Chapter 04 - The Year of Rumbling Thoughts and Motions

While things have been going the way I wasn’t expecting, I still managed to hold on to what I am supposed to achieve. As each day passed by, I felt that my crush on Hooey got stronger and stronger as she was one of the only few who would treat me as a friend. Still, I knew too little about her. All I knew about her was she idolized a very popular local artiste by the name of Jason. According to her, Jason was a very good friend to her and treated her quite good. Due to that she had a deep crush towards him and every of her friends know that. I did too but was a bit late.

Things didn’t go quite well in the year of secondary 2. Most of the times, I was seen to be quarrelling with the top delinquent of the class. Everybody in the class knows how terrible this guy was. He would be brave enough to stand up to the teachers and step on their faces with harsh words and mockery.

As I continued to silently keep feelings on Hooey, I have been watching her almost everyday. My habit caught the attention of Mr. Delinquent and he began creating awful stories about Hooey and me. This enraged Hooey and her friends where at one time, she was at brink of hitting him for good. This proved one thing, Hooey wasn’t interested in me at all. Assuming that it wasn’t a fact I continued my espionage activities for the whole year.

In the month of August in my secondary 2 year, I had the biggest and most brutal fight with Mr. Delinquent. On that day, he came to school with an injured foot. As usual he kept teasing me and for that day I couldn’t stand the teasing. While he began to throw pebbles to me, I ran towards him and punched him a few. We ended up been called to the school’s disciplinary board where the both us received our due punishments. We were given a choice of either calling in our parents for a discussion or we would be caned twice. For the sake of settling things then, we chose the caning and we were caned hard and we promised never to fight again in front of the teachers. We were still at each other’s throat by then.

In the same year, I heard from Jul where he told me years later that he pursued Vanesse one last time that year. He tried sending in a note to her expressing how he feels but yet again he was disappointed by another rejection. He vowed from that day onwards, he would not be interested in girls anymore but that only lasted for a year or two.

As boring days passed silently, we continued on to secondary 3 without much improvement. I was still in the same class because I couldn’t reach the top 10 spots of the final exams in secondary 2. Some other things also continued on as I still had minor feelings towards Hooey.

However, things reached a gigantic U-turn when Jul and Dwayne were drafted to my class after flopping in yet another year in the exams. That was my first time ever knowing that the 2 were actually very close friends. I began to find out more about Dwayne and Jul and what they were actually doing behind school times.

In the first few weeks of secondary 3, I noticed yet another peculiar event. Dwayne was still as popular as ever among girls and this time it was a duo of Ross and Claud. The 2 were like bees among a pretty flower where Dwayne was always seen with them whenever there were no teachers around. Dwayne would be happily talking with them while smiling like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Another event which caught my attention during secondary 3 was how close Dwayne was with Hooey. I was shocked to see them talking with each other just like every other girls would in front of Dwayne. I began another strange thought that Dwayne might have intentions on Hooey. Yet again, this was all my assumptions but still they did spend lots of time together.

On almost every week during physical education classes where almost all the boys will be out playing soccer, Dwayne and Hooey would be in the class enjoying themselves while playing on the table. Don’t get me wrong as they did play a game on the table that is table-tennis. They would be having so much fun that they would not notice that physical education period would be over soon.

Jul however, was the ace in the class on that year. During the monthly tests, he would score the highest among all the others. I supposed he might be working his butts off in his studies as he would not want to flop out to another crappy class. Even though he looked like an ace, he did not act as so in the class. Most of the time, he would be seen as a tired boy who didn’t have enough sleep from the day before.

The traditional event of the IMF began in this year but with only 2 organizers at that year. In the middle of the year 2000, the first BBQ of the IMF took place. This was the first BBQ in the history of IMF. I wasn’t present in this BBQ but I heard the stories of it later.

Jul and Dwayne organized a small-scale BBQ when they were feeling bored. They held it at a field near Dwayne’s old home. At that time, they were aiming to know more of the girls from this event. Thus, they invited the ultimate pair of disaster, Ross and Claud. This invitation brought a wave of destruction to their first BBQ which was inevitable. It was their mistake to invite them.

Finally, the first BBQ was official on a misty Saturday morning of June 2000. Jul and Dwayne both prepared everything and the foodstuff would be sufficient for the amount of guests that they were expecting. As Jul was a scout in secondary 1, he had skills in lighting a fire but still after 2 years of not doing so, he needed more tries before gaining success. Jul had no BBQ kits and pits so they just dug a hole out the sand in the middle of the field and started a fire a there. He did use charcoal to start the fire.

After an hour of work, the guests finally arrived but with a surprise. They brought along a couple of boys which gave a big shock to the 2 organizers. Along came Jord, Cheep and Auld. The number of guests rose from 2 to 5 and the foodstuff wasn’t really sufficient for them. As the guests continue to munch on their food, they tried not to eat too much of the meat as they know that the supplies wouldn’t be enough if they did.

Within the next 2 hours, all the food and drinks were completely reduced to almost zero. The 2 poor organizers were still quite hungry as they tried to control themselves to not eat the portions of the guests. Jul thought of a weird but working plan to comfort their hunger. He went and bought bread from a nearby convenient store and rushed back to the BBQ site to exert his talents. He did the unspeakable. He skewed the bread on the BBQ skewers and told Dwayne that they were going to eat “Entwined Bread”. This was the name of the foodstuff that Jul gave after what he did to the bread. He skewed the bread on the skewer and rolled and entwined it around the skewer. This was the first official IMF only food.

Day after day, I lived my secondary 3 year with complete boredom and seemingly aimless. At a blink of an eye, it was already the week of the mid-term exams. I prepared well and studied twice the amount I did. I managed to complete the test with some confidence.

During the week where the results were published, Jul topped the class yet again. He got the highest for almost every paper which included science and mathematics. I could always recall how he reacted every time he got his results back. He would kneel to the floor and utter words “Thank you, God” which has been already forgotten by many others. As he was finally the ace of the class, he was accepted well by many of the girls which included Hooey. I was not far behind but still wasn’t up to his standard.

For the whole of the 2nd term, I continued on studying and was trying to achieve better results for the upcoming public exams. Everybody else was also doing so but there were other noticeable events worth mentioning. Dwayne befriended a girl who lived 2 doors away from his old home. The girl, Amanda was quite a close friend to him and Dwayne had many secrets entrusted to her.

Once, Dwayne had asked Amanda to pass a gift from him to Val. He wrapped the gift nicely and passed it to Amanda. As what Dwayne told me, Amanda did hand the gift to Val but at the end of the day, Val did not like the gift and gave it to someone else. Dwayne thought that Val might not like the person who gave the gift rather than the gift. As of that day, Dwayne tried his very best to forget that Val ever existed in his heart and mind.

On the other hand, Hooey began to get closer with Jul by the day. Every week in the Living Skills’ class, Jul, Hooey and I were always seated together and Hooey would always be talking to Jul rather than me. Jul was always giving her interesting and yet knowledgeable IQ questions for her to answer. She would be so enthusiastic in finding the answer that it would greatly amuse her. I began to lose more and more hope as I find myself drowning to the edges. I felt that it was impossible to beat the ace if he would be interested in Hooey.

It was finally the week of the public exams, the time we were all waiting for. Upon finishing this exam we would be granted temporary freedom from books for about 3 months. Weeks prior to the exams would be seen as busy days. Everybody was doing nothing else but studying and revising. Those people would include me as well. Jul was always the attraction when it comes to questions regarding scientific matters.

Passing each day in the week of the public exams was particularly slow as I needed to worry what questions the next papers will cover. Though, eventually I passed everyday of it successfully. After a full week of exams, we were finally done. We’ve completed the first level of secondary education. On the last day of the exams, yells of people can be heard with words like “Freedom!” and so on.

School still continued but not many attended as there weren’t many lessons going on. I was one of them who always skipped classes during that time because people would be there just to play games with each other. It was another whole month of school before a two-month long holiday was granted.

December 2000 was the month where the results of the secondary 3 public exams would come out. Everybody was waiting nervously for the results to be publicized. News on the television would announce the actual date of the results publishing. I remember it was a few days before Christmas where the results were actually released. All of us crowded the classrooms to see our results.
I got mine and it wasn’t very disappointing. We were also handed out forms to be completed on which streams we were going to choose. We were given a few choices where they fall in 2 main categories, science and arts. I chose science of course and awaited the drafting results which would be announced at the first day of secondary 4. Thus, I continued on my life to the 2nd level of secondary education.