IT WAS CHAOTIC inside the classroom filled with nine years old kids cheering and jeering each other. There was an impromptu competition held for the best wind-magic magic users and it was done by a group of five kids in two groups. While the others who did not participate became a loud supporters that made the class as chaotic as it can be. The rivalry that started the day before in basic magic class because the two of prominent kids in magic had the same level of control and to add that they had been in a rival for every other subjects thus the competition began the next morning before the bell rang.
It was a neck and neck match. The colourful paper planes that they use as the subject of manipulation were gliding thru the class steadily yet at slow pace as the magic itself was unruly and hard to dominance if the magic user affinity is wind. To see that they were able to perform such feat was commendable.
Then a kid who sat in the front row near the entrance door that they had appointed as a guard patrol for moments when they were having a moment like this; suddenly shouted in alarming voice that their homeroom teacher was approaching their class and that was when all hell broke loose.
All the kids that were participating and supporting the match scurried to their desk. Their fights had to postpone, their colourful paper planes shoved under their desk and instead they pulled out their text books and work book from their bags and started to study like they had never any intense magic fight before. The class had become a funeral sight and other from hushed whisper and the tick of the clock, they finally heard they click and clack shoes of their homeroom teacher.
She was a cute plump female teacher with a round eyes and button nose. She never wore anything too bright or anything too dark. Despite her plain choice of wardrobe she had a gentle voice and attentive to her students. Many other teachers were wondering how she managed to handle a class full of hypocrite-prankster, school bullies, and anti-social freak in one class, which they could never guess even until they finished primary school.
Miss Ariel, in the middle of twenties, walked in to her classroom, a smile pasted on her face and a cheerful good morning she greeted her kids. Behind her a boy in towed.
"I heard that you had a delightful morning. How was the match?" she asked attentively while she putted down her bag and record book on her desk. She laughed when she saw her sour faced kids. The end of her eyes wrinkled and her gaze was soft and caring.
"Then, it wasn't that delightful, I guess? I should have come a bit later but you see we had a new friend today," she jested and at the same time she give a little push on boy's back. "Come now, introduce yourself."
It was uncommon to have a new student admitted in the late summer where the autumn rains started to grace the valley and the summer heat did not seem to be going away but again, it was not unheard off. To have new student meant there were a new resident moved in into this faraway valley.
The boy who had a dark hair, dark eyes, and small and fragile body yet his gaze did not waver. He did not look like he was intimidate by the new environment he was in and he held his gaze to every person inside the classroom, from one to the other until he saw a girl at the back of the class near the window. His stare was unnerving. The other kids kept on anxiously glancing back and forth, waiting for something to happen yet nothing happen when Miss Ariel broke the silence.
"You okay, Gitto?" she asked concerned with the possibilities that might brew from the tension before.
The look the boy gave her was stoic and unfazed. He returned his attention back to his classmate and introduced himself as curtly as his expression would allow. "I'm Gitto Lee."
And that was all he ever said and made the homeroom teacher laughed a nervous laugh. He even did not wait for further instruction and strutted his way to a vacant seat beside the girl that he set his eyes before.
She was the oddest in the class, with a raven hair so dark that it felt like it looked the night sky without stars and her face was void of any features when most of them were covered by her long fringe. She was staring at him, not knowing what kind of impression that she perceived nor was that he doing any better.
"Right class! Gitto just recently moved here and even though he is a year younger, he has shown his potential as better as any of you here so I hope that you treat him well and Stella," Miss Ariel called the girl who was analyzing her desk mate's attitude.
"Would you be a dear and be his buddy until he can properly adapt to this school?" the teacher asked and they can hear a snort or two coming from the other kids.
"Okay," she replied.
"Is it okay, Gitto?"
He shrugged.
However the whole class thought differently as they peered at them one last time before Miss Ariel started her class for that morning. No one would ever believe if that stoic boy and that freak girl would be the best of friend for each other, not until that day came.
IT WAS ALMOST a week the new boy sat beside her and be her desk mate. It was an upgrade in her life as she only sat alone all the time since she started school here three year ago but she did not take him as someone who behaved the same as her. In sense, he liked to be alone most of the time and the conversation that they had never more than just, 'hey, you, and bye'.
Occasionally, they did shared a few moment together without even having any conversation. They just sat at their desk, their heads slumped on the surface of the desk and they faced their face to the window. It was recess and most of the kids were out playing or eating at the cafeteria but they both unanimously decided that it was time to go cloud sighting.
It should be something fascinating, to see the clouds rolled in lazy afternoon motion and once in a while an adult magic user would popped behind the cotton-like clouds, jumping from one to the other. Yet all she could ever thought of was a firm reminder that she could never cloud-jumping like that. It was a hopeless dream to start with and at that time she wondered if Gitto could do any magic just like her classmates. He was a year younger than her and he skipped a grade, so he must be a genius in something to be able to be in this class but the moment she turned her head, her desk mate was no longer there.
"How is your buddy faring? Is he nice? Maybe a wee-bit friendly perhaps?" her homeroom teacher asked when she went to see her to deliver the workbooks that she had collected as instructed before that teacher left the class.
"You're asking for something impossible but he's okay," Stella commented.
Miss Ariel nodded apprehensively. "You don't... try talk to him?"
"I did."
Her eyes lighted up hearing it. It sparkled and twinkled like a pet dog Stella's neighbor once had. "Simple morning greeting."
"And?"
"You."
"You?"
"Bye."
Miss Ariel was stunned by the number of their exchanged conversation that she was left with no words to comment. She heaved a sigh and gave Stella an encouraging smile. "Better than nothing right?" she said.
"Well, we did this activity once," Stella proposed.
"Really?"
The homeroom teacher reaction always made Stella thought that she never make a mistake or that she was a freak, for the matter. Maybe this was the reason she could handle such halloo-balloo class like hers. She was someone who sincere and unafraid of what she believes and her believes, are at her students.
"What kind of activity you two did?"
"Staring out at the clouds."
Once again Miss Ariel was caught dumbfounded.