At least he has the foresight to make his tea directly in his tumbler before grabbing his car keys.
I follow him out of the front door and climb into our old beaten-up Toyota while Baba locks up the house. Whatever excitement I may have felt about the prospect of starting secondary school at some point has evaporated; replaced now by dread in my stomach.
Baba starts up the car and pulls out of the driveway. It’s not long before we merge into the rush-hour traffic on the main road. I keep checking my watch, counting down the time until I’m officially late, and it doesn’t take long, all things considered.
‘It’s going to be fine,’ Baba says, noticing me check the time. ‘All the teachers there already know Deen, so … it’ll be fine.’
Deen has gone ahead to school with a group of his friends, so I haven’t even thought about that. Instead of comforting me, it just makes my dread build up even more.
By the time we pull up to the school building, we’re twenty whole minutes late. Baba has barely pulled to a stop when I throw open my door and climb out.
‘Have a good day!’ Baba shouts after me, though I barely register his words as I hurry through the front doors. My first class is supposed to be English with Ms Nichols in room 203, but I have no clue where that classroom might actually be. I duck into the East hallway, but all the classrooms seem to be 1-0-something, so I turn to make my way to the other hallway, when I nearly stumble into a teacher.
‘You should be in class,’ the teacher says, frowning down at me. ‘What’s your name?’
I shift from one foot to another. Surely, she will have to understand that it’s my first day in this school and that I’m lost. ‘Um, Dina Chowdhury. I’m looking for class 203 but—’
‘DinaChowdhury?’ Her face turns sour as if there’s something unpleasant about my name. ‘Of course, you must be Deen’s sister. Already skipping classes on the first day and not even dressed in the right uniform.’ She looks me up and down, her lips curling with distaste. All the while, I’m wishing that the floor would open and swallow me up. That would be far better than standing here in this empty hallway being scrutinised by this teacher who I’ve never met before.
‘I … My mum got the uniform from, um—’ I don’t even get the chance to explain that she found a discount shop with skirts and jumpers that were (according to her)exactlylike the school uniform. It was easier to justify buying those than dropping a couple of hundred pounds on the official school uniform. Ma said I would just grow out of it within the next year anyway.
‘I think detention should set you on the right track,’ the teacher says with a nod, as if I haven’t even attempted to speak. ‘Though that didn’t work on your brother, did it? Now, off to class you go.’
She doesn’t even wait for me to respond before pushing past me in the hallway. For a moment, I can only just stand there, wondering how I’ve managed to get detention within the first five minutes of being in school. That seems like some kind of a world record.
I don’t have time to wallow in the unfairness of it all, though, because I still have to find my classroom.
I’m wishing that life came with a redo button as I restartmy search for room 203. After a few more minutes of looking, I finally find the classroom. I can hear the buzz of conversation coming from inside – class is well underway, and I’ll have to walk in and interrupt everything. Explaining why I’m late.
Pausing for a moment, I take a deep breath.
Then, I open the door and step inside.
‘… And I think that he’s really—’ The girl speaking cuts herself off and stares at me, with the rest of the class.
But she doesn’t just stare. Her expression has contorted into a glare directed at me. As if me interrupting the class is some kind of a personal affront against her.
‘Are you supposed to be in this class? You know we started twenty minutes ago, right?’ Ms Nichols, who is perched on her desk at the front of the classroom asks, frowning at me.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ I mumble, feeling my face flush.
At least the rest of the class seems to have lost their interest in me, even if the girl is still glaring daggers at me. Weaving through the desks, I find one at the very back of the classroom. I’m ready to disappear into the walls, if the walls would have me.
Ms Nichols nods to the girl and says, ‘Thanks for that, Maya, let’s move along.’
I watch as the girl – Maya – relaxes a little in her seat, her posture perfect and her fingers tapping the open notebook in front of her with her pen. She has the proper school uniform, down to the knee-length white socks with maroon stripes. Even the English textbook atop her desk is sparkling and new, while the one that I reluctantly fish out of my own backpack is tattered and filled with marginalia from a previous owner.
I open my textbook to the right page, reading over the poem that the class has been discussing, while Ms Nichols guides everyone towards the questions at the bottom of the page.
The class goes quiet as everyone picks up their pens and starts writing their answers. I skim over the questions and the poem again, jotting down notes first, before actually getting to the questions.
I’m still trying to finish my last sentence when Ms Nichols starts looking for the correct answer to the first question.
Maya’s hand shoots up before anyone else’s.
Could she be any more of a teacher’s pet?
And on the first day of school, no less.
