It was definitely not a Freudian slip. You see, no middle school boy enter the classroom during recess. They were all outside. Boys of that age were impossible to stop at late 90's. Most of them were probably playing tag or hide and seek right now. Absence of a ball was not a setback to play cath, knockout, football, basketball, or soccer. Empty cans, bottle caps, and crumpled paper balls were more than enough of a substitute.
Still, the most adventureous of them all would always play with contraband, -cards, marbles, and tazos-. I definitely named the first three students who enter the classroom and there was no way it was my fault that they were all girls. Not that, I was going to try to explain my actions to a 12 year old girl. I was old enough to know that winning such argument was already impossible.
The bell rang soon after and everyone went to their seats. Just as I expected most of the boys ran into the classroom right after the first bell, dirty and sweat covered unlike the girls that are still in pristine condition.
The second period was social studies with Mrs. Doyle. It was humbling to look forward, or should I say backwards, and realize how many thing have changed on the global scale over time.
Even after almost a decade, half of the word still wasn't aware of the consequences of the cold war's ending. China was still the largest poopulation and United States was still the largest economy and military. There were less than 190 members of the United Nations, and European Union was still a thing.
Global warming and micro plastics were still things unheard of but there was a hole in the ozone layer, hanging like the Sword of Damocles on the entire world.
Unmanned, cyber, and space warfare were still mostly science fiction and nuclear weapons were mostly strategic things owned and controlled by a few, instead of tactical things sold in Walmart.
It was still the fossil fuels that causes wars instead if clean water, and nuclear fission and artificial intelligence were just comic book material.
There were still no bases on Moon and Mars, and definitely no dozens of space hotels orbiting them. Most ironical difference however, young adults were still full of hope and potential, and they still wanted to become heroes and vigilantes instead of villains and villainesses.
Suddenly, a small and dainty hand passed a note to me and woke me up from my daze. Sienna, the little firecracker, couldn't stay still during the lesson, the reason I was sent to this seat in the first place. It was frightening how much teachers learn about their students after only a few minutes of observation.
The note was foldednin two, and there was a single sentence in it. "Can you see without your glasses." But I knew that s better translation would have been, 'I am bored, pay attention to me'.
Whatever my answer would have been, her next note was going to be something between in lines of a 'How?' or 'Why?'. Sienna was intrigued with her new friend, Mr. Great Memory, and trying to get close to him. After that, she would probably ask about the fight yesterday, and the reason I was sitting here, between her and her best friend. Final step would have been using me to pass notes to Desiree, who was dutifully listening the lecture.
Instead, I gave her something else to busy her restless mind. The note was, "Rule I: Never pass a note that is not coded.", and the introduction below was showing the coded version and way to cipher it. Two curved arrows to show the change between the first and the last letters of a word and a +1 above to show the change of the vowel to the next one in the line. "Ealr I: Rivin sesp e eatn thet so tan dadic."
The code was a simple thing I read in a novel somewhere. I passed the note from hand to hand directly instead of passing it on her desk. She was already watching me like a hawk form the moment I started writing on the back side of her own note, something the teacher immediately realized.
I did almost the same job for decades, only with adult children away from home. I knew for a fact that it was impossible to miss something like that regardless of how small a movement it is in a classroom of 20. Still, I was only stalling time. It would have taken more time to code-decode effectively reducing the amount of notes passed while satisfying her childish curiosity. 'Damn, I am too old for this stuff.'
Just as expected, no notes came for a long time and when it finally came it was the same note, 'Can you see without your glasses?' but it was coded this time.
Again, I didn't answer the question, but continued playing my own game. I sent the second rule I just came up on the run "Rule II: Use different kinds of codes for notes of different lengths. 1:Y 2:N 11:Hahahahahah" God bless AOEII taunts. I sent the answer of the question in a new line "1". I never made eye contact during the entire process, and again passed the note directly into her small hand.
She was literally beaming right now, and the teacher was aware of it. Not the note passing, we made sure to pass them when Mrs. Doyle was not looking. But Sienna was so elated that she was the image of what police records would have named as 'suspicious behavior'.
We have pased a few more notes, each time adding more more rules, like using emojis to add emotional reactions or destroying each note before writing another one. Even emojis were not a thing yet, and explaining them to a middle school student really sucked. By the time we exchanged the fifth note, I realized taht I was really having fun. It was good to be a child again with plenty of leisure time, no pressing resposibilities, and limited accountability. It felt like I was introducing the first space monkey into the Fight Club, which I bet would be in theaters in a few months.
Slowly, a plan started to form in my head. It was not a light bulb moment but more like a gradual thing. Sienna and Desiree did just a little bit worse than me in the high school placement tests and went to prestigious local high schools. Frank however, pretty much blasted the test and went to Trevor Scott High School where his father works. I didn't even know what the others did in the first place. But what if I could do something that would change it?
I was no Raistlin Majere, travelled in time for his imminent ascension while walking on the sand, following someone else's footprints. I have already decided doing whatever I want while still staying true to mine and myself. But what if I decide to nurse more than one friendship along the way. What if I moved with my own clique in life instead of soloing it?
I have already decided to work on education business untill I have enough capital to enter real estate. What if I add my classmates, old and new alike, to that? My mother always blamed me for not bringing any friends to home, unlike my sister. She knew all of her friends together with their families, unlike me who only brought a selected few and never get too close with their families. What if I combine all of these people into a big cluster network. Collecting my own space monkeys and forming own Fight Club... Was it even possible? Was it feasible? Do I have the necessary leadership skills for it? Resources? Regardless, there was nothing to loose. I could always spend the time for such a project instead of spending it on realtime or tabletop RPGs.
I always had only a handful friends in my life. The reason was not the lack of them -I had plenty- but the loss of them. Puberty does interesting things to kids mentally. I have lost plenty of friends to subtle racism, political bigotry or simple jealousy. I even lost a few friends to drugs, religious cults, extreme movements, and even terrorist organizations. Still, my mother and wife though I was the impressionable one.
It was close to end of the lecture when Mrs.Doyle suddenly decided that it was already enough, and intercepted Sienna's last note. She took a glance at the note but couldn't said anything else before the bell rang. Sienna was crestfallen when I stood up and leaned against her ear to whisper the last rule. "Rule VII: Change the code each time it is compromised."
The grin on her face was almost manic when I moved away. I am pretty sure that I am going to remember today as the day I deliberately feed the troll, and regret for the rest of my life.