Epilogue

“Tristan! You’re late again!” Mr. Scanta exclaimed. He carefully filled out a grey dot on the attendance sheet with his mechanical pencil. It seemed like he felt happy that I was late again. Like he had won. Ugh.

“At least I’m here at all Mr. Scanta,” I responded, already tired of him. “I don’t see Walter anywhere around here… Where is he, anyways?”

Mr. Scanta laughed, “Who knows?”

I walked to my seat at the back row which was on the right and beside a window. My seatmate, Lola, snickered as I sat down. I shot her a look, but I had to avert my gaze immediately. I didn’t want her to notice the blush on my face.

“Wow Tristan, speaking back to the evil Mr. Scanta? Who are you trying to impress today,” she teased.

“N-no one,” I mumbled back. I took a quick glance at her and she seemed… disappointed? Huh, I must’ve said something wrong. Great.

I looked up from my desk when I heard a loud voice booming through the hallways. I guess Cole was here.

“DO GOOD IN SCHOOL, SON.” I heard Ms. Park tell her son. I shuddered, she was so scary. And her voice was so loud too! I could hear her from here. Ms. Park was the head of the math department, and her son went to school here. A bad dynamic if you ask me, but it doesn’t seem like they have the best relationship anyways.

Cole came into the class surrounded by a bunch of girls. He was definitely the school’s sweetheart, there's no doubt about that.

Suddenly, his groupies had scattered. Penelope (Penny for short) had walked in, glaring at the girls surrounding Cole. Her crush was impressive, honestly. She was pretty much Cole’s bodyguard, but Cole was too dense to realize.

There were some rumors about her being kinda weird, though. I heard she would steal his dirty gym uniforms after P.E…

My attention had turned to Maisha. She seemed to be frantically writing down notes, something she was always doing.

Rahim slowly approached Maisha from behind, holding a stack of papers in his hand.

“NO,” Maisha yelled, not even turning to look at him. He jumped in shock, and walked away dejectedly.

Maisha’s friends, Sana and Jessica, sat beside her and laughed.. Jim was also there, sitting beside Jessica. He was trying to talk to her, but she was flat out ignoring him. I think he likes her, but I’ve heard he’s only trying to impress her because she comes from a rich family. Her parents are like lawyers or something. I don’t know.

Jim seemed to be fed up at his attempts to get Jessica’s attention, and he walked over to John and Ian. The two were clearly arguing, but they quickly stopped when Jim approached them. He must’ve said a joke, because they all started to laugh with each other.

“Hello there!” Scanta’s voice echoed out. I looked to where he was looking and saw three kids I’ve never seen before. They looked pretty young, too.

“U-um, hi. Is this room 203?” One of them asked quietly.

“Nope! You guys must be new, are you freshmen?”

“And what about it, baldie?” The one with the bowl cut snapped back.

Scanta laughed, “what are your names?”

“I’m Matsu, this is Mishti and this is Kulsum.”

“Nice to meet you all. Akaash, can you bring them to their classroom?”

“Hell no! I am not letting my brother show me around. Come on, I’ll find it myself! Let’s go,” Mishti huffed. They all left.

“Huh, Akaash, that was your little sister?”

Akaash, the guy sitting a couple desks beside, nodded and winced. “Yup…”

Scanta laughed.

The P.A beeped, and Ms. Lucky’s voice boomed through the speakers. “Could all grade 11 and 12 law students please head to the foyer, NOW. Thank you.”

A bit of shuffle could be heard, and it seemed like Ana (the guidance counsellor) now held the mic. “Could Matsu Kagneel please report to the guidance office, thank you.” The sound of the mic being put down played through the P.A before it finally stopped.

Damn, the poor freshman is probably having a bad day.

“ALL YOU BRATS THAT STILL HAVEN’T PICKED UP YOUR MATH TEXTBOOKS, COME TO ROOM 208 AT LUNCH,'' Rika's voice could be heard resonating throughout the halls.

She walked into Scanta’s class 30 seconds later.

“Mom- I mean Ms. Rika, how did you get here so fast? Didn’t you just make an announcement…? In the office? Like, the office that’s two floors below us?”

“WHAT? NO. WHY WOULD I NEED TO GO TO THE OFFICE TO MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT?”

Cole stared at her in disbelief. “Were you just yelling?”

“OBVIOUSLY. NOW SON, HERE IS YOUR LUNCH. I FORGOT TO GIVE IT TO YOU.” She dropped a bag on his desk before leaving the room.

Right after she left, Pugh (the other English teacher down the hall) walked past Scanta’s class and gave him a dirty look. Two of Pugh’s favourite students, Ben and Katie, trailed behind him. They also shot Scanta with a dirty look. Scanta smiled back.

“Okay everyone, sit down! We’re starting!” Scanta yelled out. Once the class had settled down, Scanta stood at the center of the room.

“I’m going to start today’s lesson with a question.”

We stayed silent, waiting for him to begin.

“Does anyone here believe in fate?”