How strange. I walked away from my German class, confusion in my head. Normally, Slovenia, and Vietnam and I would sit down quietly and get to work. Without small talk. Maybe Slovenia would ask us what we were going to do after classes, but we would answer curtly and politely back, and then focus on our class. This time, I was waiting around till Slovenia and Vietnam would come, and inconsistently giving advice to Herr German Empire if he needed help on his computer. I was doing horribly in English, but that was expected. I never wrote a twenty page essay before. I didn't even know what we were supposed to write about; Mr. UK kept telling me it was about whatever I choose. I didn't understand that concept very well. I've never chosen anything by myself. Not even essay topics. Slovenia came in and said hi, and then quieted down to read her book. Vietnam strolled into the classroom, and before anyone could speak, he turned to me.
"Hey, I need to tell you something," he said. I was mildly surprised at his willingness to talk.
"I'm all ears," I replied passively.
"You know, Japan wanted to say sorry." He told me, quickly.
"For what?" I already knew for what.
"Something involving you. And someone else. She didn't specify. She didn't want you to be too angry when she told you. That's all. Es tut mir Leid, Herr." He apologised to our professor, who seemed not too worried about the interruption and just started the lesson without further ado. Leaving me thinking about what Vietnam said. He didn't look like he actually knew what was going on, and was probably set up by Japan. Typical. I still was a bit stunned by the fact that Japan asked for forgiveness. then again, she did open her mouth when I asked not too. In a way, her actions caused mine. Well, you shouldn't ponder on the past for too long; it's hazardous to do so. I was taught that pondering, regretting, and trusting were the big three dangers. And, I had to say, I didn't have engineering class today. I had Biology. Japan must've forgotten, but whatever. After our fast paced class on spontaneous and informal dialogues and three minute presentations, I left to my next class. Oh, yes. Drama. I went down to find myself the second person there. Poland was also there, openly staring at me without remorse. In his hands was his phone and on the stage which he was sitting was a plastic bottle with iced tea. It was obvious that the bottle was reused over, since it read 'Pepsi®' on it in faded letters and was peeling. He was pretending to look around the huge auditorium and consciously fiddling with his shirt collar and tan loafer laces all while keeping one eye on me. As if I didn't notice. At one time, when it was very obvious to the point that I felt agitated.
I wanted to tell him, 'Hey, why are you avoiding eye contact', what came out was: "Hi," In such a timid and scared tone that it made my own ears curl. Why did I sound so dumb? He looked at me tentatively and responded in the same tone I did.
"Um, hi," he responded, smiling a little.
"Are you in...fourth year?" I asked. I had to mentally slap myself. I must've looked stupid; of course he was in fourth year. He told us already.
"Yeah, it's been...interesting." He said, obviously ignoring the fact that he already mentioned it. "I guess."
"Is it better than every other one?"
"Mmm, no. I liked my third year best. I took courses I was interested in, and other was no final year projects or seminar." He nodded. "Um, but Cedar College..... is, uh, nice...and kind of loud."
"Mm, okay," I shut the conversation down. It was starting to get boring. Soon enough came the rest of our class. Professor France, today in a wide brimmed black hat, wine coloured frilly skirt, and a white blouse with shortened sleeves and a V-neck, came leaping out from backstage. I wondered how she could run around full time in such high heels. As always, she had on pink lipstick and charcoal black mascara, but accompanied this time by purple and deep pink accents around the eyes. She looked around our bored group with excitement.
"Hello everyone! How was your day so far?" A few mutters of 'good', 'okay' and 'downright awful' came from our crowd. "Ready to make the day even better? Because I have a surprise for us today!" Did we look like we were jumping for joy? Not exactly. Qatar stifled a yawn, Poland looked at the ceiling and Israel picked her nails. Definitely not excited.
"What is it then?" I asked.
She positively beamed. "T shirts!" She produced a short sleeve shirt with our play's name written on it. It wasn't a bad shirt. It was pretty professional looking. It's just nobody can get excited over an article of clothing sewn together made from cotton, polyester and a bunch of cancer causing chemicals. Then again, this was Professor France...she loved everything. Well, at least inanimate objects. She passed them out to us, almost like party favours.
"Yay," Poland said, clapping his hands.
"Yay," Israel followed suit with her salty tone, but didn't show much emotion to being given the black shirt. She meticulously looked it over and then folded it in her lap.
"Who's ready to practice?" Professor France looked around at us expectantly. I raised my hand slowly and Poland did so after, a little sheepishly. Qatar and the others followed soon after, ranging from hopeful to placid to 'do I have to do this?'. "Great! Did everyone remember the time were meeting for today? If not, it's at sixteen thirty, back here." She clapped her hands. "Now then, let's get started. Act one, scene three. The casino." And so it went. Since I had the lead role, I did much of the work. The Queen was Israel, and she played her role well. She already had the distinct vindictive personality the Queen of Spades herself had. All in all, we did most of the speaking lines, preferring to do the singing during our time with the whole cast. Mostly our class had leading roles, which was good, since we seldom had to dance. Mostly. Somewhat. I did have a part which was incorporated by professor France to make the play more interesting. It was a waltz between Hermann, the main character, and the Queen. Brilliant. Dancing with Israel was something I considered not fun. Apparently, she did too. But we didn't get to that part yet. It was all for the future. The time went by quickly, and soon we were all to leave. I left with the others, all leaving for our separate classes. I had one more hour of digging around insides to look forward to. Biology with my over excited lab partner. Great. Our teacher, Professor Spain, was a tough, snappy and fast talking man with a short wick and a fierce determination for protecting what he felt was right. Once a famous athlete, he resigned because of an injury to focus on biology, ironically. He had a taste for gold necklaces, leather jackets, and men's cologne. The smell of it would waft though the whole room and it was nauseating to be next to him. As I had dreaded, we came in to see an array of blue plastic bags with purple on the bottom. An assortment of sharp probing tools and pencils awaited us to use them on whatever disgusting things were in the blue bags. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my partner, her own eyes gleaming with barely contained excitement. I wondered if she was sane. Probably not. Last time I had tried to put my dry sarcasm away, but she was too perky, too irritating and too excited for me to handle.
"Buenos días mis queridos estudiantes!" Professor Spain came out of the back room, holding in one hand his leather jacket in the other a cardboard box. I didn't know much Spanish, but he always said that phrase, so I knew it meant 'good day my dear students'. Unlike professor France's class, we jumped right into our lesson. "Today I was able to get fascinating pieces of rabbit hearts. One for each group. It was a hassle, but I managed." To be honest, I wish he had some roadblocks. Biology without having to dig your hands into meat was bad enough. Too much layering, too many subjects. Biology was layered over Chemistry, which went over Physics, which went over Mathematics. You needed the lower layer to understand the higher one. Almost like a cake. You can't make the top layer without the base. I let my partner have the honours of dissecting, and took on the job to write down our 'findings'. After some time, which went slower than I ever imagined, we finished to my delight and disappointment of my partner. I stripped off my gloves, said a hastily good bye to her, washed my hands off and left. I didn't want to engage in further conversation or stay behind to discuss the sinusoidal node or the carotid valve closures. they were talking of watching a beating heart and almost caught me to ask for advice on the subject. I think I would throw up if I saw a pulsing heart. Looking at a cold and empty heart was bad enough. I had some free time to do whatever I needed, give or take two hours, till I had to meet up with the rest of my unenthusiastic class and theatre obsessed club of professor France. I went back to my college to find Iceland gnawing on an eraser. He was accompanied by two bottles of orange juice and a muffin.
"Hi Iceland," I greeted him.
"Hello." He said back. "Do you know what logarithms are? I am so confused."
"They are exponential inverses." I explained quickly. "Basically the answer to the logarithm is your exponent. Logarithm four with base of two equals two. Right?"
"Uhhh," he looked over his paper. "Uhhh, yeah. Right. Yeah, you're right." He scribbled on his paper. "Can you check this?" I scanned over his answer to find only one correct. He sighed in defeat when I told him.
"I'm never going to get this!" He moaned. "How do you do it so good?"
"My father made me practice out of a workbook after school and over the summer," I said. "And I had to do ten a day. If I got one wrong, I did two in place of it. You could see how that would turn out." He jaw dropped.
"That's insane! Your dad is really weird." He shook his head. "And demanding."
"Yes, but I'm better now, aren't I?" I shrugged. "Also, I had to be better than anyone else. I had certain bad traits that would eventually make me even lower in status."
"Yeah, I guess you are right." He conceded. "You do maths that I can't even conceive of. Like those strange L shaped things."
"You mean the anti derivative signs?"
"I guess. What are those?"
"The opposite of the derivative," I felt myself launching into a full mathematical explanation. Oh, well. Lucky Iceland. "A derivative is the tangent line at a certain point of the graph. It is labelled usually 'f prime of x'. Each point has its own tangent line. Knowing this line, we can find if the function is increasing or decreasing using just the function in standard notation. The anti derivative is basically finding the original function from its derivative. Also it is called an integral. Usually these integrals are used to find the area under the curve, of course, noting that these are indefinite integrals, which are the said latter anti derivatives."
"What?" Iceland looked like he was drawing a blank. "How?"
"We can also find it using Riemann sum. There are different types. Riemann sum are rectangles drawn on the curve. Of course, if you know how to calculate the integral with the Theorem of Calculus, you'll be all set. Even though all of this had absolutely nothing to do with logarithms, it was still nice to explain."
"You sound like Germany." He noted. "Nerdy."
"I don't go telling everyone this," I countered. "I'm not showing off. You just asked, what is the L shaped thing."
"You give me a whole class on calculus!" He laughed good naturedly. "Its good to know though. Thanks."
"Okay, have a good afternoon. I need to go work on my production,"
"Hmm, good luck. I hate plays." He snickered. "Maybe I'll come watch you."
"Hah, don't expect much,"
"I don't ever expect with you," he sniffed. "You taught me looks aren't always highway signals."
"And you say I'm bad at comparing."
"I caught your wave," he smiled. "I spend too much time listening to you."
"Have fun with your maths." I closed the door and went out into our courtyard. Some students were already out there, hidden amongst the thick pines. It was very warm for February, but the clouds and fog in the morning were telling me not to get too comfy. Soon we would have some precipitation and possibly high winds. Yet the future was still bright. I always looked into it as much as possible. It was so much clearer and brighter since I was accepted here. I was even scheming how to get my father off of his smoking addiction. He somehow quit drinking--but that was because he was scared into it and because he wanted to. I walked along the walkway that led to our huge stone and marble library. It was a cross between modern and ancient. The large towering bookshelves of many levels towered over everything and the vaulted ceiling with intricate mosaic patterns was painted above. To reach the topmost books, several walkways made of glass made climbing up and searching easy and accessible. Unless you were scared of heights. A circular glass pane illuminated a beautiful statue in the middle of the hall, a winding serpent with feathered wings being held by a valiant hero. Water was trickling out of its mouth and into the pool below. It made a pleasing sound of water over stone that echoed across the whole silent building. The rest of the library was alight by wide iron chandeliers with large wax candles in them. I imagined how hard it must be to switch the candles out each time. Students were seen here and there, and I descended the steps down to one of the tiers below the ground, under the beautiful structure where darkness was cut by glimmering torches of artificial flame which looked so real till you passed it and found that it elicited no heat. You could have your hand hover in the middle; nothing would happen. Old manuscripts and thick hardbound books stood in rows, all under the low and claustrophobic ceiling. The rows were packed so close together that no two people could pass each other. I went around, searching for the section I was reading from: banned books of the modern century. These books were prohibited in modern countries, and many were from totalitarian governments. I found books by Lermontov, and was currently searching for other ones that my own father commanded be away from public eye. Not that I wasn't heeding his wishes. He needn't know what I do. I'm an adult now, after all. I can make my own choices when I feel they're right. Not very rule has to be taken to heart. I was in the middle of searching through the section glancing at old, new, beaten, still in plastic, chained, clasped, thick, thin, and all other types of books imaginable when I felt the presence of someone else. It was sort of unnerving being down there, under the low ceiling, small and narrow pathways though the shelves, the artificial torches with their programmed flicker cycle, and the eerie quiet of knowing that the books here had caused so many reverts and changes in history as well as fully understanding that the knowledge found here cannot be told to many. The person who came down made no noise, and though it was expected, it felt chilling. The soft footsteps became slightly louder and then stopped. Again, the cycle repeated. It did so till I heard the voice humming a little tune to themselves. I turned to peer though the shelves to look. Japan. Instantly, I had the urge to slink away. On second thought, never mind. It would look cowardly and childish of me. I would have to stick it out. Too bad that she moved closer and closer to me. I involuntarily held my breath and pretended to be searching though the books. She came closer and closer. Then she turned to me, as if practiced and sighed. I was ready for a response.
"Well, hello," I said politely.
"Hi Rus," she waved nervously. "Um, nice day for looking at books, right?"
"Mhmm, banned books in particular," I nodded. She looked very uncomfortable, and clutched the ends of her pink sleeves. I sighed, not holding the tension any longer.
"Look, I'm sorry," We said in unison. She smiled a little.
"No, I really am," She shook her head. "For telling everyone and everything."
"Mm, I shouldn't have reacted so explosively." I said. "I think it's sort of my fault for yelling at you and making everything worse."
"I think it's mine in root, though. I even asked Vietnam to tell you, so that you wouldn't be as mad. Then I forgot that we didn't have engineering today. It made me sad, so I came here. What a surprise I found" she giggled, obviously anxiety wracked, and extended her arms like she was hesitating. "Friends?" She asked tentatively.
I returned her hug. "Friends." She smiled.
"Thanks," she curiously looked at the book in my hands. "Are we in the prohibited books section? I don't really pay attention to placards."
"Yes," I said, looking at my watch. It read that I had ten minutes before my super great fantastic showtime with professor France. Hooray for drama. I've had enough already. "Sorry to leave like this, but I have to go. Practice,"
"Oh, for what?"
"Theatre," I made a face. "In the auditorium. I'd rather no one watch. But alas, it's a play after all."
"Maybe I'll come," she shrugged. "To watch?"
"I beg you to not," I started to make my way out, marking which book I was going to take with a special tab on books. It marked that I had waitlisted it and that nobody could check it out of the building. Japan stayed behind to leaf through some old books from the century before. Each shelf had books sorted by age, language, and topic. It was meticulous work. I appreciated it. I walked out of the dark underground and into the lit main hall and broke into a run as I left. I was probably going to be late. But I always was. It wasn't a big deal. Now that I had the large issue disintegrate like a limestone block off of my shoulders, I was free to go on. On to newer, ever changing, ever morphing new roadblocks.