Hi Camillia! I've seen your comment. Thanks for the advice. Since my cousin and my Grandma are coming I was thinking of something similar. Inviting the whole class is a good thing, but you would have to plan something massive! I'm just wandering where I can do it.
Karin opened a heavy brown door with papers and tiny pieces of gun stuck to it. Inside she found herself in a room with green dirty walls. There were many scratches and words written or carved out. The room seemed empty. The only furniture there was, was an old looking ugly bench and the only person was a girl who Karin didn’t recognize yet. The girl had glitter in her hair, black nailpolish and an iphone in her hands. You could barely see the apple sign on the back because it was all covered with stickers. The girl was texting someone.
“Excuse me,” Karin reached out to touch her shoulder, but as the girl looked up to her with heavy eyes (that surely did not belong to a child), Karin moved her hand away. “No nothing,” her lips said silently.
She realized that there was another door, opposite the one that she had just entered. Karin pulled the door knob, but the door wouldn’t open. She tried once more, but the door stood still.
“It’s locked,” the voice behind her said. It was the girl, Karin wanted to ask before. “It will open at 12,” the girl continued in her tired voice. “But I know the way out. Come with me.”
Karin and the girl were walking side by side. It was raining and the ground under them was dirty. The leaves on the bushes were about to fall.
“What’s your name?” Karin wanted to start a conversation.
“Anisa,” the girl answered roughly.
“And your age?”
“I’m 12.”
“So, you’re in 6th grade?” Karin wanted to make sure.
“No,” Anisa replied. “I’m still in 2nd grade.”
“How come?”
“I’m not the only one,” she began. “You know, we live in an undeveloped suckish country with the worst education in the world. Our people are stupid and so are the teachers here. Many people in my grade are older than me because we don’t agree with the rules they have here.”
It was silent again. Karin looked at Anisa who seemed like she didn’t want to talk.
“Why don’t you want to just follow the rules?” Karin continued. “Isn’t it possible? Don’t you want to graduate school, marry a man and… live happily ever after?”
Anisa sighed. “Marry someone from this country? You wish!”
“You have an awkward mind,” Karin smiled and laughed.
“Are you OK?” the girl asked, staring at her with astonishment. Karin showed misunderstanding. “They say laugher is a sign of stupidity.”
Nobody wanted to start a conversation again.
When Karin opened the door to the teaching room she no more felt enthusiastic about her new place of work. As she entered everyone in the room stared at her with heavy eyes. Karin didn’t feel sure. It looked as if all these people were laughing at her, even though none of them was grinning. One woman looked different from everyone else. She was smiling and had blond curly hair. For some reason, Karin knew, she was the right person to ask for help.
At lunch time, Karin and Lilia (that’s how the woman was called) sat together.
“Where do you come from?” Karin asked her new friend.
“It’s very far from here,” Lilia explained. “I left my country because I loved one man. We lived together and were very happy, but when he found out that I was going to have a child, he left me. And I had to stay here.”
“Does your child go to this school?”
“No. I don’t want my daughter to live here,” she sighed. “She doesn’t have a passport yet, so she can go wherever she likes while I’m stuck here.”
“So you’re used to this place?”
“Don’t worry, you will be too. I know it’s hard, but since you’re much younger than me you will adopt to this place better.”
Lilia’s words gave Karin a lot of hope. She no longer remembered Anisa with her mature eyes. She knew she was going to make it.
When Anisa came home, she dropped her school bag on the floor, shut the windows and closed the shutters and fell on her bed with tears in her eyes.
“Why was I born in this country? Why?” she screamed and cried. “Why couldn’t I be born somewhere else?”
Shouts of horror, agony and pain were heard. Anisa didn’t even hear her friend open the door and come into her room.
“What’s all this fuss about, Anisa?” she asked.
“Leave me alone! Go back were you came from!”
“I can’t leave you,” the girl insisted. She sat next to her friend and gave her a hug. “What’s the matter?”
She let Anisa dry her tears out and let her talk, watching out for people who might be hearing this.
“You won’t understand, Wendy!” the girl began. “Today a new teacher came to our school. She’s from another place, I’m certain of it. Everything was new to her. She allowed herself to smile and even to laugh. She sees positive things everywhere! Do you? Do any of us? No! Because we know that we were born here and that we’ll die here. We’re stuck there like we’re prisoners. We’re prisoners of our own house! They don’t allow us to laugh or cry or… show any emotions about… anything! We have to be identical!”
At this point Anisa stood up, opened the window and jumped out. Before Wendy could know it, her friend was dead.
The next day Wendy got accused for killing Anisa. Her whole family was taken to prison and nobody saw them ever again.
At school nobody realized that the two girls were missing. All the teachers were told what happened, but none of them were shocked except Karin.
“Lilia!” she exclaimed when she saw her friend in the morning. “Save me! Get me out of here! Please!”
“What?” Lilia got confused. “How can I help you?”
Karin began to whisper. Hot air was coming out of her mouth. “Have you heard of Anisa and Wendy?”
“Yes,” Lilia answered showing no emotions.
“You don’t care?”
“Why should I?”
“I have to tell you something,” Karin continued to whisper. “It’s…”
“No whispering, please,” she heard a voice behind her. It was a tall woman with long black hair, wearing high-heals.
“What if I don’t want to?” Karin was becoming annoyed. She looked the woman in the eyes. “What if I don’t want to be here at all? What if… I’ve heard many stories, many wonderful ones, about this place. That’s why I came here to work. I wanted to see all the wise people in this amazing country with great history. What do I see? Nobody enjoys themselves. Everyone just… Uh! All you do is walk around and say that this is forbidden, that’s forbidden and so on. I have the right to say and do what I want! Understand?”
The whole school was now staring at Karin whose eyes were full of anger.
“Anyone wants to swap nationalities?” she spoke with a quieter voice since everyone was paying attention to her. “I want to make this place better.”
One person raised their hand, then a few more. Soon the whole crowd had their hand raised.
“I don’t think that’s possible yet, but we will see,” Karin remarked and turned to walk away.
“What were you doing?” Lilia asked her friend, still looking surprised. “Do you know who that lady was?”
“I don’t care!” she answered with anger.
Someone, quickly, put a note in Karin’s hand. She did not even realize if it was a girl or a boy. When she turned there was nobody. She opened the note and read it out loud to Lilia.
“‘We will give you a chance, but next time you’ll be fired.’ I wander what that means,” she laughed and threw the note away.
Suddenly, Lilia turned around and began to walk away. When Karin called for her she just said with tears in her voice, “Don’t get me into trouble.”
The next day Karin went back to the country she came from.
Okay bye and thanks,
Camillia Sevinka