Words

One

"Tim Jenkins," Ms. Honey called. A boy sitting in the back stood at the sound of his name. "Please do number twelve. You did do your homework, right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Wonderful, wonderful," she muttered before checking off something on her clipboard. "Turn it in after you're done."

He nodded while taking a yellow chalk stick from her hand. The board had all of the questions written in separate boxes so that we had room to show our work. Diverse handwriting decorated the wall he was in front of.

The room was buzzing with mutters as students distractedly talked amongst themselves, completely ignoring the boy. At least he did his homework, I thought with a hint of pride.

Tim placed his chalk down after being dismissed by Ms. Honey and walked back to his seat.

"Alright, next is... Jennifer Killing! Number thirteen, please."

A chair to my right scraped against the tile floor. I looked downwards, staring at my completed homework. Despite my understanding of the topic, I could still feel the sweat beads trickling down my neck. My throat tightened with every name that she called up to the board. What if I didn't get the questions right?

Doubt quickly clouded my thoughts, but I pushed it away. If I didn't have confidence in my intelligence, then I wouldn't last in the real world. I didn't feel uneasy when answering the questions on the math homework, so I shouldn't have done too bad.

I was going over the questions in my head when I heard Ms. Honey call my name. Standing up, I strode to the front knowing that the question was exceptionally easy.

I took the chalk piece out of her hand and wrote my answer flawlessly before standing back to let the class see my work. Yet no response was given from neither the teacher nor the students after I finished. My eyes turned to Ms. Honey, wondering if my answer was wrong.

She smiled. "Ziva? Is there something wrong? You haven't written anything yet." What?

I glanced back to the board in confusion, looking straight up at what I had written. Maybe it's just me. I turned back to the board, deciding to write the answer again. I made sure that the chalk pressed against the board hard enough to make a noticeable sound. When I faced my classmates, everyone still had the same confused or impatient expressions.

I stood back, terrified as the chalk dropped to the ground from my hand. For some reason, no one else could see my writing. Even after I had written the equation many times just in case my eyes were playing tricks on me. But no matter how hard I rubbed them, even until I started to see green and purple spots, I was the only one that could see it.

"Are you stuck? Do you want some help?" The kind teacher leaned down to me, allowing her hazel brown bangs to drop in front of her brown eyes.

I shook my head feverishly, still confused. What... what happened? I know that I wrote on the board, yet she was acting like I hadn't written anything yet.

"Ms... Ms. Honey, I wrote the answer down, it's right there!" I said, pointing to the answer that I had clearly written.

She glanced at the board before giving me a puzzled yet sympathetic smile. "What are you talking about? I don't see anything. Maybe you didn't write hard enough?" She inquired, picking up the abandoned chalk stick.

I looked at it with suspicion. There's no way that I wrote too soft. Even if I did, they would still be able to see the little marks of yellow chalk. But she could be right.

I picked it up from her hand, taking deep breaths to calm myself down. Right, it was just a mistake. It wasn't possible for words to disappear unless they were erased, right?