Uncovering secrets

Chapter 2

Students in the school uniform. Loads and loads of them. 

That was literally what Wilda first saw when she entered the school foyer, lugging her dark brown bag that weighed a ton.

Before she saw the gradient blue tones of the wall, the glittering ceiling lights, or the ridiculously enormous( in her opinion) space that the foyer had(without the students), or the very bored looking guard who was slouching on his desk, very obviously not doing his job of keeping a lookout for strangers.

Teenage boys and girls, ranging from thirteen to sixteen years, all with different hairstyles and cuts, body shape, height, personality. Covering almost every square inch of the concrete flooring. Blocking the way of many. Buzzing around in groups and catching up on the latest gossip. 

Wilda was plainly confused, and she looked around for some source of help, and saw that all the thirteen years looked bewildered as well( The thirteen years had a sticker stuck to their chest to identify them as newbies). Some were scratching their heads, wondering where they were supposed to go, while others were whispering among themselves, not knowing what to do. 

The bell chimed again. Almost instantaneously, the other students who had been previously chatting to one another brisk-walked to different hallways down the foyer. Wilda managed to catch what some of the students were saying as they grumbled and dragged their legs to somewhere with a bored expression on their faces.

"I hope I don't get Miss Clover. I got her for Arithmetic last year and she sucked; gave us way too much homework to do," a light blonde in pigtails was complaining.

"Did you know Franchise had her hair cut over the holidays? I swear she looks way better in that bob hair cut, unlike last year when she had childish braids...,"giggled a girl who was swigging water from her water bottle.

Contemplating on whether she should follow the other students or stay with the thirteen years, Wilda was about to follow the students when suddenly a voice rang out.

" New pupils! ... excuse me for a moment," The crowd of students parted, letting a short, tawny-eyed teacher walk through with a stack of papers held firmly to her body. They momentarily paused, as if wondering whether they should greet her or not, but it was soon broken when a second bell chimed impatiently and the students started picking up their pace and disappeared down the hallways.

Now that more students had departed, Wilda and the other newcomers could see the teacher clearer. She almost burst out with laughter when she saw the woman, who was clearly wearing fake eyelashes, tons of lipstick and blush, which made her look like a brat. She had auburn hair which had been styled into a neat ponytail and tied with a light pink ribbon, tiny eyes that narrowed at its slits, small thin lips with a dark tinge of red due to the lipstick. Looking like she was in her sixties, Wilda was amused that she still bothered to put on makeup with the amount of wrinkles on her face. 

She wore a mint-colored knee-length skirt with a sky-blue long sleeve top and matching low heels. Wilda glanced at the other students and noticed with a discreet smile that most of them were silently laughing at how the woman had done her makeup, yet had dressed like a professional. A sudden "Ahem, ahem," from the woman silenced them all.

" Good morning new pupils, as all of you do not know me yet, I shall introduce myself. I am the head of your year, Madam Delis. A warm welcome to all of you who have managed to enter Gilde High. Now, let me explain the disciplinary conduct that I highly expect all of you to adopt." She said crisply, never stopping to take a breath of air.

" School starts at half past eight; all of you are expected to before eight. Demerit points will be given to those who are late, curse, dressed shabbily, or shows any kind of disrespect to anyone. Do I make myself clear? Let's move on to the school's tour now, where you will receive your locker and your schedule." She motioned for them to follow her, and timidly everyone meekly shuffled their feet across the floor to her.

The thirteen years were then led down the hallway in the middle. Other than the occasional windows of the classrooms or the few paintings that were hung up on the walls, the rest of the area along both dark blue walls were lined with rows and rows of rectangular gloomy grey lockers with locks over the handles. The students were each handed a their locker number and passcode by Madam Delis. Wilda looked down on the piece of paper she had been given, and saw that her locker number was 247, which was just nicely opposite her. She grinned to herself when she saw several of the thirteen years confusedly stumbling past one another to reach their locker. Fumbling with the lock, she managed to open the locker door and shoved her bag inside it. The locker was clean though it was dim looking inside. Wilda peered inside it, looking for bugs, before closing the locker door and locking it when none were found.

While she and a few of the pupils waited for the others to finish opening their lockers and dumping their bags inside, Madam Delis proceeded to pass their schedules to them and told them their schedules had been arranged by their results from their previous examination.  Wilda was gleeful when she saw Arithmetic only had half an hour every week and art for almost every day.

                                                                                                ...

Wilda loved art. It had helped her cope with the loss of Lucie by letting her vent out her feelings on a piece of paper or canvas. The paper merely absorbed her feelings; it was an inanimate object, yet it seemed to understand her as she drew and painted out her feelings on it. Hence, her bedroom wall was fully pasted with her watercolor paintings and drawings. She even kept three sketchbooks that were half- filled with sketches of random objects or humans. She was honestly so surprised that she had gotten an A-star for art for her previous examination . All she had to do was draw someone who meant a lot to her. Lucie was the first person to come to her mind, followed by her mother and father. When Wilda started drawing Lucie on a blank piece of paper, she had no idea how to draw her. That feeling of loss had come over her again and she was so sad; so down that Lucie was no longer with her that she started to draw her bedroom with precise details, right down to the perfect shading of the floorboards, and after that just she and Lucie hanging out in her bedroom sharing a packet of Pringles. She made sure to make Lucie stand out. She focused on the teeniest detail; the eyes, the spark of life in them; the lips, the perfectly shaped- O; the crumbs that were stuck around her mouth.

Personally, she felt she had veered off-topic when she added herself to the drawing, but at that time she didn't care, she just wanted to feel reunited with Lucie again.

So it had come as surprise and unspoken happiness when Wilda had received an A-star for the art examination. When she had tried to enroll into Gilde High and had to go through an interview first, one of the questions an unfamiliar-looking man had asked what subjects she excelled at the most, and Wilda had decided to be honest and answer with Art and English.

A month later, the results for the interview had come out, and Wilda had been among those who were highly recommended to attend Gilde High. Delighted, Wilda had immediately enrolled into their school. And now here she was.

                                                                                              ... 

Few minutes later, all the students have received their timetable and Madam Delis continued the school tour. Wilda passed countless Science laboratories , English, Arithmetic, and other languages classrooms, several Baking and Art classrooms, and much more. Tired and panting, all the students finally reached the fifth floor of the school, where the last French classroom was shown to them.

"That's all for the school tour. The bell for your first class will start in a minute. I advise all of you start scrambling off to your classrooms now. Thank you." With that, she turned on her heel and walked away.