If last week was the best week of the school year, yesterday was probably the worst day of my life. It was also Pongal and Makar Sankrati in India.
I was very excited on my way to school, but then, I realised that the first period was sports. Last week sports was fun, but this week it was the opposite. We had to do what they call "gymnastics". It's basically front rolls, back rolls, cartwheels, etc. I can not do any of these so the coach was lecturing me about how imortant it is to make decisions in life. "If you have a difficulty in your life are you gonna ignore it?" My response to his lecturing was "Well, there's life and there's sports class. It's different, you see?"
The day before yesterday Yaz and I were preparing for the following day. In our minds we were practising the whole day. I even packed myself a picnic lunch. We also took hair pins, so we could open locked doors as they do in movies.
We checked the music rooms, but all of them were locked. So, we went to the auditorium and realised that both doors were locked. We tried using hair pins. It doesn't work in real life, trust me! We wanted to "break in", but instead we "broke". I mean that instead of opening the door, the pin got stuck in the key hole. We took in out, but some of the paint stayed inside.
We didn't give up and tried opening the fire escape door. To our surprise it was locked and there wasn't even a door knob you could hold on to.
So we went back to class. And guess what class it was? It was English!!! The worst subject in the world!!! Yasmin and I sat together (even though our teacher gets mad at us when we do). I guess we made her happy by wishing her a happy Pongal.
English was meant to be for studying for the vocabulary test we were going to have later that day. I knew most of the words and could easily guess the meanings of those I didn't know. So Yaz and I started preparing for our duet rehearsal. We also doodled in our agendas.
The next thing was history. Yasmin asked Mr Woodbridge if he can let us practise during history. He agreed, but Mme Roussel, my history teacher, didn't.
At lunch, we checked the music rooms once again, but all of them were occupied. We wanted to see the security guard (we call him The Dog) to ask him if he has the keys to the auditorium. He said he didn't. The one who had the keys was this mean guy who we didn't want to talk to.
So we checked the music rooms over and over again, but the people wouldn't leave. We even checked the changing room, but it was locked.
So, disappointed, I went to get hot lunch and got this pumpkin thing (whatever that was) on my dress!
Furious, we ran outside, shouting that we were depressed. Luckily for us, the music rooms were free. We came in and started singing the song we are going to do for Ammy. We did quite well, but our voices weren't the best.
Since we missed homeroom, the next thing we had was languages. I had a German test that I didn't know about!!! How could that day get any worse? The teacher corrected the test straight away. I got a B.
After German, we had English (AGAIN!). This time Ms Manchala didn't allow us to sit together (sad face...). Yasmin told me that she failed the test. I think I did quite well (at least I didn't fail).
Yasmin borrowed her mum's phone for the day. It had the school wifi code in it, so we could use it to go on youtube and listen to the song we were practising. Yasmin never brings any electronics to school so she's not quite used to carrying it around.
Last recess we wanted to go to the music room because during Period 8 we had to sing the song to our music teacher. On our way out we forgot to take our jackets, so we camу back inside for them. Yasmin doesn't have pockets, so she had her mum's phone in her hand. She didn't notice Mr Barrow (the main "phone-confiscator" of the school) standing by. He told Yasmin that she will get it confiscated. We started telling him that it wasn't her phone and that she couldn't give it to him. He accused us for arguing and sent us to what we call "Alice's Wonderland" (the discipline office).
Alice there, talking to two boys, while pictures of little kids appeared on the screen of his computer. We stood there for at least 20 mins. At last, he let us come in.
We kept telling him that Yasmin needed the phone, but he wouldn't let us speak. His face was bright pink. He was shaking.
We were trying to sound as calm and as polite as possible.
"WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING AT ME?" screamed Alice. "I'M NOT SHOUTING AT YOU!"
There was nothing we could do, but apologise. He was the one shouting, not us, but he wasn't even listening to us!
"YOU WON'T LET ME TALK!" interrupted Alice. In reality, it was the opposite. He was the one not letting us talk.
He told us to get out and keep the phone in a very rude way, accusing us for being disrespectful.
On our way to class we saw Mrs Gilbert looking for us. She was very angry and asked us where we were.
During the rehearsal we were almost crying. It wasn't my best singing since my throat was dry.
Next step was maths class. As we rushed to class, we shouted how depressed we are, scaring the people around us. And then it hit us.... We had to bring a ruler, a compass and a protractor. We had neither of these things, so we could not do anything...
Moral: do not celebrate Indian festivals!
