The Audacious Student
By Shruti
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Write about a classmate who had the audacity to behave differently.
She was always known for the bizarre acts that she dared to do in class. It was rumoured that the principal had to come down for one of her classes in the past because she had created such a commotion. Just when we thought she had done the worst, she had come up with something even worse to do. Her name was Zayne. No one wanted to stay near her, which is why she had always sat at the back of every class. She would always saunter into class at least an hour late and never wore her school uniform. She thought that she was the best just because she was sitting on a nice little money throne her parents had made for her by working their whole lives. Zayne travelled to school in her parents’ expensive cars with a different driver every day. To those unknowing of her true colors, she was kind and always said sweet words, words that people wanted to hear. She was envied by the younger students of the school for her immense wealth and “swagger”.
Whenever a teacher tried to amend her, she always shot back, “Do you know that my parents can buy you 6 times over and still have a million dollars left? So, please shut your mouth.”
However, this was only a regular scene for the accursed class, 2D. Her behaviour was so bad that it was almost certain that you were to have a horrible school year if she ended up in your class. As for her academics, she always failed every subject but was able to move onto the next year because of the name that her parents made for themselves and the school’s fear that her parents might tarnish their reputation by publishing horrible, untrue things about their school in their gone-big newspaper company.
Fast-forward to the present. Class 2D had just started their day and were cramming outside at their lockers, trying to stuff their phones and other belongings in them and get their books. Zayne, however, did not bother to do so. She always had her phone with her and no one bothered to ask her to keep it in the lockers, not since she had threatened that she would have her parents shut down the school when a teacher asked her to keep her belongings. Everyone avoided her at all costs and she did not seem to care about that at all. She did not bother mixing with her classmates and vice versa. They were so scared that she might do something to them if they unknowingly said the wrong thing to her and suffer the consequences. Such was the power this air-headed girl had.
Soon, all fell silent. This was because the class’ form teacher, Mrs Gan, had entered the classroom. Everyone in the Secondary Two cohort feared her. This was because she was the only teacher known to that day to tame such a girl as Zayne. The only thing to be heard was the click-click of Mrs Gan’s heels and Zayne crunching on her seemingly endless supply of chips. No one dared to even look in Zayne’s direction, let alone ask her to stop eating and get up, lest they be shot down by a nasty look or remark. Seemingly, Zayne was feeling extra defiant today. When her classmates' chairs scraped against the concrete floor of the classroom to greet Mrs Gan, that should have been the signal for her to stand up as well. But, no.
She remained glued to her seat and instead put up her legs on the table. Mrs Gan was slightly annoyed by this behaviour, because she just had to deal with her and her mother down at the principal's office that Monday. In an attempt to signal to her that she had to stand, Mrs Gan cleared her throat rather loudly. Zayne, being the defiant girl she was, ignored her.
“Zayne, stand up. You do realise you are taking up class time, right?” Mrs Gan said in a firm voice.
“If you want me to stand, make me," came the defiant voice of Zayne. Mrs Gan walked over to her, the students slightly flinching when she came around the corner to Zayne.
She rapped on the table and loudly said, “Zayne, stand up now. Stop making a fool of yourself.” To everyone’s utter disbelief, Zayne raised her hand and slapped the teacher! A lethal hush fell over the classroom.
Zayne screeched, “How many times must I tell you to stay out of my way?!” There was a collective astonishment from the rest of us as Mrs Gan recoiled from the slap. She recovered soon however, and dragged Zayne out of the classroom, asked us to take care of ourselves and do a page out of our textbooks. Mrs Gan took Zayne out of the classroom, seemingly to the principal's office.
Screams of “Do you know who my parents are?! They could buy you about a million times over and still be rich!” could be heard now echoing down the corridor as they went further away from the classroom. The less shaken students in my class giggled as they knew this could not be true.
As for the rest of us, we did our work in poorly concealed shock. We just could not believe that she could go so far as to hit the teacher. We knew that Zayne was incredibly disobedient and she was always subject to awful rumours about her but we did not know that she had the audacity to do that. Mrs Gan came in about half an hour later. Zayne was not with her, so we figured that she got sent home or even expelled, taking into account the amount of nonsense she had done.
Our suspicions turned out to be right. Mrs Gan had told us later on that Zayne had been expelled for causing deliberate harm to a teacher and also for many other bad things she had done in the past. We could not help but feel as though a burden had been lifted from our shoulders. Long gone were the days of torment and of Zayne’s delusional tantrums and actions.
We were finally freed, and 2D was no longer known as “that one class with Zayne in it”.
What would you do?
What would you do?
If you were a student in Class 2D, how would you feel when Zayne slapped the teacher? Why?
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