Flippers

• seven; and it was a chain reaction •

                S E V E N ; and it was a chain reaction

        Unexpectedly so, the past week was pretty decent. True to her word, the rates of incessant breakdowns in the washroom had died down, and the number of students for detention had increased two-fold on account of bullying. There was an incident where Alexandra had barked at one of her own minion for making an eleventh grader complete her assignment, an act that really took the whole of Taradale by surprise. The amount of quirky shoes and shirts doubled in quantity, so did the flamboyance in their expression. 

       Needless to say, it was a good change.

       It had been a few days since I randomly had little boys and girls walk up to me, and thank me for what I had done. In comparison to before, there were more pair of eyes that met my gaze, and some even nodded in recognition. Even the professors had reduced their taunts due to my lack of attendance, an indication that the word had spread even to the staff room.   

      The resultant emotions were mixed. It was a concoction of pride, sure; but mostly it was the increased amount of pressure that was slowly building up. I was five pascal units from bursting under pressure. For this reason, I made sure my presence was unknown, mostly spending my time in the library, catching up with the class notes that I had previously missed.

      I hated the attention, and I hated being in the limelight.

      But, as days passed, I was slowly starting to learn to live with it. Rather, the amount of frivolous workload Professor Krestovozdvizhensky dumped on me, as a part of the undergraduate programme, kept me distracted. I was given the job of conducting Aptitude Tests that required singular administration, where all I had to do was explain the procedures and instructions to the clients, and wait hours in redundancy doing absolutely nothing. The scoring of the tests, and the report writing were all mechanical, and all I had to do was input the answers onto an Excel sheet. Time was a lazy friend, not helping me through by speeding up the process.

     The undergraduates, on the other hand, had new clients everyday where they had to take a case history and a mental status examination, followed by the appropriate therapy and counselling. The cases ranged from Depression, Slow Learning,  ADHD, Gender Dysphoria― everything under the umbrella of the 5th Edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

     Within no time did I realized that I hated monotony more than I abhorred the unwanted attention. This was the primary reason I did not like to attend my classes.

     "Hey, Parsley...what'chu doin' ?" Yui Takahashi hopped over, her body movements as hyper as ever. She sat besides Diljeet Singh, who had been wordlessly giving me company in the cubicle of the counselling centre as I worked on my report. Silence loomed over us, except for my fingers fluttering against the keyboard, and his quiet chomping of food.

      Until now.

       Yui was just an inch shy of touching five feet, and had moved to New Zealand after her parent's business had failed in Japan. She was a tumultuous ball of sunshine, one that never walked. Rather, her lithe movements always seemed to either hop, skip, or jump, an act that could put Grace Kelly to shame. Her very presence, complete with round spectacles and silver hair, spread bright rays of gregariousness wherever she pranced, and I always wondered if her cheeks hurt from all that smiling. Nonetheless, it was addicting, and you could not help but return it. The enormous hot pink bow which she had turned into her signature look never failed to remind me of Isabella's character from Phineas and Ferb. She was two years my senior, but never in a million years, seemed like it.

      "Nothing, Yui. Conducting Aptitude Tests. As Usual."

       "You're always working, and hiding in this cubicle. I think I have spent more time here than in my own house, and I'm tired of it. Come, and hang out with us. It's break time. We don't bite." She was right about the hiding part.