Elemental Girls

CHAPTER 2

POV: Wendy

Its 5pm and we’re on our last subject for the day which is math when the teacher suddenly announced that we will have a surprise graded recitation.

“Surprises are supposed to make you happy, not nervous.” Fiona rolled her eyes.

“Easy tiger, we wouldn’t want Mrs Tess to asks us difficult questions.” Aliyah said.

“As if there is really an easy question for a math subject,” Esther, who looks a bit afraid, muttered.

“Relax gals, we can do this! I mean we’re not that smart but I’m sure we’ll get through this!” I tried, consolling them. “Besides, there’s just 20 questions and we have 50 students. So I guess only one of us four will be called.”

Mrs Tess started the recitation. Most of the students got it correctly but some who didn’t got the answers right, received humiliating words from her.

“And for the last question let’s have... Esther Shaul.” Mrs Tess smiled wickedly, knowing very well that Esther lacks a lot of knowledge.

Esther stood up awkwardly waiting for the question while giving us a glimpse of her eyes already forming tears.

“Ms. Shaul I think I’ll go easy on you. So the questions is, what is the square root of 100?” Mrs Tess asked.

Woop! That’s like a bonus question and I’m very sure Esther will got the answer correctly.

“Well.. uhm.. 50?” Esther answered quietly.

Our classmates groan for her answer. “Really Esther? That question is easy! Even babies can answer that.” Matt, the genius of the class said, earning laughter from the other students.

“Esther, girl, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. Your friends are all smart, except you. Why can’t you be like them? Study more so there might be a day where you can finally answer me correctly.” Mrs Tess scolded her.

And with that she dismissed the class.

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POV: Wendy

After Mrs. Tess went out, Esther run out of the room clutching her things.

“Esther, wait!” Aliyah ran after her.

Matt and the other students kept on talking and laughing about Esther.

“If she studied a little bit, maybe she wouldn’t be humiliated right now.” Matt said with a smug.

I looked at Fiona and sure enough she was about to strangle him.

“Fiona you need to calm down. This could add more pressure to Esther, you know that right?”

She sighed heavily, “ Yeah, okay. Let’s just catch up to them, I don’t want to hear any of these bullies anyways.”

We went to Esther’s favourite spot in our school —under the tree that used to grow apples but now its just a big branchless old tree.

And sure enough, Esther is there, crying into Aliyah’s shoulder.

“I knew you’d be here!” I said, hugging Esther.

“I’m sorry I messed up again,” Esther cried.

“Its alright, don’t mind them.” Aliyah said.

“You should have looked at us and we would told you the answer, silly.” Fiona shrugged.

“And what happens if Mrs Tess asked her how? What then? It would just lead her to more humiliation.” I looked at Fiona straight into the eyes.

“Just stop it guys, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Maybe ever.” Esther said sniffing.

The three of us nodded.

“You know its great that we were going to wild later right? We will completely forgot what happened.” Fiona’s eyes shining with excitement.

“We’re going to the wild later?” Esther asked, eyes wide open.

The three of us looked at her dumbfounded. Man, this girl.

“Yes, silly. We’ll meet at 8pm sharp at my porch later.” Fiona winked.

“Oh, okay.. I guess its a good distraction though.” Esther said, agreeing.

“See you guys later!” Aliyah shouted.

We hugged each other before going inside our houses.