?”
I stared at her, wanting to rattle out my displeasure on how everyone had jumped to conclusions about me being Jareth’s type, just because Rachel had made a general statement about him having weird taste in girls. I still remembered that particular moment when we were walking out of St. Andrew’s school compound. All the girls turned to look at me when our captain … my ex-captain said that. It was as if they had agreed unanimously that I was weird. I might do things differently and has difficulty mixing well with people, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t normal.
Moreover, had they ever considered that I could be further snubbed because of their assumptions?
However, I didn’t reveal to Mandy my worries and annoyance at their behaviour. I retorted, “Why should he be? Plus I saw him checking out Fiona when we first entered the gymnasium.”
It was a natural thing for any guy to do that since Fiona was an attractive girl. Though not as gorgeous as Kelly, she was pretty in her own ways. A feminine girl with beautiful, fair complexion, she looked like a dainty porcelain doll. Brian should consider himself lucky to have someone like Fiona falling for him.
Mandy’s jaws dropped open. “Really? I didn’t notice that.”
I nodded in confirmation. Maybe all of them were too distracted by the awesomeness of the place. The presence of boys made me so uneasy that I took note of them right from the start.
She put her hand over her mouth to mute the chuckles. “She may have her sights set on Brian, but I think she’ll be happy to know this.”
I smiled. “Did she get to befriend Brian already?”
“Nope. Only Jareth and few other guys mingled with us. Brian hung out with the boys the entire time.”
I felt bad for Fiona, especially when she looked so disappointed the moment Rachel had remarked, “He had a girlfriend.” Charmine was quick to point out the use of the past tense. Fiona’s face immediately brightened up after that. Another girl displayed the same reactions as Fiona.
If only Rachel knew whether Anton was attached … but even the senior girl didn’t have the chance to talk to him.
“How about Anton and you?” I asked. Frankly speaking, I wasn’t sure if I was glad that she didn’t mind his humble background, or sad that she had fallen for the same guy as I had.
A frown appeared on Mandy’s face as she raised her shoulders. “He regarded us as transparent. Impossible to get friendly with him.”
“Oh …” I wasn’t feeling good about lack of advancement in her relationship with Anton either.
“There’s one good news: I’d learnt from Jareth that he’s in the top class.”
“That’s good.” My heart seemed to rock faster when I heard that. Anton was truly someone who could defy the odds. All the more I felt that he was way out of my league. A confident, nice, pretty and sporty girl like Mandy would ma
tch him better.
Mandy went on to disclose the other happenings and the titbits gathered from the conversations with the boys and senior girls. I came to know that Rachel’s boyfriend used to be in St. Andrew gymnastics team, and he had gone to a university in United Kingdom to study veterinarian sciences. One of the boys was dating a second year girl from our gymnastics club. Jareth got called to the principal’s office on regular basis because of his unsatisfactory academic results. The girls were wondering on who would get to know their crush first—Mandy or Fiona.
Everyone’s attention was on Mandy and Fiona, it should be because they were the most outstanding among the first year students. Mandy had the strength, agility and control while Fiona possessed the grace and flexibility.
Should I be giving Mandy a hand in befriending Anton? Well, I did have the advantage of seeing him on the bus. Perhaps he was friendlier when out of his school’s compound or outside training? However, I was terrified of facing rejection from him. What if he straightaway gave me the cold shoulder? He might even make a face of disgust if I approached him.…
I still couldn’t make up my mind when we reached the art room. The dilemma had to be shoved aside for a while since I wanted to concentrate on my artwork instead. Actually, besides Mathematics, Science and History, I also liked Art, specifically modelling. Drawing, in general, was challenging as I had difficulty projecting a three dimensional object into a flat picture on the paper.
Art lessons were far more interesting and enjoyable since there was no need to listen to boring lectures. In fact, my former art teachers were the only elementary school teachers who didn’t call my parents to complain about my inattentiveness in classes.
I nervously surveyed the interior of the art room before entering. I was very apprehensive about getting a nasty surprise from the corner girl in the case where she suddenly appeared. Somehow, I was glad to see her standing at the usual corner. She should just stay there. The chances of seeing her in the art room should be low. The place, unlike most of the rooms in the school, was brightly-lit and well-ventilated due to the full-panel windows lining one of the walls. Various paintings were tacked onto the other walls to cover up the peeling paint.
We were supposed to continue on the making of human figurines. I got really excited when we first started on it the previous week. It was my forte after all. The preceding projects on still life drawings proved to be rather excruciating for me to complete.
Once I had gotten into my seat, I set out to knead, roll, pinch and mould the clay into limbs and head. Extra care and attention was put into sculpturing the face. My creation would be based on Cinderella. Not the one in gorgeous gown and glass slippers, mine was the dirty-looking girl covered in ashes and cinder. I pictured her to have long black hair with centre parting that partially covered her eyes. Her humble white dress would be smeared with hues of grey.
When I had finished assembling my masterpiece, Mandy, who was sitting beside me, looked at it with widened eyes. “It’s beautiful. The face is so pretty.”
“Thanks.” While trying to conceal my grin, I noticed that her figurine, in the form of an Amazon, was quite a fine piece of art. It looked cool, sultry and imposing.
Kelly and Alice were seated at the opposite side of my table. They had overheard Mandy’s comments, thus looking up to check out my artwork.
“Nice,” commented Kelly before going back to attaching a miniature baseball bat to her clay figure’s hand.
Alice nodded in response. It was then I noticed that she was doing the final touch-ups on the dress of her princess figurine. It was wearing a beautiful ball gown with ruffles and ruching. From afar, the doll appeared to be very stunning. However, upon taking a closer look, I found that its face lacked the contours. Its visage was basically like a balloon with drawn facial features. I didn’t say my opinion aloud, of course.
When the bell rang, we put our works on a picnic table to let the clay dried and hardened. I ran my fingers gently across my doll’s face and hair, unable to tear my gaze away from her. I said goodbye to her before following my classmates to get back to our classroom for history lesson.
That particular history class managed to grab my attention, for once. Because it was about the facts and happenings of the Thirteen-Day War. Even though I knew everything about that war, which had occurred more than a hundred years ago, I listened with unwavering focus when Mr. Schmidt talked about it. Somehow, the ghost standing behind me heightened the dread factor.
The teacher read aloud from the textbook balanced on his palm, “The headquarters was besieged by the invading forces. All the guerrilla fighters were killed, either during the battles or by execution after being captured.”
A trail of coldness was creeping up my spine as I imagined the horrors they had faced before their death.
Mr. Schmidt put the book aside and took in a deep breath. “The next part is not in the textbook. Non-examinable anyway. Just sharing some unverified news from the past.… After the war, the heads of the guerrilla fighters were found stacked in a corner of a classroom located on the second floor.”
I heard numerous gasps and whisperings coming from my classmates.
Kelly raised her hand before asking, “Is it our classroom?”
I was scared of knowing the answer. An affirmative one would imply that the corner girl was related to the wrathful spirits of those fighters. As the feelings of fear sank deep into my central nerve system, my ears picked up the familiar deep wailings of the stressed wood panels.
They came from right above me.
Would she drop on me? Would I be crushed? But she was a ghost. Ghosts were weightless, yes? Then I remembered her tender touch when she held my hand. It felt so warm, real and solid.
Maybe the best idea was to confirm if she was still at her usual spot instead. Spinning around to check that corner, I saw her staring squarely at the wall.
The eerie sounds stopped.
“Natalie, relax. It may not be this classroom,” remarked Mr. Schmidt while waving his hand as an indication for me to calm down. “And Kelly, regarding your question, nobody has any record on which one.”
I nodded in an apologetic manner, feeling embarrassed that I had reacted in a dramatic fashion.
I was glad that she was behind me instead.
Chapter 11 Fairness?
My classmates gathered around the art teacher’s table to find out the scores they had gotten for their clay figurines. I stood by the side, waiting for the crowd to thin out before going up to check mine.
Mandy squeezed through the crowd to get out. Then she ran up to me and exclaimed, “Congrats! You got ninety.”
Actually, that was within my expectations. I would be devastated if I got anything below eighty.
I looked at Mandy with gratitude for helping me to check my score. “Thanks. How about you?”
Her cheerful expression didn’t fade away when she replied, “Got seventy-nine. Pretty good, still an A, but he could have given me one more point to make an eighty.”
I hoped that she wasn’t feeling upset about getting lower score than me.
“Our report cards will not show the marks anyway. It’s the A that matters,” I consoled.
“True …”
Mandy went on to rave about my artwork and comment that my score of ninety was well-deserved. I smiled at her as my pride swelled a little. But at the same time, I wasn’t feeling at ease with the onslaught of compliments. When I noticed that only a few girls were hanging around the teacher’s table, I excused myself and then rushed over to there. I still wanted to verify with my own eyes the marks I had gotten.
Scanning through the list of names printed on the left column on a sheet of paper, I found mine and confirmed that the number written beside my name was ninety. At that moment, I felt slightly elated. Until I saw something else: Alice had scored one hundred for her creation.
How was it possible? Mine was better in almost every aspect. Only the dress of her doll looked more im
pressive. Did he grade our works based on clothes only?
Or did he despise the humble look of mine? A servant could never triumph over the princess?
Did he give her high marks because she was his favourite student? But it wasn’t fair. She was great in her drawings, but it didn’t mean that she would be as good in sculpting.
Art wasn’t a subject that could be graded based on objective views after all. It was subjective. It could be twisted by one’s bias. Dedication might not yield fruits.
“Okay class. Get back to your seats and start on your oil painting,” commanded Mr. Simpson.
I didn’t bother to acknowledge his words. With my head lowered down, I stormed back to my designated seat.
After I sat down, Mandy leaned over to me and asked in a low voice, “Natalie, are you alright?”
I bobbed my head in a mechanical fashion.
When Mr. Simpson announced that the theme of the day was “Beautiful Scenery”, a vivid image manifested in my mind.
It might not conform to his idea of beauty. But why should I draw something that was confined to his narrow perceptions? No matter what, he would not give me the grades I deserved.
What if the only sceneries he considered as beautiful were those in grand settings? Like the palace or mansion?
What would be his impression of a desert filled with swirling, golden sand? How about a painting of the nice, simple, clean streets of my neighbourhood? Would it be too humble for his taste?
Even if I drew what he wanted, my scores were still dependent on my popularity in class.
I stabbed my brush into the dainty pot of black paint. The glass bottle protested with clinking sounds as I stirred its contents violently. After pulling out the brush and spilling the paint onto the table, I started to create illustrations of raven black, long hair and a room filled with decay and death. Splatters of white were smeared onto the paper to produce the grey tones, the white uniform and numerous pallid faces that were dotted around the walls. I threw in splashes of red to show the pool of blood forming at the base of the corner.