Secret Behind In Mystery

Chapter 1 My father was a kind-hearted policeman. He died when I was three years old. I do not remember his voice anymore, only his badge. It is heavy and gold with a star in the middle. Mama threw it in the trash after his funeral. I took it back when she was sleeping. I hid it inside my old bag. I am Ia. I am his unica hija. His outside daughter. His bunso. After Papa died, Mama learned to hate me. She says I look exactly like him. When she is drunk, she hits me. My tita hits me with a hanger and calls me malas. My yaya locks me inside the bathroom for hours and turns off the light. I would knock and cry. No one opened. One day in Grade 2, some girls pulled my hair and wrote ampon on my bag with pentel pen. I ran home with tears. I told Mama, Mama binubully ako sa school. She did not even look at me. She was watching teleserye. She said, tigilan mo ako. That night I learned something. At three years old, after Papa died, I learned how to hide my real face. I smile even when I want to die. Grade 5. I had a white cat named Snow. Snow was the only one who slept beside me when yaya locked me out of the house. One night I held Snow so tight. I wanted to know what happens when something that loves me dies. Will anyone cry? Will Mama care? Snow stopped moving. I buried Snow behind our house under the mango tree. In the morning Mama asked where is the cat. I said I don't know. She just said good, mabaho kasi. No one cared. Grade 6. I became the bully. I started pushing kids, stealing baon, shouting bad words. If I hurt them first, they cannot hurt me. Teachers called me problem child. Mama never went to the meeting. Grade 7. I met Althea. Althea is beautiful. Everyone likes Althea. She is mabango, her uniform is always white, her hair is always soft. On the first day of Grade 7, she sat beside me. She looked at the scars on my arm. She did not laugh. She whispered, sino gumawa niyan sayo? No one had ever asked me that. After that day, Althea became close to me. She gives me small things. A purple ribbon for my hair. A small letter that says you look pretty today Ia. A bracelet made of beads. She holds my hand under the desk when Maam is writing on the board. She kisses my cheek in the hallway when no one is looking. My classmates whisper. They say kami na daw. They say we are more than friends. Althea thinks she is manipulating me. I know. I heard her talking to Jessa near the canteen. She said madaling utuin si Ia, kawawa kasi walang nagmamahal sa kanya. She thinks I did not hear. She thinks I am so in love that she can control me. She is half right. I am in love with her. But she cannot control me. I let her think she is winning. Because I learned at three years old how to hide my real face. Our school has a secret. First floor girls bathroom has three sinks and three mirrors. Left, middle, right. The middle mirror is always cracked. Maam Lontoc the janitress always shouts wag kayo diyan sa gitna, barado yan dahil kay Zakura. Everyone thinks Zakura, a Grade 10 who died last year, clogged the CR with tissue and shampoo. That is not true. Under that bathroom there are more than one hundred bones. I heard the principal and a policeman talking one afternoon. They said we cannot dig here, parents will panic. I hide my diary behind the middle mirror. You have to push the cracked glass gently, there is a small hole in the cement. Inside the hole is my diary wrapped in plastic and Papa's police badge. The badge is rusty now. It is the only proof that once a kind policeman loved me. I write everything there. How Mama beats me. How Althea touches my lips. How I plan to die in Grade 11 in the second cubicle of that first floor bathroom. I already chose the date. Ten years after I die, a new student will come. Her name is Luna. She is a transferee. Grade 11. She will become friends with Mika, Jessa, and Sabel. Mika is the brave one. Jessa is the soft one. Sabel is the one who loves ghost hunting. One afternoon Sabel will say uy may multo daw sa first floor CR, may 100 plus bones sa ilalim, tara puntahan natin. Luna will wash her hands in the middle sink. She will see the cracked mirror. She will get curious. She will push it. She will find my diary and the badge. The first page of my diary says, My father was a kind policeman. He died when I was three. When I told my mother I was bullied, she did nothing. At Grade 5 I killed my cat. At Grade 7 I met Althea. Althea thought she was manipulating me. But I learned to hide my real face at age three. That is when Luna will finally understand why I never showed my real face until the end. There is only one Ia. There is only one Althea. This is the secret behind in mystery.