“Who started this?” Constancia’s voice filled the small room and could be heard outside meters away.
None of the boys answered her. She pointed at the smallest of them. “Speak up.”
“It’s Odin, ma’am,” the kid said with a jolt. “We . . . were just horsing around when he suddenly punched me.”
“Is it true, Odin?” she asked.
Odin remained quiet, staring at nothing.
“Odin!”
Still, silence.
She felt like pulling the boy’s curly hair. “For god’s sake, do I have to call out your name a dozen times before you answer me? You’re making a fool out of me.”
“He also kicked me, ma’am,” said another kid, the tallest.
“I’m not asking you,” Constancia snapped. She turned back to Odin. “What’s the matter with you? Two days ago you also hit someone in the basketball course and you would not tell me why. Can’t you speak, haah? Haaah?”
She breathed deeply. “The three of you,” she said, “come with me to the HE office. You, Odin, stay here and wait for me.”
* * *
Outside the principal’s office, Usman approached Constancia. She ordered the boys to go ahead to the Home Economics office.
“Are you done with II-C?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Usman answered. “And I don’t have a class for this period . . . Ma’am Cons, I’m so sorry.”
She glowered at him. “What did you think you were doing?”
“I can’t control them, ma’am. They’re just soo war freak.”
“You can’t control them,” she said, “But you can control yourself.”
Usman whined helplessly.
“When a teacher cries in front of her students, she’s finished. Do you think they’ll feel guilty? No. They’ll brag about it.”
“I’ll try not to cry next time, ma’am,” Usman said. “Oh, if there will be a next time, I might die.”
“Shut up.”
“I so hate my uncle. I don’t know why he threw me in this godforsaken place.”
“Be thankful the superintendent’s your uncle. You have a permanent position though you just passed the board. Many volunteer teachers had to spend years waiting for an item.”
“At least someone’s here to guide me. Without you, ma’am, I might have gone home on my very first day.”
“Stop that drama, okay? The first year’s the worst. By the way, could you get us some Coke?”
“Coke?”
“Yes, three bottles,” she said. “Bring them to the HE, or ask a student to.”
“They’re not for the boys, are they?”
* * *
It took only two minutes for the boys to empty their twelve-ounce bottles. Coke was too expensive for them, and they only got to drink it on special occasions.
Just when they thought the principal would tell them to go, she slammed the table with her palms. “Do you think I’m happy with what you did?” Her voice sounded like thunder to them. “After this, what will you do? What will you do when I’m no longer looking at you? Take a gun and shoot each other, just like what someone did years ago?”
The boys fidgeted on the rattan settee.
“You’re here in school to study, not to look for a fight,” Constancia continued, her hands waving in the air as if she was declaiming. “You should study well so you’ll become doctors and lawyers someday. You should go to faraway places. If you don’t value education, you’ll be stuck here in Mamaluba. What will you do here, farm, fish—” She was about to say “fight in the mountains,” but she caught herself. “You kids don’t know how hard life is.”
The boys’ faces reddened.
“You are all like my children, don’t you know that? I don’t want to see you hurting each other. It breaks my heart,” she said, her hand on her chest. “Every time you hit your classmate, it’s also like you’re hitting me.”
The shoulders of one of the boys started to shake and tears rolled down his cheeks.
“I try my best to take care all of you. What else do you want me to do?” She was speaking on top of her lungs now. “What kind of love do you still want? Whaaat?”
All the boys were now sobbing.
“Sorry, ma’am!” said one of the boys. “It was really my fault. Odin got mad because I laughed at his shoes.”
The other two kids also said sorry.
“Do you promise not to do it again?” she asked.
The boys promised.
“Not even if he wears the shoes again?”
* * *
Odin’s toe was peeking out the hole on the side of his shoe.
He noticed the principal looking at it, so he moved the toe inward. But his effort was in vain; half of his toe was still visible.
Constancia looked away. “Odin, I don’t know what to do with you,” she said. “Please, son, don’t get yourself in trouble again.”
Odin did not seem to hear anything. Constancia had ordered the other boys to apologize to him, but he did not utter a single word in the course of it. In frustration she decided to tell the other boys to go ahead back to their class.
“Odin,” she said, “your not speaking is worse than answering back.”
He was still somewhere else.
“Though your classmates made a joke on you,” she said, “it was still not reason enough for you to start a fight. I’m afraid I have to suspend you for a day, and I think this punishment is fair enough considering that I gave the others two days.”
“Just on time,” said Odin. “I’ll be absent for a week anyway.”
Constancia was caught off guard. “And so you have a mouth,” she said. “What are you going to do for a week, go sailing in Celebes Sea?”
The boy sank again to his quiet retreat. Constancia failed to pry more information from him.
* * *
“Ma’am Cons, I found out you’ll be transferred to Bacali,” said Usman over lunch. “You’re not leaving us, are you?”
“Shhh, lower your voice,” said Constancia. They were in the canteen, and some students were sitting on nearby tables. “How did you know about that?” she said. “Did you and your uncle meet lately?”
“Yes, I went back home to the city last weekend. Ma’am Cons, I felt bad. Why have you been keeping this from us?”
“It’s not yet final, Usman. It’s just February, and I still have until March, the end of the school year, to decide. So don’t you tell anyone else about it.”
“What would happen now here?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know you’re the only one who could discipline those kids, ma’am.”
Constancia laughed. “Then it’s time you got serious on being tough. Prove to them that there is indeed no soft man in Islam.”
Usman rolled his eyes. “Lord, help me. Could you ask my uncle to assign me with you, ma’am?”
“Stop that nonsense. You’ll be all right here. The superintendent is going to replace me with Mr. Abdulnadi.”
“But you can choose to stay, right?”
“I can’t just do that. What do you think your uncle would feel if I refused?”
“You’re not afraid of him. You’re close.”
“Yes, we are friends. He treats me like his personal clown. That’s why I can easily ask for favors from him. But I don’t want him to think I’m being abusive.”
“Can’t Uncle assign to Bacali someone else?”
“Well, the situation is a little complex. Mr. Abdulnadi is supposed to replace the retiring principal of Bacali. However, Bacali is a Christian barangay, so the superintendent thinks it’s better if Mr. Abdulnadi and I swapped posts.”
Usman sighed.
“Know what,” said Constancia, “I prayed for this. Remember the killing I told you that happened three or four years ago? That was the last straw for me. I asked God to send me away from this bedlam. And come to think of it, God has even been delayed in granting my prayer.”
The killing started from a petty squabble in the CAT field. Some third year students would not follow the orders of a senior officer. They found it ludicrous to march in the school grounds carrying a dummy rifle when, in the training camps in the nearby mountains, they had handled real guns, loaded and all. The senior forced them to do push-ups. After obeying the punishment, one of the third year students left the field. He took a gun at home, went back to the campus, and showed the CAT officer what he could do with the weapon.
“After that, ma’am,” said Usman, “what happened to the . . . the killer?”
“He was never caught. He most likely became a rebel for good.”
Usman put his hands on his cheeks. “Ma’am!” he said, “Since you mentioned rebels, I suddenly remember . . . Have you seen the news last night?”
“No. You know that I don’t own a TV. I have enough worries here in school to mind what’s happening elsewhere. Why, what was it?”
“Our town is so famous. Remember the two foreigners kidnapped in Sulu two months ago?”
“What’s that got to do with our town? Sulu is across the Celebes.”
“The kidnappers crossed the sea! They brought the victims in the camp in the mountains here. This general was interviewed in the city, so there was no actual video shot of our town, but he said tanks are on their way to our poblacion and the military’s going to start the attack soon.”
Constancia turned cold.
“Amir’s father,” said Usman, “His name’s Kumander Hadjiri, isn’t it? It seems he’s colluding now with the commander from Sulu. I was so shocked—” He noticed Constancia’s expression. “Ma’am, what is it?”
“The boys,” said Constancia, “the boys, Usman, they’re being called to fight.”
(To be continued)
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