I must've taken a nap while listening to my teacher's lecture in the second period because the break time was already over when I woke up.
I let out a long yawn as I gazed at the blank board. The hallways are slowly clearing up because students are starting to go down. I looked back at our classroom's wall clock and saw that it's just three minutes before the first bell will ring.
I get up and pick up my stuff that's scattered on the floor. I stuff my books under my chair, and I put my pen and coin purse inside my pocket. I sighed as I picked up some trash and tossed it in the cabinet behind the blackboard.
'Let's just hope that the SLTCs won't be checking the cabinets today,' I thought as I strided my way out of our classroom.
The first bell rang, and with that, I ran my way down the stairs. There's still a lot of students on the second floor who, like me, hurriedly move downstairs. I also spotted an SLTC officer approaching our building, so I have no choice but to hasten further. The moment my feet reached the ground floor, I sprinted my way towards the gym. A lot of students were also moving fast towards the gym. I almost bumped into senior students when I pushed my way into the gym. The SLTCs were already on the gates, and some of them frowned as they saw streams of almost-late students coming in.
'Well, I can't blame them for feeling that way because who wouldn't want to exercise superiority over many latecomers? I mean, lecturing a few of them would be boring—I guess,' I thought as I slowed down and lazily walked towards our class line.
"One—Forward! Two—Up! Up! Down! Silence. Please prepare yourselves for the prayer," the head of the SLTC ordered sternly as he handed the microphone to his assistant.
The whole gym became silent as the SLTC officer started the prayer, and after that, the usual announcements and noises came back. The cacophony of voices and noises made my head somehow ache. I rubbed my temples to lessen the headache I'm experiencing.
I didn't get enough sleep the other night because I finished my—our minibook project. Unfortunately, I've been paired with a not-so-academically-committed classmate of mine, so working singlehandedly on our project became a must. I glanced at her and saw that she was busily gossiping with her clique.
I gritted my teeth in annoyance.
'Great! Just great! Here I am suffering the aftermath of a sleepless night, while there she is dilly-dallying with her friends. I bet their partners also had it the same with me,' I grimly pondered as I closed my eyes briefly.
Our line moved, and after a few minutes of walking and taking the stairs, we finally arrived at our classroom. I immediately sat down the moment we arrived at our classroom.
I was about to take a brief nap again when our teacher came. We all stood up and greeted her with the usual greeting.
"Good afternoon also... Live and love Jesus and Mary with joy; please take your seats," our teacher greeted as she motioned for us to sit down.
The minutes after that were a blur because I'd been either dozing off or listening absentmindedly to our teacher's lecture. Everything that she was saying at that time seemed to pass through my ears. Luckily, there was no recitation that day, or else I'd be dead—well, not me but my grades.
I'm one of the recipients of the school's full scholarship, so I really need to maintain my grades. Also, I aim to be one of the top students, so I work harder to get high grades—and not just satisfactory ones.
I held back my yawn because the last subject teacher before our lunch came in. She immediately greeted us as usual.
"Natapos na ba ninyo ang inyong PETA? Pakipasa kung ito'y iyong natapos na. Ang nakapasa ngayon ay makakatanggap ng karagdagang puntos, kaya pakipasa na ito sa harap!" (Did you finish your PETA [Performance Task]? Please pass it if you're done. The ones who submitted their outputs today will receive additional points, so please pass it to the front!), she said cheerfully as she opened her record book.
I rummaged my backpack, and my heart skipped a beat when I didn't find my project.
'I put it here just this morning... So, where is it?', I thought while rummaging further in my backpack.
"Gette, please pass mine," Sam said while handing their output to me. I immediately grabbed it and passed it to the person sitting in front of me.
As moments passed, I felt my agitation rising, but before I could burst out, I suddenly saw a paper sticking out of my textbook. I immediately fished it out and saw it was my output—our output!
"Gette, did you pass ours already?", Gela, my partner in this project, asked.
I really fought the urge to roll my eyes and lash out at her. Instead, I flashed a fake smile at her and nodded.
'So much for the pretentions', I thought as I stood up to hand it to my teacher.
Later on, the teacher gave her instructions about our final exam, and after that, she gave us the remaining time to study in advance. Of 'course, those who are still not finished with their PETA will use their time to finish theirs.
I slumped back in my chair in relief.
'A sleepless night is totally worth it,' I thought as I slowly drifted to sleep, but before I fell to my well-deserved nap, a voice awoke me.
It's Jen.
"Say, Gette, did Gela really contribute something to your output?", she asked loudly. I turned to where Jen was and saw that Gela and her friends were there.
As much as I wanted to say, 'No, she didn't contribute an ounce of effort', I decided against it because I thought this would embarrass her.
"Yes...", I said with a hint of reluctance.
"See—I told you, I'm the one who made the cover, and I'm also the one who made the plot!"
'Wait—what? She made what?!', I thought angrily.
I was furious because I knew she technically hadn't helped me. Instead, she added weight to my burdens while making our output! She literally just gave an image from Google that was so blurred to be used for the minibook cover; that's why I had no choice but to just search for a similar one again. Also, the preview for the minibook, which I tasked her to make, was really riddled with grammatical errors, plus it was really far from our story's plot. I made the effort to tell her to read the story I made first before making the preview, but she didn't even reply to my chats until I said that I'd just make another preview.
But what really made my blood boil the most is the fact that she's claiming that she made the plot?!
'Hilarious!', I shouted angrily in my mind.
She didn't make any contribution to the construction of the plot. I even painstakingly chatted with her a lot of times if she could suggest any idea, but she just responded that maybe romance. Maybe romance?! There's a lot of romance out there, and that's what I've recommended to her before I asked for further ideas—and now she's claiming it was all her idea?
My anger was almost reaching its peak when Jen suddenly laughed. I somehow snapped back, and then I looked at her incredulously.
"You—what? I read your minibook, and you definitely can't make that kind of story," she said airily.
Gela looked at her crossly, but later on she saw me glaring at her. She stopped making an annoyed face and bit her lips.
"So what? What matters is that we're finished," she said reluctantly.
"I mean, writing a story? That's not so you—Gela," Jen said in a consoling manner.
I knew Jen had just attempted to redeem the crushed ego of her lying friend. Gela seemed to understand what Jen was trying to do, so she just went along with it.
I let out a breath of relief because if it weren't for Jen, I would have gone really mad. I don't have a lot of patience with lying people, so if Jen hadn't beat me to exposing her friend's lies, then I would have done it in the worst possible way.
I was about to go out the school gates when somebody caught my arm. I whirled around, and to my shock, it was Gela.
I frowned at her, but my frown didn't last long because later on it was replaced by bewilderment as she handed me something.
I opened my palm and saw that it was money! It's a twenty-peso bill ($0.35). I immediately tried to return it to her, but she didn't accept it.
"The project's done, so I think—
"It's yours—it's my payment for the printing fees and also for the... You know what I mean," she said before turning her back at me and walking away.
I don't know, but somehow what she did got me thinking, for I can't conclude the exact reason why she did that.
'A way to redeem her ego?'
'An apology?'
'Or a thank-you gift?'
Well, I'm not certain why, and later on, that became irrelevant for me as my attention drifted to the street food's stall outside our school.
My stomach grumbled, and I smiled as I felt the bill inside my palm.
"This will be a lot of tempura balls!", I muttered excitedly as I skipped my way towards the stall.