No sooner had the bell rung than the students raised from their chairs and started sieging the classroom door. If it wasn't for the generosity of Mr. Yanuar, then such a scene would only ever happen in a utopian society, where teachers would actually stop spoiling the whiteboard, or delivering their lectures, or announcing a new assignment as the bell is ringing. They would instead be immediately putting down their hands, clamping their mouths shut, and going back to their desk, and after lifting up whatever it is they had brought in, they'd walk out of the classroom with a poker face; in my utopian society, teachers are expected to perform like robots, just as they expect their students to do so. Obviously, Mr. Yanuar didn't base his decision to head out earlier and leave his students unattended before the bell rang on my crazy aspiration. He said he would be having a teachers' meeting later on the day, and he happened to be one of the people who had to make sure the preparation of it was going well.
There were only two people who didn't take part in the siege: me and Rania Nebula. Rania only stood up after the commotion had died down and some sense of tranquillity had descended upon the room. Whether she did it on purpose or not, I had no idea. She then walked towards my desk and stopped right at a spot where my gaze would naturally be laid on her stomach.
"Pram, I'm so sorry to break this to you, but—"
"But I should do the clean-up all by myself?"
She breathed a sigh. "I'm afraid you should. I was equally surprised that those brats could be missing at the exact same time. Are you okay with that?"
'Those brats' were four other people who, along with me, were supposed to do the clean-up on Thursdays. All of them were sick that day, leaving me in such a predicament. It's not like they were that good at the job, but as useless as they were, things could've been done five times quicker with all of them present.
"Even if I'm not, could you possibly come up with a solution?" I asked, standing up.
"Don't give me that," Rania said with a pouty face. "Anyway, since the condition is—"
"Hey," I broke in. "Come to think of it, why don't you help me out with all this? You've got nothing to do after school, right? Besides, as the class president, isn't it just natural for you to step in when shit hits the fan?"
"Well, I'd be more than happy to do so, but my hands are really full right now. You know, it's the student council stuff."
Up until that point, I totally forgot that Rania was in the student council. I couldn't recall which post she was at, but everyone in the school, students and teachers alike, had acknowledged her significance in the organisation for quite a while now. She may not be the president, they would say, yet the quick-wittedness of hers had often proven to be more practical in critical times than even the flesh and bones of the rest of the herd combined.
"You're right," I said in a tone that I hoped would indicate a sense of guilt. "Just leave it to me, then. But please don't expect it to be as good as it'd be with four extra manpower, okay?"
She gripped the right strap of her backpack, giving the impression that the thing was a bit too heavy to be comfortably supported by only one of her shoulders. Smiling, she then said, "I was going to say that you could do as little as aligning the chairs and sweeping the floor up for a bit. In fact, if it wasn't for the special occasion in which 'he' would show up and possibly cross this corridor, just aligning the chairs would've been enough."
"'He' as in the principal?"
"'He' as in the principal."
Rania walked out of the classroom after an exchange of "thank you." There was no "goodbye" said, although I took her appearance that gave off an air of composure, confidence, and intelligence at the same time as she walked towards the door as something that would make up for it. She may not be the type whose face would captivate every male's lustful gaze at first sight, but the fact that she spoke, dressed, and thought in a manner that was miles better than most other girls in the classroom, if not the entire school, did really make her stand out in her own ways. It was as if her outfit screamed "immaculate" to anyone who threw a glance, her essays screamed "genius" to anyone who gave them a read, and her footsteps screamed "de facto president of the student council" to anyone whom she walked past. She looked remarkable from where I was standing.