The Slap
    I wake up as my cell phone lights up next to my soft pillow: “Countdown: zero-day.” I bounce off my bed, dress up, and rush out to school in the midst of summer holiday. I never knew the summer holiday after graduation could be that long, so long that I have started to miss all my friends.
   The bus ride to school today feels quite empty. It doesn’t have the smell of students eating their breakfast on the bus and the competition we were forced to have to get on the bus; a sense of unfamiliarity raises inside me. After all, it has already become part of my daily life in the 1.38-billion-population country. Thinking of the reunion with my classmates in half an hour, a past event, like a rock dropped into the water, stirs up a wave in my mind as I begin to remember the first time I met them.
    It was a pretty autumn. Walking on the crunchy maple leaves on my way to the middle school, I knew it was the time to start a new chapter in my life. The trees were as red as fire, and the teachers were quite enthusiastic as well. During the noon break, the sun was hidden behind heavy grey clouds, and the low air pressure made everyone depressed. Suddenly, a loud, sharp slap broke the quietness in the classroom. A student in a blue uniform had just left the teachers’ office and was walking toward the classroom. The blush on his face was so clear that everyone seemed to notice, but no one knew it was just the beginning.
    “Oh, Kris! What happened to you?”
    “Did the head teacher slap you?”
    “Kris, are you okay?”…
     Everyone was truly shocked by this slap. Within seconds, Kris was surrounded by other classmates and became the focus. Kris was known as a bad student within the first few days, but suddenly he received a lot of care from his new classmates and didn’t know how to respond other than smiling. As the circle around him grew bigger, a class-wide conversation about the slap was fully opened and brought unfamiliar classmates closer together. Our voices flew outside of the classroom, across the hallway, and finally flew to the head teacher’s ears. I looked towards the classrooms across the hallway as I started noticing the abnormal, dead quietness hanging over the campus. I turned my rigid body around. The head teacher’s eagle eye was fiercely staring at us; half of his face was hidden by the door frame. You can never imagine how the anger burned in his dark brown eye, the anger towards us breaking the quietness of the noon break and disobeying the rules. I glanced at the clock and the second hand was barely moving.
    “Just five minutes before the end of the noon break…The rule of no talking during noon break is so mean…”  As I whispered to myself, I shot a glance at the person next to me, pointing to the door. Within ten seconds, we all accepted the fact that the head teacher who was in charge of the freshman class was very mad at us. As soon as we got quiet, the roaring of pent-up anger was hurled at us, like an overflowing dam.

    “You are the worst students I’ve ever had.” That was what he repeated the most often.

     The bell rang at the worst possible time as students started to gush out of different classrooms. Standing in front of the main hall was my class’s punishment; we were exposed to great embarrassment. When he finally finished lecturing us and was about to leave, he glanced over us meaningfully for the last time. I tried to escape from his gaze; nevertheless, his eyes still stopped on me.
     “You… are you the monitor?’’ He was still staring at me with his eagle eyes.
     “Yes. I am the –––”
     “You are? Then do you know what duties you have?” His anger was lit again. “You are supposed to be in charge of the class! Can’t you hear the class talking that loud? Can’t you? My office is at the furthest corner from here, and I can still hear them talking.” He fired a dozen questions concerning my duties without even letting me answer, but I actually had nothing to say since I did let them talk and I did not dare to talk back to him.
    “So did you warn them not to talk?” After calming down a little, he finally realized that he forgot to ask this important question, so important that it made this story carve deeply in my memory.
    “I…”
    “She did, but we weren’t listening.” Someone had spoken up for me when I had hesitated to tell the truth. I could never imagine that someone would exculpate for me. Looking toward the direction where the sound was from, the blush was still clear on Kris’ face. I tried to hide any facial expression and my shock; after all, I didn’t want to waste his effort of bailing me out. The teacher then glanced at me hesitantly; without seeing the shock on my face, he soon nodded to set me free from the punishment.  

    Afterward, I heard that they had stood there for half an hour, till the start of the next class.
    Looking out the window, the bus is getting closer and closer to the destination. I still don’t know why Kris covered for me that day. Maybe it is because of the friendship that was built up when he was first cared for by me and the class; maybe it was his way of expressing the disagreement with the head teacher. Either way, it is memorable that a person who had known me for only a few days would speak up for me. The warm sun shines on me as more and more memories flash through my mind.

    Seeing Kris and all these familiar faces, I shared this story with them again. Time passes by; we shift from strangers to friends. I still remember the scene when I first met them; however, growing up is a journey of saying farewell to people that once existed in my life.

(That’s my middle school ↑)

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