Records of Rebirth

Chapter 4 - Detention

Although I never used the word 'dog' in any of my sentences, they reacted as if they read the words in my mind.

The villainess stayed quiet and did not speak at all while her two 'friends' threw all sorts of insults at me and the victim.

The one who tried to slap me, even tried to pull me away by my hair when I got between her and the victim again. I had to get her dragged off me by the messenger boy who was still around.

Instead of standing around uselessly, I wished he would call for a teacher or someone instead.

No matter how I tried to diffuse the situation, it was taken as an insult by the two followers and they refused to let it go.

It was then, the main cause of this whole mess arrived - the prince along with his best friend reached the scene, and things got much worse from there.

Seeing the victim in trouble, they immediately dove in to protect her, shielding her from the attacks of the villainess and her followers.

My presence was immediately relegated to the sidelines and I let out a relieved sigh. But then immediately after, another epic showdown began.

One that started with the villainess shedding tears because of the prince's actions and his best friend's verbal attacks.

The prince and his best friend shielded the victim from the villainess and her screeching harpy-like followers.

And there I was, sidelined in the background, ignored and forgotten. Not that I mind but, where was the thanks for all my efforts up till now? There was no gratitude, no appreciation, nothing.

Fortunately, a teacher was alerted by some other bystander and he quickly came over to forcefully suppress the chaos before sentencing everyone to detention.

And I mean everyone.

I didn't include myself at first, because this was never my argument to begin with. I was already angry with the whole ordeal and couldn't wait to leave.

But just as I was about to slip away, the teacher caught the shoulder strap of my bag and held me back.

I stared incredulously at him.

Why was I included as well?

It was not like I started the fight. I did not want to be there in the first place.

Our mild mannered biology teacher came strutting along like he had witnessed everything and casually put me and everyone else in detention.

Where was the justice for my unfair treatment? Why did I have to be punished?

The reason according to him, was that my mannerism and cold method of handling the problem with logic and fact, had indirectly caused the row to escalate.

In simple terms, I'd bruised a few fragile ego's with my sharp tongue.

Okay, so maybe It was partly my fault. I did call out one of the villainess's followers on her insecurities - the one who's blows always seemed to find their way towards me.

But I had not done it maliciously. I was deeply uninterested in their drama and wanted to end it as quickly as possible.

I hoped to make her understand, the reason she found so many faults with the victim was because deep down, she felt she could not measure up to her.

To make her realise she was better off addressing her own issues, to change for the better, rather than lashing out at everyone.

This girl was a frequent troublemaker, and even before this whole drama, her antics were already notorious.

She would attack the girlfriends of boys that had rejected her in the past. Always seeking to harm them in one way or another.

There was a time she purposely broke a flower vase in the cafeteria, causing a girl to get cut on the cheek by one of its shards.

She claimed it had been an accident and paid the girls hospital bills, but nothing could compensate for the scar that remained or the trauma she suffered. The girl's face was forever scarred because of petty jealousy over a boy she knew nothing about.

My words had only caused her to lash out more, achieving the opposite effect.

Who knew she would get so enraged by the truth.

At that point, the villainess had lost control of her own followers. She was not as outspoken as the two and most of her words got drowned out by their yelling.

Until the prince and his best friend arrived, and things became as they were.

Thus began the most awkward detention. Everyone sat in the classroom in a circle facing one another in tense silence, while the teacher sat in the middle presiding over us.

I was very upset.

I had many other important things to do other than waste more time on this petty squabble.

Even after explaining it to the teacher I had to be at work, he did not relent. He offered to give me a written note explaining my absence to my manager, insisting I had to make amends with the people I had upset with my words.

I upset them? Ridiculous.

Nobody here truly wanted to make amends. They would act friendly in the presence of the teacher then go right back to being enemies once they left the room. Our teacher was far too naive.

I did not dislike him. He was one of the few teachers who would teach with enthusiasm instead of treating it as a job.

Although he acted strange sometimes - more than once I had caught him laughing sinisterly as he looked at some glass slides under a microscope.

What he was staring at still remains a mystery, but his crazy behaviour which was completely different from his usual manners made me cautious of him. I reminded myself to stay away and never to offend him, else I might end up with some mysterious, incurable disease that caused me to embarrass myself constantly.

I suspected he spent his free time tinkering away at samples, probably creating some new complicated strain of virus.

Why was I there, you ask? I was usually the first to arrive for his lessons and had caught him in his questionable acts quite a few times.

Aside from that, he was truly a good teacher who made everyone feel engaged and have fun in his lessons. So when the detention exercise was revealed I was not surprised. Only he would come up with something so contrived.

The task for each of us was to write down a word to describe the person he pointed out on a piece of paper.

That piece of paper was then passed onto the next person in the circle to do the same, continuing until everyone had written a word down before he switched to the next target.

At the end, everyone would receive their own paper with seven words describing them from each person in the room.

It was nothing more than a perception test.

In his head he probably wanted to achieve some character building by making us confront our flaws in the eyes of others to drive us towards growth. The problem was, he failed to realise this group of students completely loathed each other.

This exercise would only turn into a match of who could insult each other the most. Each of the words on paper like a poison that only skewed any positive result he hoped to gain.