The door creaked opened, a shiny black leather pointed three inch heel stepped in, she had the fairest skin, a knee length red dress with a perfect sinch in her waist and two black lines at the end of her dress. She was lean, tall, maybe around her mid forty's, with long brown lustrous shiny wavy hair up to her waist. She had black eyes, a pointed nose, a small lip with a little deep black noticeable mole on the right side of her cheeks right below her eyes and the most symmetrical face but I was certain that the skin was virgin which never had to face the pain inflicted by knife.
"Good Morning Class!"
She said in a pretentious tone, I knew from then on that our dearest deadliest bomb, Ma'am Ilmi was up to something really big. She had that deceiving wicked smile and slowly mounted on the furnished wooden podium, with a firm determination she said,
"Since this is your first year, I will be going easy on you. Your are to prepare a detail report on the reasons for the destruction of the buildings during a calamity and for which you must be in a pair of four. You can also add some personal experiences of the affected people to fill your report with emotions and not be a automaton. Most importantly I get to decide whether you redo it. The deadline is on 5th of the next month, dare to miss it and you can stop coming to my class.
Now, what is the importance of concrete technology?"
There was pin drop silence and I could see her anger erupting, I recited the answers in my mind over thousand times yet I did not have the courage to stand and say it out loud. Call it stupidity, shyness or fear, but there's just nothing I could do about it.
"Let's take it the old school, you with the white shirt on; can you enlighten the class with your answer?"
Ara pinched slowly at my thigh, a sudden gush of warm wave blew in my lifeless body. It was only then I realized I was wearing white top, I look over to the direction she was pointing and cross check backward, forward and around to check for the white shirt, till I was realized it was me...
"Yes! You. We don't have the whole day."
Panic attack, I stood trembling and began to stutter answering the question that I have recited fluently over a thousand times in my mind.
"It deals with….with the study of properties of concrete and its practical applications."
After which I quickly sat embarrassment filled me, I didn't knew what or how I answered but only kept my head low as in not to make any further eye contact.
"You can smartly stand in the manner you have sat, I expect you to answer me smartly without asking you to do so. This implies to everyone, have I made myself clear?"
The whole class my mind was lost and only my blunt body was seated in the class.
"Sarine you were bang on, it indeed was legendary. Respect man, respect man."
Ara said while Brin and Kim came and sat on the front seat. Kim and Brin were laughing at the way how I ran away earlier and also my confused look when the teacher called me. I knew they meant no harm it was their way of making things fun. Kim suggested that the four of us be in a team. We all agreed and the only thing left was to select a particular topic and collect our data. It was decided that the two boys will be taking charge of Brin and I will decide the topic as Kim and Ara will be busy for the time being.
Brin and I headed to the club as we had a lot to discuss. The music feast was on the 20th and we still had not prepared anything.
"Will you be honest if I ask you something?"
I asked, Brin gave a sly smile and said,
'Go Ahead."
"Brin, how do you feel about.....