"My god! Shakira, it's just a pen!" A voice rang loudly inside the classroom, in competition with the bell sound that marked recess time.
I was just stretching my joints from sitting too much when the sudden shriek startled me. I turned my head towards the source of the voice, much like everyone else, curious as to what happened. It seemed to me that Shakira had a dispute with her tablemate.
"Laras, that's not what I meant-"
"What, then? Tell me, why do you fuss so much over a cheap pen?" Laras said, interrupting Shakira's attempt to make her case.
"It's not about the pen-"
"It IS about the pen! I said I lost it, but you kept pressing me! Just buy another!"
Shakira just sat there, looking at Laras in confusion.
'Oh, it's those, right? I saw several posts online about this. It's about people in debt being furious at the debtor.' My heart said.
Indah went towards the location of the dispute, and asked, "What's the problem?"
Laras and Shakira moved their gaze towards Indah. While Shakira's eyes glimmered with hope, Laras' eyes were burning with hellfire rage.
"Why don't you ask her?" Laras said, then tried to leave the classroom, but was stopped by Indah.
"How about we make amends now since everyone involved is present?" She said.
Laras shot a glare even more furious, but before she made another scene, Shakira put her hand on Indah's shoulder and said, "It's okay Indah, nothing happened."
Due to Shakira's diffusing statement, Laras went on her way out of the class. Indah seemed like she had so much more to say, but decided to hold it in instead.
Now that the situation was cleared, everyone went back to their initial activities. Those around Shakira started to question her about what had transpired between her and Laras. Since I have nothing else better to do, I decided to move my body a little by taking a walk to the canteen, but before I had the chance to do that, Indah switched into class representative mode and made an announcement.
"Guys, I have an announcement!" She said, drawing attention from the present classmates.
"As everyone already knows, our school's going to hold a culture festival around 27th-28th October. Each class will get to perform. The question is, what are we going to do?"
1 minute passed. 2 minutes passed. Yet, no one ever said any suggestions, including me. I decided to stay silent because I'm afraid that I wouldn't be able to help with the class performance. The handicraft club already decided that every member will help decorate the school.
Indah turned around her body to face the whiteboard, grabbed the black marker on the corner, and started writing her ideas. I read the contents as she quickly scribbled the board in beautiful letters.
"Wow, she can write in Times New Roman manually." I whispered my impression to Kevin half-jokingly. He giggled.
Fashion show, theatrical play, poem, and lecture. Those were what Indah came up with by herself, and after she decided she no longer had an idea, she turned her body to face everyone again.
Indah was seemingly impatient, so she pointed at me and asked, "Uril. Got any other ideas?"
Being suddenly called out made me slightly irritated, but at the same time, I couldn't help but pity her for being ignored. I rested my cheek on my hand, looking at the ceiling, pondering.
"Sing along?" I expressed my thoughts.
She looked at me for a while, showing her disinterest in my boring suggestion before writing it on the whiteboard. 'Hey, it's still a valid option.' I said inwardly.
"Excuse me," Kevin's friend, Azka, raised his hand, wanting to voice his thoughts. "Don't you think we should consult with the other classes first?" He said.
"Why is that?" Indah asked him.
"Well, much like ours, they do also have ideas, right?"
"Yes, and your point is?" Indah pressed for Azka's further response.
"I mean, we might have some ideas of what we want to do, but it might clash with other classes." Azka said with a bit of stutter because of the pressure Indah exerted.
Indah looked deep into Azka. I'm not an esper or anything, but I think she says 'Who do you think will meet up with other class reps?' or something along that line inside her mind.
But my thought was proved wrong, as what she argued was, "Wouldn't it be better if we ended up being the first to come up with the idea?"
"But still, we had to give them a chance, so..." Azka argued back, his voice slowly vanishing as he went on talking.
Indah sighed at Azka's response and concluded the brief meeting. "Alright, we'll discuss this later on. Dismissed."
****
Had it been any other days, I would walk home with Indah to the busway station as soon as school time ended. However, for this day, Indah was called by the student council along with other class representatives to discuss the theme for each class performance. Nevertheless, I still waited for her. She had done this before for me, so I felt obliged to return the favor. After I told her the rendezvous point, I went to the canteen to spend a bit of my time there.
I was in the process of buying some roasted peanuts when one of the stall ladies called me out. "Boy! Come here!"
I went over to her stall which was about to conclude for the day. Before I even asked what she needed from me, she spoke, "You're Indah's boyfriend, right? Can you-"
"No, I'm not, ma'am." I interrupted her, correcting her statement. Why would she assume that Indah and I have such a relationship?
"Oh, really? You both seemed to stick together a lot. Don't lose hope, boy." She gave me pitying eyes while spewing some encouragement, which I don't need. But I don't have the heart to tell her, so I just smile it out.
She then stretched a transparent plastic box to me. Inside, there were crumbs of fried flour, indicating that fritters had been contained inside. While holding some amount of money in her hand, she spoke again, "Can you please give this to her?"
"Ah, she will come here later, so perhaps you could give it to her directly by then."
"She usually would pick it up earlier. But I'm about to go home, boy. Do me a favor and give these to her." She said, shoving me the box and the money. "Bye, boy." She left immediately before I could even express another reluctance.
I'm not sure why she would entrust the task to me, but now I have this thing to deliver, and I have no choice but to protect it with my life on the line. Well, maybe not to that extreme, but a matter of trust is important.
It was roughly sixty minutes before Indah finally showed up in the canteen. As soon as her figure was caught in my line of sight, I got up from the bench at once and approached her. Somehow a feeling of déjà vu crept inside me.
"Sorry, it took longer than expected." She said as she clapped her hands apologetically.
"Apology accepted." I said in a flat, robotic tone and proceeded to give her the plastic box and the money entrusted to me. "The stall lady said to give this to you."
When she saw the box, she hit her forehead with her palm as if a realization had struck her. "Shoot, I forgot. Thanks, Uril." She said. In a quick moment, she put the box into her randsell. When she was done packing things up, we walked out of school.
"What was the box about, anyway?"
"This? My mom sells fritters. I decided to help a bit, so I made arrangements with the lady from the canteen to sell it at her stall."
"Whoa. What a good kid." I said half-jokingly. What she just did was very commendable. I mean, how many in our class would do that? Not that I know.
"What? Are you teasing me?" She said while punching my shoulder.
"No, it is pure admiration."
After I spewed those compliments, Indah closed her mouth tight and a hint of red on her cheeks was showing. Her reaction has infected me and it made me feel perplexed. In effect, I couldn't help but turn my gaze away from her.