Around a month after our first term's result was declared, our class was called into the 'special' classroom again. That was just a room with a projector. This time, the whole seventh grade was called, not just our section. I was curious but not excited. I was no longer interested in participating in any competition. I had started to believe that there was no point in even winning, at least not in my school. Winning multiple times and yet not getting anything but a certificate ended up leaving me demotivated.
Everyone was talking when a teacher came to our class and told us to be quiet. That teacher was none other than our vice principal. Everyone stopped talking, even delinquents. We didn't respect her or anything. It was just fear that came with her title of vice principal. That was the only special thing about her.
Let me tell you about her. She was very short and used to come to school in a school bus while our principal had several cars and a driver. Difference between the vice principal and principal was like sky and earth. There were rumours that even teachers didn't like her. If our principal didn't want to do something, she would just make the vice principal do it. It was not easy to believe that she was the vice principal of a private school.
But we were just students. Even though we didn't respect or like her, we couldn't show our true feelings. That's just real world. From the way she and other teachers were behaving, it seemed like someone special was coming. Few seconds later, two men entered the room, and they looked surprisingly ordinary. I was not hoping for a Hollywood celebrity to show up but at the very least, I had been expecting them to wear suits. I thought that maybe what they were going to talk about was going to be special, not them and their appearance. Spoiler alert, I was completely wrong.
After half an hour, all of us were exhausted. We wanted to go back to our class. But I was both bored and infuriated. It turned out not even what they had to talk about was special. Those men were there to inform us about an examination their institution was going to conduct. They called it a 'talent search examination'. They could have explained it in few minutes, left and find another school. But they had too much free time. They said that winners would get a lot of prizes! Who would fall for such a predictable and cheap tactic. The exam even had participation fees! Clearly it was just a way to rip people off. If even few thousand students participated, they would make a lot of money even if they gave prizes to the winners. Only an idiot would fall for it.
… I fell for it. I had a reason! See, at that time, no one in my house had a smart phone. Neither my sister nor my mom had one because they were expensive. Almost every house had at least one, but we were too poor. And one of the prizes was a smartphone. I ended up giving up to my temptations. It was my fault that I still had not learned my lesson. I was still naïve and easy to fool. I thought it was worth the risk… I was not into gambling.
All students got a booklet with all the details about the exam. The exam was going to contain questions from all the subjects. The syllabus was the same as our first term's exams. I was already well prepared and confident that I would win. While sitting in the class, all I thought was about how I could convince my mom to give me the participation fees. I went home and used every tactic and strategic I could think of, but nothing worked. I wasn't aware but we weren't too different from actual beggars. My mom had become immune to my moves, and I never noticed it. In the end, I was left with no choice but to use a sealed ancient art, 'Emotional Blackmail'.
It only works on your loved ones, and there is a limit to the number of times you can use it. But if conditions are fulfilled and it's used correctly, you can make them do anything you want.
No matter how strong her defences were, nothing could save her from that move. I guilt tripped her so badly that she gave up. Emotional blackmail combined with a little of begging and self-pity and I managed to convince her, and she gave me the participation fees. Instead of the fees, I should have used that move to convince her to buy a smartphone. It would have been easier for me. I couldn't be too selfish even if I wanted to be. I knew our financial condition.
The next day, I went to school and submitted my fees to my vice principal. Maybe she didn't trust others with the money. Many students had participated from my class including the girl everyone believed I liked, Autumn, Patricia, Dirk etc. Not everyone from my friend group had participated, reasonably so. At least, they knew what they were capable of. I may have been smarter than others, but I was not as self-aware as them.
There was only a week left until the exam. I was not worried because I was prepared enough. Every day of the week passed like usual. Nothing out of ordinary happened except for one incident. One day during the recess, Autumn approached me. If you don't remember, she was the girl from my village who used to look like a boy and study all the time. I used to go to her home to get homework when I didn't go to the school. But we weren't close. We had a purely mutually beneficial relationship. In fact, we didn't even use to talk to school because I was scared my classmates would misunderstand it.
Okay, I will be honest, I was a little scared of her. Because while she was a bookworm, she was a boxer. Although she hadn't won anything more than a few tournaments at city level, she was still stronger than an average boy. Her personality wasn't also like that of a saint. I used to avoid her if possible. So, when she approached me herself, I was a little nervous. I knew she was not a bully and that's why I decided to listen to her. I was ninety nine percent sure that I had not done anything wrong to her.
That should give you an idea about how strong I was… I blame it on the fact that I still hadn't started going through puberty.
She told me that a certain organization was organizing a science fair and she wanted me to participate along with her. I was taken aback because I couldn't think of a reason as to why she would ask me. Why didn't she ask her friends? I came up with multiple answers in my mind. It was unlikely but maybe all of her friends were uninterested. If not, then maybe she didn't even ask her friends because she was afraid, they would refuse or maybe she didn't think they were smart enough…
I didn't ask her that, but I did ask her about what I needed to do. She told me that all I needed to do was to give her money for the project and she would take care of everything all by herself. It sounded weird at first, but I realized I was overthinking things. Her dad was an electrician. She told me herself that he was going to take care of it. Maybe she was embarrassed of it and that's why she didn't ask her friends and instead asked me since I knew it. She probably knew that I wouldn't judge her. Like I said, overthinking was my superpower.
The reason she asked me was because we belonged to the same village and our houses were not too far away from each other. It was probably a group competition, or she would have participated alone. She wasn't poor like me; she didn't need my money.
She had convinced me. I wasn't scared to refuse her or anything. She just made a deal that was too good to be refused. And she wasn't trying to scam me because Aria was participating with us. It's not like she could buy anything more than a few snacks with that money. The final decision wasn't up to me in the first place. I told her that I had to ask my mom. And she agreed. She didn't try to force me or make fun of me. So, she definitely wasn't after my money. That's how poor I was. While it was not a lot she was asking for, I had already given participation fees for that exam. I wasn't sure if my mom would agree.
Like every other time, I was wrong. My mom didn't agree to give me money because of the reason I already knew. I couldn't use the ancient technique again. That was one of its drawbacks. Honestly, I was also not that interested to risk using it against her again. But… once my mom found out I was participating with Autumn, she agreed to give me the money immediately. She no longer asked anything. All because she believed Autumn was a smart girl. How easily she agreed to give me the money after hearing Autumn's name once made me wonder… was the problem not our lack of money but instead her lack of trust in me?
That day I realized that my own mother trusted a girl she barely knew more than her own son.