Ali watched the man sitting next to him from the corner of his eyes. The previous incident with the dusty box had been forgotten as Mrs Zhang told Scott to put the box in the small space behind the whiteboard.
As if noticing Ali's discreet looks on him, he nudged the other's arm as soon as Mrs Zhang turned around with her back facing them. "Hi, I'm Scott. Heard about you from the students in your Class 4A. It's your class, right?"
Although the other man was whispering with a low voice, Ali was still terrified of the possibility that Mrs Zhang could hear them. Who knows she is blessed with a great hearing? Plus, they were the nearest one to her as well.
After taking a glance towards Mrs Zhang and ensuring that she was still talking to the whiteboard and it was safe for him to respond, Ali nodded. The other man smiled and leaned back to his seat, as if satisfied with his answer and had no intention of furthering the conversation.
Ali glanced at the other man once again. That was it? His students talked about him to another new teacher and then what? Sure, he was the one worried of getting caught chatting by the principal when he was supposed to focus on the meeting, but his curiosity would not let him sit still.
Ali leaned back to his seat as well until his left shoulder almost met the other's right shoulder. He crossed his arm over his chest and asked him quietly, "What did they say about me?"
Scott raised his eyebrow. After several moments, he then whispered back "The students?" When Ali gave a subtle nod, his confused expression was immediately replaced with a lazy smile. "They talk about you and other stuff but mostly, they were complaining about the test in your class today."
Scott was talking in a very low voice that Ali had to resort to reading his lips instead at some point. Thankfully, he was quick to notice that Mrs Zhang's back was no longer facing them.
He quickly averted his eyes from Scott back to her before she had the time to notice. However, Scott was smarter.
He continued whispering to Ali but made sure to keep his hand covering his mouth with a thoughtful expression on his face while maintaining his eye contact with Mrs Zhang all at the same time.
"How did you even find the time to write tests for them every day? They were complaining but I thought it was impressive. I could never."
Upon hearing that, Ali tried to hold back a scoff. He felt disbelief that while the other is admiring his skill in finding time to torture his students with tests, he was more impressed of the man's skill in acting innocent.
Mrs Zhang, had been passing distrusting glances to them throughout the meeting. While it was also plausible that she was simply looking at them as they were the nearest one to her, Ali found the first explanation to be more likely to apply to his case than the positive assumption one.
Noticing that Ali was not replying to his earlier comment, Scott inched himself closer to Ali's seat and whispered to him as if the present time was the only chance of them talking to each other and that Ali would disappear from the face of the world right after the meeting.
"How old are you?" He asked. Ali could not resist but to roll his eyes at the question while his hands jotted down any random thoughts he had in mind.
Although his eyes were on the school principal, his mind might already have travelled around the world, combined with the distraction in human form next to him. Concentration was definitely out of the picture.
In contrast, the other teachers were dead focused on Mrs Zhang.
Their intense eyes were directly on her the whole time and Ali was pretty sure, unlike him that had resorted to doodling aimlessly to fend off the sleepiness, those teachers actually paid attention.
Of course, there were the odd ones like Mr Andi who openly played a game on his phone in the middle of the meeting and Mrs Zhang seemed to straight up ignore him. Maybe since he did his business silently without distracting his colleagues.
Ali however, was still distracted. The words uttered by the woman got in his left ear and left through his right ear. If she were to ask him anything, Ali would have no idea at all.
Just like that, his name was suddenly being called by the school principal.
"I could not help noticing that you kept whispering with Mr Scott. What is so interesting? Would you like to share with the rest of us?" Mrs Zhang said, with her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes staring deep into Ali's soul, with her mouth forming a small smirk.
Noticing the smirk, the gears in Ali's mind instantly worked extra hard on that day in order to make up a reasonable answer for its unlucky owner. "It's nothing interesting. He was just asking me for a spare pen." Ali said cautiously, he was still wary of the woman's facial expression.
She turned her head towards Scott whose eyes kept flitting nervously from Ali and her during the interaction. "Is it true?" Under her sharp stare, Scott nodded with an uncomfortable smile on his face.
Mrs Zhang was anything but satisfied. Thankfully, she dropped the topic as soon as she brought it up as otherwise, Ali had no more idea for an appropriate comeback.
"I see, Then, can you kindly share your idea with the rest of us?"
Ali's eyes widened instantly. Idea for what? He was not listening to her at all so how could he give her an answer. However, it would have been better if he had control over his surprise well and his mouth did not accidentally spit out the word, "Pardon?"
"The theme. Sports Day. It's three weeks away." Mrs Zhang furrowed her eyebrows deeper. "Don't tell me you don't know anything about this."
Ali glanced towards the other teachers on the meeting table. Apparently, he had became the focus at the moment. He felt exposed as if he was on a stage and a spotlight was shone right to his head.
Ali bit his lips. There was not getting out of the situation. Even Miss Laila who was sitting to his right and who could be his only saviour at the time, looked terried of even utter a word to him. "Yes. I don't know."
"It has been on the notice board for the past month. You haven't read it?"
"No. I have not. I've only been here three days, so …"
"Is that really your excuse? You know that I've been talking about this for …" She paused and looked down to her watch, huffing in frustration. "Yeah, for 20 minutes already and that was all you've got to say to me. Did you pay any attention at all?"
Ali inhaled discreetly, hoping to calm his beating heart after being attacked word by word in front of his colleagues. It was embarassing and demeaning but it is also true that Ali was not paying attention.
However, there was no way he would let her know that.
He took several moments trying his best to ignore the daggering stares of the principal and recall what sort of theme his previous school did.
" Yes, I did, Mrs Zhang. How about we make a list of themes and let the students vote for the theme that they like the most? Or do we make the students propose the themes they want to and give out awards to those who came up with the most creative theme?"
He then continued, "By doing that, we do not need to do the guesswork for the students and it will help the students to unleash their creativity." Ali said carefully with his eyes fixated on Mrs Zhang who were listening to him while spinning a pen around her thumb.
Her eyebrow wrinkled and her lips pressed together with a slight frown. Facing such a reaction made it difficult for Ali to observe the true emotion experienced by the other.
After several moments, she finally said, "Basically, you want to let the student do the theme that they want. Is that what you are suggesting?"
Truthfully, Ali quite disagreed with the loose way she interpreted his suggestion since he basically wanted the students' opinion to be taken into account along with the indirect benefit of not having to decide by themselves. So, he resorted to answer, "Kind of, yes ~"
Right after his answer, Mrs Zhang rolled his eyes so much that she could see the back of her head. With both of her hands on her waist and a scowl on her face, she remarked, "Then, if it is that easy, what are we doing here? Why are we having this meeting where we could have gone home already?"
'I'm wondering about that too.' Of course Ali did not dare to say it out loud.