#4 WORDS AND THOUGHTS
Tuesday morning was as usual a little bit chaotic. The third class wasn't as loud as it could be, but 25 young people in one room although talking in their normal voices are anything but quiet. Everybodz but the new girl. Mia wasn't there.
Everybody was sitting just somewhere: on chairs, on tables. And this time as well it was the same procedure as always: Mrs Polanska, the Polish teacher, came into the room and through her thick glasses she looked annoyed at the pupils sitting on the tables. Within a few minutes, everything was in the best order.
-How can you behave like this? You are too loud and too rude! Is this how the new elite of our country looks like? - Mrs Polanska wasn't screaming, she was a teacher with great experience, authority, and with a very ear-splitting voice. She knew this class wasn't as bad as they might think now after her criticism, but she was already in her years and she needed to stick truly to her values.
Everybody sat down and some even uttered some short excuses. It was so quiet you could hear the wind outside, and this wind wasn't strong, only moving the weakest leaves in the trees. The teacher looked down on her notes in the schoolbook and the pupils started to take out their things for this lesson. A whoosh of books and booklets could be heard throughout the class. It was one minute before eight o’clock (beginning of the lesson), Mia stood in the door and looked around quickly. She already knew where she would sit. If you don't perceive people as human beings, it is not so difficult to find the place you’re looking for. She just came in and sat down on a chair near the window. So, no one who would come to the classroom would notice her at once. And this was her intention. This was down to some weird scenarios in her head caused by phobias.
Only when she was already sitting down she looked at people around her as human beings and her look didn't invite them to look back at her. People were busy talking and now the teacher came into the room, everybody calmed down and was silent. Then the school bell rang and everybody took out the stuff they needed for this lesson. Mrs Polanska started to check the attendance list and she didn't wait long for the reply. It was enough for everzbody to make any faintest noise and the teacher already knew, who was present. Additionally, the woman didn't even look up to check whether it was correct or not. At last, when she read the name of the new pupil she was astonished by the quiet “present” from the end of the room. Not only the teacher was confused.
Everybody looked into the corner where Emilia was sitting. Nobody was expecting the new girl to be present, nobody hadn'ticed her until now. As if she would be invisible. Incredible! Emilia already made this experience very often and was looking at the class with a small, friendly smile on her face. She seemed to be a nice girl. She had big, green eyes, curly, brown and quite long hair and she was pretty. She didn't wear brands, but you noticed she had style. She preferred simple, almost cold colours like sky blue and a shirt with a white collar. All sporty clothes, although she wore blue jeans and inconspicuous ballerinas. It was a sunny September and it was warm enough to walk without a jacket. Nonetheless, she took one. It was put on an empty chair next to her.
Her face didn't change just because 26 persons were looking at her. It was the OMG moment. Nevertheless, Mia didn't show the same reaction as many people would do. She didn't turn red, she didn't move, she didn't even breathe in.
Everybody seemed to ask how it could happen that nobody could notice a new girl in the room? Even Mrs Polanska was astonished although she already knew all the different walking styles and was able to determine who it was, just by hearing her pupils walk. She would even hear the quietest whispering at the very end of the room (which annoyed every pupil of course) and now she didn't hear anything. She took two deep breaths and looked at her class register for a while. Reading names wasn't necessary for her, she knew right from the beginning who was and who missing, but this whole experience had changed today. She tried to look at the new girl, but she couldn't just stare.
So she started to ask some questions about the literature figures they were talking about in the previous lesson. Of course, she asked the new one, too. It was a good possibility to look at her without having to look for excuses. As a matter of fact, these questions didn't pose a problem for the new girl. She answered every single question in plain sentences, with simple logic and good arguments as if she had already prepared answers.
She wasn't disrespectful, she was self-conscious and somehow classy. From this day on Mrs Polanska tried to learn the way of walking of her new pupil, but it was hard to get. Emilia was so quiet and so elegant at the same time that it was almost impossible.
During the break, Emilia had to face the first questions from the other pupils: how did she get here, why and all the other things you ask somebody new.
-Please, call me Mia. – said Emilia and of course she had to answer how she liked the city and the school and this and that. Tit for tat... She answered plainly with short sentences and you couldn't get much information about herself, neither when some of pupils asked questions, you cannot answer with a simple “yes”, or “no”.
Everybody who was looking at Mia felt as if they already knew her for years although nobody knew much about her and she didn't make the impression of letting anybody close to her. This seemed to be impossible. She was polite and very well educated, but she didn't share much information about her. Instead, she kept directing the converstion towards different topics, by asking someone about something and then the discussion would go on about something completely different, making it almost impossible to return to the main question: who is that girl?
Only Viola was looking at the new girl with different thoughts. She already noticed Mia didn't change much and it was still possible to recognize her. For Mia it was neither good nor bad that everyone was looking at her and wanted to talk. She had manners, style, and seemed to be uncomplicated.
Viola was complicated and to keep her mask of a totally blond was a challenge right now. She hated the feeling of being around Mia. It was years ago, since she had seen her, they were still kids. However, she knew something that nobody else here knew. Usually she would turn it into a great scandal, but Mia's secret was connected to Viola herself. Viola respected her anyway. She didn't like her, but she respected her. Some people are just broken and you don't touch them so that they don't fall apart. This was the reason why Mia’s secret was safe.