Four Words

Chapter 1

New school year, old rules.

The school hall was utter chaos. Lost Secondary One students stumbled around, eyes darting back and forth, searching desperately for their class. Prefects were supposed to be holding up placards for every class, but so far I saw virtually none.

Groups of friends mingled around, with much of the usual gossiping and exchanging of what-did-you-do-in-the-holidays stories. Guys exchanged fist bumps and hearty slaps on their backs, girls hugged and hi-fived. Teachers stood in the corner of the hall, looking somewhat disappointed in the disorderliness of the students.

I saw all of this from where I sat. I could see almost everything; the stage, the red velvet curtains, the shiny wooden floor. The very air buzzed around me thick with voices of all languages and accents and I continued watching.

I checked my watch. 7.25am. Morning assembly started at 7.20am on normal days. But being a Secondary Two student, I knew that after the morning assembly we would have to endure painfully boring long welcome-back speeches from the principals, go through the basic school rules, bla, bla.

Ugh.

Did I also mention that the hall felt extremely small at that moment?

A thin film of sweat was beginning to form on my forehead.

It was going to be a long morning.

~♧☆¤☆♧~

Finally, we're allowed back to our classrooms and introduced to our new teachers. My classroom was on the third floor and I had Miss Nathalie for English (again) and as a form teacher.

Miss Nathalie was nice, a rather patient, young and modern teacher. As long as you didn't do anything to earn a black mark and completed her homework neatly and on time, she wouldn't bother you too much.

Oh yeah, I should probably say a little bit about our classes. I'm in class 2E1, in the Express stream. There are four Express classes in Secondary Two this year, 2E1, 2E2, 2E3 and 2E4. Then there are two Normal Academic classes, 2N1 and 2N2. Not to forget, there's the Normal Technical stream, 2T1.

The same class system works out for Secondary One too, except this year they decided to take in an extra 40 pupils to form class 1E5. (That's right, each class has 40 students here.) It probably had to do with what I heard last year that the appeal list was 400 students long.

For the Secondary Threes, the Express classes are divided into the Arts and Sciences streams, meaning you have two of each, 3S1, 3S2, 3A1, 3A2. Same goes for Secondary Fours.

All Secondary Fives are in either 5N1, 5N2 or 5T1.

Well, you get the idea.

Miss Nathalie spent a good 15 minutes on lecturing us on how important this year was for us, what with it being our Streaming Year. I'd decided that I'd take the Science route, since I was totally not an Arts person. Well, unless they suddenly began offering a Writing class.

I could see my classmates zoning out, their minds far away. I let mine wander too.

Big mistake.

My thoughts chased me back to the dark nights I spent hiding in my room, music turned up, fingers rapidly firing off ranting tweets, tears just at the back of my eyes but never actually falling.

The seemingly bottomless chamber which I had fell into, twisting and turning and  tumbling all the way down. The beautiful memories turned sour and bitter...

I choked back a dry sob, which I hurriedly disguised as a cough. I got weird looks from my classmates around me, who were glad to have something else to focus on.

I buried my face in my hands and forced myself to listen to Miss Nathalie's lecture.

Every single word of it.