5

It felt like I was drowning, yet I was never taught how to swim. The feeling engulfed a person when they were in the middle of the ocean, and no one was coming.

“Come on, here,” the teacher repeated, handing me over the whiteboard marker with authority soaking his tone.

I turned around to face the board and looked at the sum before closing my eyes tightly, just in case a miracle decided to happen, just in case all the rosaries that had been thrown at me during lunchtime decided to make sure some superpowers helped me to figure out what to do.

Y= mx+c, I scribbled first before standing back.

My tongue still felt heavy, and I could still feel saliva pooling at the base of my mouth, under my tongue. After my seizures, I couldn’t talk well until I settled down after two or three hours. The woman from before wouldn’t let me sleep and insisted I come to class.

The sum in front of me had decimals, fractions and a number raised to power seven. I couldn’t handle it even if I tried. How the hell was a normal person supposed to work all that up.

I closed my eyes in anguish before opening them again. I was still here; this wasn’t a dream. The sum was still on the board, the teacher was standing right beside me, and all the students were waiting for me behind the class.

I wrote small figures that needed a microscope to be read and waited for the ground to open up and swallow me as I scribbled more.

“ Can you explain what you do to the class, Miss Shamila? We are all curious to learn more about these equations,” the teacher mocked, clearly aware that I was doing close to nothing.

“Just a minute,” I replied, the words slurred and heavy. He could barely hear them and still managed to figure them out.

After the seizures, my tongue became heavy, and the words I pronounced were barely audible, wasn’t there someone to tell them about epilepsy that I needed to lie down and rest.

“ What, miss, you have arrived at the answer?” the teacher asked again, his voice dripping with sarcasm and mockery.

I swallowed the pool of saliva that had formed in my mouth and thought of a banana smoothie to help me roll out words.

“I see,” the teacher began again, “you are just a new student yet foul, vile and completely full of yourself. You consider yourself too important, neither ready to learn nor share,” he accused me as he looked at the class doing dramatic movements with his fingers.

“No, “I stammered. How was I supposed to tell him that I was stupid?

Right on time, the doors to the classroom busted open, and Charles walked in with a killer smile, drawing all the attention to him. The teacher forgot about me as he escorted him with admiring eyes towards his seat.

“ You are supposed to be in detention? “the teacher asked, his eyes full of surprise and life.

“ Well, “ Charles began, “ I knew you would miss me too much, and I couldn’t stay that long,’’ he replied with a proud smirk.

I was still standing at the front as Brian made the same entrance that the teacher marvelled about too.

“ Well, little girl, you’ve never seen search an equation all your life. You look like someone who just saw an elephant?’’ the teacher began again as the class erupted into another row of laughter.

“What exactly did they teach you in your former school? How to keep shaggy and dusty hair, eeeh?’’ he asked again as everyone continued bubbling with excitement at the humour.

That was when it hit me. I was shaggy, and my hair was full of dust after I had fallen down. I combed my hands through them, and a few specks of dust that were visible to the eye escaped making everyone cheer. Next, I looked at my skirts, that was dirty too.

After falling down, all I thought about was food. It didn’t occur to make that I should make my clothes clean. This had always been Angela’s job; she made sure I was okay; she picked all the broken pieces after every episode and knit them carefully together. She kept my world from falling apart.

The teacher ushered me to my seat, satisfied that he had proved his point; everyone had a reason to hate me more right now; I was labelled stupid in a politically correct manner now, and it was officially confirmed. The new girl was also too dumb to do any math.

It felt like this was who I was all along, even at the orphanage; the humiliation was just some sort of permission to tell me to stop pretending.

I settled on the front seat and picked up my bag to remove a pen and notepad. When I picked up the bag, a few items dropped and hit my leg.

I looked down to see the sorry sight. A whole lot of condoms were all over my skirt and feet; they were also pink, and I couldn’t hide them. The teacher came forward and picked one before smiling.

“ Uh- so you use these extra sizes,’’ he mocked again before throwing it back at my desk.

I felt small, weightless and useless as I debated whether to collect them or just run away and never come back.

“ I like them big. The small ones do not fit me,’’ a voice behind me thundered.

Everyone looked back as Brian, the cruel guy that had tripped me over, moved towards the front.

The teacher stood in shock as Brian bent to pick and collect the condoms, next he stuffed them in his pockets and blazers before throwing a wicked and cruel smile at everyone.

He meant one thing, I had slept with him.

“ I knew it. I just couldn’t figure out if malnourished whores existed,’’ a small sound reached my ears as I struggled to stay afloat amidst all the mess.

A loud thud was heard at the back, and we all watched as Charles stood up in anger. The teacher loved all this. He fed on drama and made himself small to watch it all from a bird’s eye view.

“ Brian!” his voice boomed in anger as excitement built up inside the class. He wasn’t ready to lose a peasant.

This was fun, at least to them.

What did I do to deserve Maslow High School?