‘Write neatly, like the others’, she said.
‘Write with your right hand, like the others, write with a cursive stroke and, write, exactly, what is on the board.
I looked up at her, grabbed the pencil with my left hand and scribbled on the book so hard that the pointy lead tip broke away and bid goodbye.
Slap! Smack!
‘Idiot! Duffer! Right hand. Right hand. And neatly. No drawings. Just copy that and nothing else. Got it?’
‘Yes ma’am I got it.’
‘Good boy.’
I looked at the blank paper in front of me. White and crisp. Neat and healthy. I looked at the black board next. The teacher had written a few chalky lines on it. And I could not understand any of it. For the letters; The letters were dancing. More like fidgeting. As though they were trying to find their comfort spots. Like a dog prying for the spot on a wooly bed, like an eagle seeking the highest branch, like me trying to make sense. Then, I looked back at the blank sheet. It was calling out to me.
Dirty me. Spoil me. Tear me. Good boy.
‘Now, what in the world is that?’ She beamed down at me.
‘Elephant!’ I said emphatically.
5 legs, pudgy body, one tail. Must be an elephant right?
Slap! Smack!
‘I told you to copy what is on the board!’
Smack!
‘Now, stand up and read the first word on the board.’
I stood up, looked at the board and looked down comically. The dancing letters never failed to amuse.
‘I don’t know’, I said, looking down at her neatly polished shoes.
‘The first word is Elephant! How did you draw an elephant or whatever that is, without reading the word?’
I did not look up. I did not have an answer, I was still looking at her gleaming shoes. It looked so neat! And all I wanted was to throw some mud on it.
Okay, I thought, this time I am going to tame those letters. This time, instead of drawing one, I am going to write Elephant. On my white sheet, switching to my right hand, I wrote the first few letters. I remember those letters – Elep. I drew back from the sheet and immediately noticed something was off. I wrote again. Same thing. I knew it was wrong but my mind could only write it that way because it looked like that on the board. But honestly, if I may add, It did not look like anything on the damned board. The letters were dancing remember? And when somebody dances, you cannot see them but only feel them.
Dancing Elephant? Oh yes, I felt that!
I wrote again. Same thing.
Slap! Smack!
‘Idiot! Duffer!’
I looked up at her, this time with what little anger I had in me. I guess my tiny eyes looked like two black marble balls – looks cute but can crack your skull.
‘I was trying’, I said.
Slap! Smack!
‘Idiot! Duffer!’
‘How hard is it?’ She said and wrote some letters on my sheet.
‘That’s Elephant. Next time I come, I want it to be perfect! Understood?’
‘Yes ma’am’, I said looking straight into her eyes.
She din’t realize that I was lying straight to her pretty eyes.
I looked down at the sheet. The letters she wrote were bouncing off the white edges. It was almost like they were cajoling me to let them free. To let them out of the paper for they wanted to fly. So, I tore the sheet. But now, the letters seemed to have taken their place as an Elephant. The teacher turned back and came furiously towards me. Huffin and puffin in front of a muffin.
Slap! Smack!
‘Idiot! Duffer! Get out! Out I said!’
‘Yes ma’am’, I said and walked towards the door. I looked at her shoes. They were still spotless. So unfortunate.
The restless air outside was fresh with the bright colors of the sun. The wind greeted me with her tender arms. And while my friends inside (the circus?) stared at the black board, I looked the other way. I felt fresh, I felt free and I felt mischievous. I turned around and looked at the classroom wall behind me. The beige wall looked so neat, plain and dull. It looked lacking – devoid of its share of dirt. I took out my broken pencil from my torn pocket. It was time to dirty the wall. With my left hand, I started scribbling, feverishly and obsessively. The elephant would get its shape, not as sequences of letters, but as a mess of rough criss cross lines. Five legs, pudgy body and a tail. Broken bits of lead on the ground, I moved back for a view. It was beautiful. She had asked me to write what was on the board. Well, this was it. In all its glory.
Slap! Smack!
‘Idiot! Duffer! What have you done? Get inside now!’
‘Okay, ma’am’, I said.
I let out a smile from beneath my face, her shoes were clean and mine wasn’t.
