Chapter II

“Hey, Ariel, you gotta hurry up! We’re gonna be late for class again… Just grab your things and go, will ya?” Isabel yelled from the doorway.

Ooops… I forgot to do a self-intro, eh? Okay, hi guys, I’m Ariel and I study in Seinfield High. I’m in Year One, so everything’s pretty new to me. I haven’t exactly settled down into High School life, though. I’ve been here for less than a semester.

“Comin’…!” I shouted back to an impatient Isabel, snatching up my sling bag and a ham sandwich.

Oh yeah… forgot to mention that Isabel is one of my best friends and I live in Singapore. Yup… I guess that’s all I hafta say for a self-introduction, and we shall just speed into my ordinary school life.
*****


We met Emma in the hallway. Emma was a girl of thirteen, but with a wisdom and maturity beyond her years.

She was tall, smart and pretty. She topped the level in nearly every subject. Emma had such a gait that drew many turning heads in almost every corridor.

In fact, you could say, she was an all-rounder. She was in the school’s netball team, debating team and even the Science Club.

Well, lots of guys in our class had fleeting crushes on my best friend since Primary School, Emma, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to claim that she had already received seven notes from boys, declaring their suppressed liking for her.

And she was awfully modest.
*****


The history lesson was extremely boring; I held back my sixth yawn and blinked quickly to keep myself awake.

The torrential rain poured down in buckets; it was as if the skies had released their dam. Somehow, it seemed to me that the sound of the raindrops spattering down on the sidewalk and the gushing wind that tore through the branches of saplings, reverberated through the still classroom air.

I drew my attention away from the grass that was swaying as if they were bewitched by the wind. A fork-shaped lightning streak divided the ominous grey sky into unequal halves. I clenched my fingers into tight fists to keep them warm as a roll of thunder growled ferociously.

Staring out at the wet and slippery corridor, I saw him. The stranger. I thought, in the back of my mind, I had some vague impression of his shadow lurking near my house.

I nudged Emma sharply. She was making some notes about the Holocaust.

“Look,” I whispered, trying to hide my mounting excitement. “See that guy over there in the corridor? That one with the untied shoelaces? Do you know his name?”

I gazed into Emma’s eyes expectantly, as she craned her neck to glimpse the stranger with his three other friends.

“Him?” Emma smiled dreamily. “Oh, he’s in the Science Club. He’s Gerard… And you think he’s handsome, don’t you?”

I nearly leapt out of my skin.

“N-n-no…” I stammered.

“You have a crush on him,” Emma chuckled, with an assuming and non-chalant shrug. “But it’s all right, lots of girls fancy him too!”

“Well, I don’t have a crush on him!” I whispered fiercely, sending Emma into a giggling fit.

“Stop it, will you?” I went on, in a harsh whisper.

Mr. Chua, the history teacher with flaring nostrils, strode over.

“Ariel and Emma, I observe that both of you have been preoccupied with your own private business. Emma, could you please tell all of us what I have just said?” he snarled.

Emma consulted her handy little notebook and rattled off some facts about Hitler, Jews and gas chambers.

Mr. Chua advanced menacingly toward me. “And you, Ariel? Could you add on to what she has just said?”

My tongue seemed to stick to the roof of my mouth and I got no further than a nervous gulp when Mr. Chua dismissed me as a hopeless failure in history.

“Miss Ariel Tan, you shall meet me in the HOD Room after school. I would like to have a word with you.”

I nodded meekly and was dazed and dumbfounded throughout the rest of the lesson.
*****

It went badly. Mr. Chua, who was known to be a violent-tempered man, gave me a severe dressing down, yelled till his face was the colour of a beetroot and gave me an extra project to do an extensive research on the Holocaust.

I nodded morosely and turned to leave when I realized that Gerard was standing a few meters away, waiting to speak to Mr. Chua.

My look was that of utter shock and horror.

I made a dash for the exit.
*****


I kept up my sprint until I reached the empty bus-stop. The rain had lightened to a drizzles and the air was filled with the smell of fresh, damp soil. Even the wet grass seemed greener. I sighed and hugged my sweater. The sky in the distance was a shade of maroon, foreboding an imminent thunderstorm.

I shook my head and wallowed in self-pity until I heard someone clearing his throat softly. Whirling round sulkily, unhappy that my reflections were interrupted, I caught sight of a familiar figure beside me.

Gerard?

Oh no.

It might have been only my imagination when I observed the corners of his mouth turning upwards. I smiled shyly as he plonked down near me.

“You were getting lectured by Mr. Chua?” he began, almost awkwardly. He was gazing into my eyes, and that, made me feel vulnerable.

The words were caught in my throat. I nodded, as if I were a mute.

“Heh. You’ll get used to it after a year. You’ll survive, like me!” Gerard’s grin dazzled me. He looked so handsome when he smiled, and there I was, sitting so stiffly that I might have been frozen, behaving like an absolute fool.

I could not look into his eyes, and it was at that point of time, that the fact that I had a crush on him dawned on me.

I compelled my dry, chapped lips to curve into a wry smile. All I could think of was Mr. Chua’s large flaring nostrils. It appeared to be hilarious, now that I was recalling his furious expression.

And I did not even realise that the girlish laughter I heard was mine.

Soon, Gerard was laughing too. In no time at all, both of us were chuckling like two runaway patients from the Institute of Mental Health.

The time I spent with Gerard seemed to be ages to me, but in actual fact, it was only five minutes…

My bus skidded to a screeching halt by the bus-stop. I waved a shy goodbye and his words were still ringing in my ears throughout the whole ride home.

“Bye! See you tomorrow! I really had fun today, you know…”v