Benriesan Socialis

9

The next day, after assembly, the Socialis came up with as good as excuse as possible and darted off to meet Rebecca. The atmosphere was tense for anything, really anything, could sabotage the whole plan.
After 5 excruciating minutes, Rebecca finally showed up. She sauntered over with her good friends, Faith and Caila.
"You're late," Henrietta grumbled by way of greeting.
"Fashionably late," Rebecca countered. "May I see the video?" Several Socialis members paled but Henrietta maintained her calm composure... more of a façade really, for the girl's nerves were acting up.
"Give us a moment. Lynn has to be here. This... requires her present for it regards her, seeing that she was... framed." Henrietta replied smoothly. It was a perfect answer, not quite a lie but served it's purpose.
"I thought it was Onna who was being framed?" inquired Rebecca. "Must be my autocorrect." Vera dodged the problem swiftly.
Lynn stepped out from the shadows just as Mr Fan appeared-a perfect timing. "You required my presence?" he asked in his usually quiet yet cold monotone. "Make it quick. You are supposed to be having lessons now."
"Mr Fan, we have something to show you. Something that we think you should know about. This regards... the girl you wish to expel." Isabel muttered quietly, staring at her feet as she handed the camera over.
They revealed the footage together. Everything was captured in high quality. Rebecca gasped as she realised that the video revealed her and her friends writing the words on the table then framing Lynn. Lynn crying, everything.
"And," Netanya added softly. "I lied to you about the p6 snooping in our class... because we needed more time..."
"NO! THAT VIDEO IS EDITED, IT'S NOT REAL!!" Rebecca and her friends protested desperately as Nut slid a note into their hands.
Sorry, not sorry.
"Oh, sorry. Wrong video!" Henrietta exclaimed with a mischievous smirk as she showed Mr Fan another series of videos and pictures-all of the threats the Benriesan Socialis had received and some previous pranks that Rebecca had played on Lynn. The pranks had been cleverly captured by Kai-Xuan.
Mr Fan's dark, stormy eyes were lit with fury. The man of little words demanded, "Explain."
"Seriously, it wasn't us." Rebecca cried and the atmosphere was filled with sounds of the protests of Rebecca and her friend's cries.
"Lynn, is this true?"
"Yes."
"Obviously she'd say yes to make us look bad!" Caila protested quickly.
"And obviously you'd say no to make us look bad!" Isabel shot back.
"Come with me to my office right now. All of you, except Vera. Vera, go and find Kai Xuan and come to my office." Mr Fan said.
Therefore, the Socialis followed Mr Fan. Rebecca glared at them angrily and mouthed something that the Socialis probably would not want to know. Hen just smirked at them and Nut stuck out her tongue.
"I did not know Mr Fan had his own office." Hen said, looking victorious. "Well he's the shucking HOD, why wouldn't he?" muttered Isabel.
"How did he know that Kai-Xuan took most of those videos?" Nut asked quietly as the thought struck her.
"It's Kai-Xuan's camera, dummy!" Ely replied, jabbing Nut with her elbow.
"Ow!" Nut cried, rubbing her arm, being pushed very far. Whenever someone hit her, Netanya will 'fly' away, as their chinese teacher always said.
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"...hereby expelled-"
"You can't!" Rebecca shrieked, cutting Mr Fan off, clearly alarmed.
"I can do what I want but seeing that you are primary 6, I have decided to be kind and allow you to focus on your studies in this school until the primary school leaving examinations are over." Mr Fan continued, frustrated that Rebecca had interrupted. "Lynn," he added. "I shall restore your position and request for Mdm Wun to make another announcement, telling of all these events. As for you," He turned to the younger girls.
He was about to continue before Vera burst in with Kai-Xuan.
"A little loyalty goes along way. The group of you have lived up to PGPS's values-creativity, resilience, responsibility and integrity. Indeed, you have proved that loyalty should be one of our values..."
"..." Hen mumbled incoherently.
"Um..." Ely muttered.
"So?" Nut asked quietly.
"Uh huh." Isabel grumbled.
"Go on," Vera prompted softly.
I'm pretty sure you get the idea.
"As I was saying," Mr Fan continued slowly, in a dangerously quiet voice. "All of you have been very foolish to poke into someone else's business but your actions are indeed admirable. All of you are in quite a lot of trouble, especially those who lied to teachers." he paused for a moment, rather surprised that none of them were frightened or shocked at all.

Netanya thought of how many times they had invented excuses to cover up their actions. There was the remedial class one after Lynn's house. There was also the one with the stain on Mdm Aa's desk. Fine, Hen had admitted in the end, but at first, she kept quiet. Did that count as lying? Feeling guilty, Netanya bit her tongue but showed as little emotion as possible, which was a lot of emotion.
"Continue. Please," Henrietta prompted audibly, under her breath. She was rather impatient to get this over and done with for the suspense was quite killing her. Mr Fan evidently did want to kill them with the suspense for he didn't say anything. If he didn't hear what Henrietta sad, that meant that he would be quite deaf.
Mr Fan turned around and picked up his phone to make a call. "Reflect," He demanded finally. "And tell me what you've reflected later."
"Mrs Wong? I'm calling to..." As Mr Fan had turned away, they couldn't hear exactly everything that he said, especially because his voice was so quiet. "Probation.... Would expel..." The girls caught snippets of his conversation while they desperately attempted to reflect. "However, as PSLE... shall not..."
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Henrietta's POV
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I guess it's primarily my fault. We lied to the teachers and played so many pranks because I was the one who formed the Socialis in the first place. We mimicked the teachers and took down their car plate numbers, their NRIC numbers when we were p4. This year, we even acted good while we worked on our master plan. We were good while we were planning to sabotage them big time. Of course, in the end we didn't because we were fixated on helping Lynn but, still, the idea, the intention was there and we lied... we lied... we lied! We wanted them to be sabotaged so bad that we lost track of our moral values.
We broke our rules a lot... we almost broke our binding oath several times... and, it's all my fault. It's all my fault that we're in so much trouble... Mostly, I honestly didn't care that much about the "in so much trouble" part but I did care that we totally lost track of our moral values, Guilt hit me hard. Really, how could I let this happen!?
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Eleanor's POV
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How did we end up in this mess, I didn't even know. As far as I remember, the lying began last year, when we first formed the Socialis. We lied to cover up our pranks that we played, even though when we finally got caught, we admitted to it.
This time, it was even worse. Forgetting our own moral values, for a task we were so determined to complete? We were just as bad as anyone. We broke the number one Benriesan Socialis rule, because of this. We lied to a lot of people. It's all my fault, as I did not stop them, when I could have. I was blinded to our mistakes, and because of that, we ended up here. In this mess.
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Netanya's POV
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It's probably my fault. I gave them ideas and helped to mastermind quite some of the pranks that led to major lies. The email I sent to Mr Fan was a total lie, too. I did it to buy more time... but it's still a lie.
I strained my ears a little to listen to Mr Fan conversation but failed. If only my hearing was as good as Henrietta's... "not proud..." I heard Mr Fan say. Obviously he meant that he wasn't proud of the trio's actions, didn't he? "Did well though..." I heard him say again. The trio did well!? How was that possible? Unless... Unless I made the wrong assumption.
"Thank you, Mrs Tjan."
Before I could process that, Mr Fan turned to us and demanded coldly, "Tell me what you have reflected or you will not pass GEP."