The Saddest Sound

TEN. After Another

TEN. After Another

Chasmin

"Are you crying?"

I massaged my eyes with the tips of my fingers. "What do you want"—I looked around—"where's Mariely?"

"You're acting frantic like you don't expect she'd be gone any moment."

"Didn't the bell rung already?" I got up from my chair to look for her outside. But before I could leave my seat, Armin sat on my desk, blocking the already narrow space I had to squeeze myself out from. I thought of pushing Ivon's chair a little forwards, but disturbing him in his nap was directly asking for death.

"Ma'am Josephine called her while you're daydreaming. She asked us to read 'The Necklace' while they're gone." Armin gave me a stapled sheets of paper. "I'm telling you this first before I make the official announcement tomorrow. We're continuing the school's year-end tradition. This year we're doing an education outreach program to help remote and disadvantaged areas near our school. Volunteers will be taking up the role of storytellers to daycare and elementary students. I'll be writing a letter to the mayor for funding, but all officers also unanimously agreed to collect recyclables to sell if the funding isn't approved."

"Why are you giving it to me when I'm not an officer?" Without bothering to skim through the pages, I returned the sheets to him. "I'll hear it tomorrow."

"There's a Volunteer List on the last page. I expected you'd be the first to sign-up. You were very enthusiastic last year when we served breakfast to children."

I sat back in my chair. "Feed others when I'm about to die of starvation myself."

"What's that?"

"I said I don't care about your social causes."

"Why are you suddenly angry?" Moving roughly, Armin stood erect. He flipped the papers back to the first page. "I was just asking."

If I was angry as he claimed, I was now seething. "Why? What do you know? Our parents are losing jobs because of the drought and you want us to give what meager thing we have? You can say that because your father works abroad. Silence your good Samaritan ego for once and look at us. Most of us here belong to a family of farmers."

"Bloody Mary." Ivon pushed back his chair and rose. He spun around, snatched the papers from Armin's grip and smacked it on my desk. "You are straying from the point. What meager thing we have are you bleating? This Sticklike Glutton is saying that volunteers will be storytellers, not to become some food or money donation machines. That's probably why they changed the old tradition of cooking breakfast. Because of your bloody Mary drought."

"Ivon, break it off. What Chasmin said weren't false either—"

Ivon brushed off Armin's hands, his disgruntled glare never leaving mine. "You must think you're a privileged sardine now that you've been hanging out with Mariely."

"Stop it—"

"Let him." I pushed out of my seat and took a step towards him. "What else? Tell me all. Your dissatisfaction. Your animosity. The crystal clear past last year when I didn't dance with Armin after he returned to class the next day so Mariely had to volunteer again—"

"You're drifting off the point again." A corner of Ivon's lips lifted in a derisive smile. "You run out of sound arguments and you start raking up the past—"

"The whole class knows you adore Mariely, only you and Mariely don't know that." I roved my eyes around the room. Maybe I was hoping that someone would stop me. Maybe I was hoping that someone wouldn't. The class met my eyes but didn't demur nor agree. I looked back at Ivon. "Mariely collapsed because of that one dance. She almost died because she overexerted herself. You've been hating me all year for that. I understand. I'll take your hatred with me to the next life"—I tugged tightly on my hem—"but Mariely is not your sister. Mariely being sick doesn't make her your sister."