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rumi-humaira · 7 years ago

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Autobiography (#2: Textbook, the fourth place and rujak party)

Have you ever felt like you saw your thoughts words before you even write it?

That’s what I felt the last few GO-JEK rides. I knew well how the stories I am writing would go on; but I was also afraid that I might forget things.

Elementary school has the least drama for me. Unlike my classmates who would start dating by sixth grade, I could barely remember the name of the boys in my class until 3 or 4 years or something. Maybe I am exaggerating, but that’s what it feels like (later in junior high and senior high it would take me a few months to remember their names and faces correctly. I could remember the girls in just a week, or a couple of days. In university in got better because they no longer wear the same uniform along with short hair)

Academically, I was (pay attention to the word “was” – it might be a bit useful later) above average, but that’s all. I might exceed a bit in math and natural sciences but I was a true fool in Sundanese (I had to take remedials several times even in the first grade), religion (well…), sports (obviously. I felt like an awkward penguin most of the times and I kept failing to pass the ball), and languages. I remember having to copy the smart kid’s answer in English quiz since everyone barely understand the words. So, academically, or more accurately ranking-wise, I would be somewhere in the bottom of the top ten in the class.

But it was also my luck that I have an older sister and I got her second-hand books. In addition to that, one of my aunts in Jakarta works at a textbook-publisher company as an editor so she would give me flawed textbooks from time to time (the kind of books that could not pass the quality check because they have just a little bit of ‘imperfection’ to be sold commercially). At the very beginning of the fifth grade I received my share of textbooks. And I had nothing to do, so I… read them.

All.

It was funny, because I had never done such thing for the previous four years. Not at all. I would read the textbooks from time to time if the teacher asked us to read that in class. But that’s it.

Surprisingly, reading could take you so much.

My fifth-grade natural science teacher has this liking to create a quiz-battle (it was cerdas cermat btw, sorry I am too lazy to find the correct translation) to decide who could get home earlier. We would form a team based on our row of tables, creating four teams in the class. The winning team would get the privilege to come home earliest, and the bottom fourth would go the latest.

In my team, it was almost always me who answered the questions. And we were almost always winning, the others grew bored of the quizzes because they knew I was going to know the answers.

But every single question came from the books. The questions were not hard. It’s just that no one read the books.

Eventually I also scored five consecutive perfect scores in the daily exams (ulangan lol sorry again L). I told my mom and she told me that I had to tell Dad, so I texted him. The reply was “congratulation”. My rank at the end of the term was 4th place (if you keep reading this autobiography, you’ll realize that the 4th was the highest rank I would get J)

My sudden academic performance boost made others upset, but a very special girl in my class took it in the opposite way. Lisa (again another fake name) was the perfect girl – not only in my class but I think in the whole school. She’s beautiful (even though a bit boyish), white, smart, a leader, dance and sing well, nice, have a lot of friends, and a bit more mature than the others. If I were a boy, I think I would fall head over heels for her. It was also a coincidence that we’re both left-handed: but her writing was neat and pretty and mine was a real mess that barely anyone could understand it (this fact always made the other students confused: they thought my writing was a mess because I’m left handed, but then they saw Lisa’s and it’s the perfect one hundred and eighty degrees apart from mine)

She belongs to the gang of popular rich-and-pretty girl in the class, but she approached me and invited me to do our homework together in her house after school.

To be honest I was too quiet, too shy and so I barely made any friends during elementary school. So that surprised me a bit and I was suspicious that she might hide something from me. But there was none. One of her nice friends (outside of the popular girls-gang), Bunga, also tagged along. Bunga took the role of the ice breaker, I think. If me and Lisa were left alone, we’d be too confused in what to say.

Lisa’s mother is very nice and religious. Spending days and days in her house, I found out that Lisa’s daily schedule is really packed. We would study together and do our homework for 2-3 hours, then her mom would come with snacks and Quran. And she’d has to train reading Quran (which she already does so well). Then we’ll finish what’s left of our homework, watch TV a bit or eat something. After we’re done, me and Bunga would go straight home, but Lisa had to do either a vocal training or dance training. It goes like that. And I’ve heard that later in the evening she had to study again on the courses we have just learned in school with her mom.

No wonder she was always the 1st rank in the class. And foolish me had always thought that she got that easily.

I still remember the first time I went to her house. The three of us went together after school to her house by foots. Bunga left earlier in the middle of the homework, so I was alone when I was going to leave her house. I was not familiar with the streets, but I had the feeling that this was not far from my house. Lisa somehow looks worried. She asked me whether I have the money to go on a bike-taxi and I said well, yes, I have it (since we walked directly to her house after school; but I didn’t intend to take the bike-taxi. I really had this feeling that my house is nearby. Lisa didn’t seem convinced, so she disappeared to her house for a bit and return with some money for me to take the bike-taxi (I could strongly guess she asked for the money from her mom). I tried to refuse, but well, no avail.

I ended up taking the bike-taxi, just so she wouldn’t be so worried. And well. My feeling was right. Our houses are really close by. It would take only 10-15 minutes to walk by foots.

(Afterwards I always walk home. It was good to save some money)

It was a good idea to do homework in the afternoon, I realized. I never did that: always procrastinating until the night. With Lisa, I shifted my evening task to the afternoon my evenings were free of burden.

I never tell my mom about this homework routines, since I usually came home earlier before she returns anyway. But one day it just happened that mom came home in the afternoon and she couldn’t find me anywhere. I was at Lisa’s, spending another awkward afternoon. I didn’t have any phone back then.

When I got home, there were some of my classmates in my house yard. Why?

Mom was surprised to see me coming home. Turned out that she was looking for me and calling almost all my classmate’s mothers (at least those who live nearby or those that she knew the phone numbers) asking whether they knew where I am. So it grew into a rumour that I got kidnapped or something. So they came to check whether things were alright.

More crowds came. It was quite a scene, and I felt funny to forgot that mom could be so much in panic sometimes. I simply said I was studying together with Lisa, so there’s nothing to worry about. But well. Since almost half of my classmates were already here, somehow mom ended up suggesting for a picnic together in the roads beside our house.

Mom.

We had two guava trees in front of our houses, along with a mango tree. So somehow it became a rujak party. Other moms joined – those looking for their sons/daughter or simply wanted to check whether I was truly kidnapped. The funny thing is that I was not even close with any of those classmates who came, but mom being mom (a true extrovert if I must say) became close with them in just no time.

I’d admit that it became one of the very few precious moments I spent with my elementary school classmates.

(The day after that, though, nothing changed in school. I still have no close friends. They are still a bit frustrated with my silence that they mostly don’t really care that I was there – me being almost invisible – but a few smiled a bit at me, saying “your mom is really nice!” and that’s it. Oh and also with Lisa being very surprised and a bit guilty somehow when she heard what happened from her friends)

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