Standard disclaimer applied
DON'T BE FOOLED
Part 1
"Everyone, we have a new student today. She just transferred here from Korea, although she is Japanese. Please come in," says Namida-sensei.
A petite girl with dull-blond hair in braids wrapped into two buns walks into the class with her head down. Standing by the teacher, and facing the class, she lifts her head. Students try not to laugh, or even crack a smile because the teacher would disapprove of such behavior, but they found it quite difficult. This girl was wearing a very thick pair of black-rimmed glasses that almost cover her entire face.
"Good morning. My name is Tsukino," she presents herself in a mouse-like voice and bows.
"You will sit there, behind Tsukishiro-kun. Tsukishiro-kun, please raise your hand so that Tsukino-san knows where to sit." A brown-haired boy raises his hand and Tsukino walks to her desk.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened in the morning classes, but many students, if not all, were quite surprised at how smart Tsukino was. She doesn't brag about her 'superior' knowledge. In fact, she only answers when asked a question, or when no one in the class knows the answer to a question that the teacher asked. But they didn't like the fact that a new student, and one from Korea at that, would most likely be one of the best students in their school.
The next day, a note is carefully passed around the school. The students make sure that this note was avoided by two kinds of people; first being the school staff and administrators, and second is Tsukino. Although the teachers are quite clueless about this, Tsukino caught on pretty fast. She has seen that same little piece of paper everywhere she went, but pretends not to see it, or rather she ignores it. Every student that gets the note start snickering, especially when they see Tsukino, the 'school outcast'; funny how such a name/title spreads so quickly around the school. Seeing this, she rapidly understands that the note was about her, but she didn't care. She has been though all of this in the past, and so decides that doing something about it won't make a difference.
From that day onwards, Tsukino has been plagued by 'pranks', as some would call them. Repeatedly, she has found her desk filled with reptiles of all sort so she decides to put a hard plastic lining on top of her books so that they don't get wrecked. She has found herself to be the target of water balloons, but is able to avoid getting wet by making herself scarce and reads in the library. She also finds that students seem to go out of their way to annoy her outside of school and finds it quite hilarious. But of course she doesn't show it in from of others, so she just ignores them. Needless to day, the students' attempts to make her life a living hell don't seem to well, and that's really getting on their nerves. Seeing how nothing seems to work, they resort to one last thing.
It's been a week since anyone has bugged Tsukino, and she's getting suspicious. She knows for a fact that no student at this school is nice enough, if nice can be a term to describe the 'decent' part of them, to just leave her alone. She walks though the hall and hears students snickering. She knows that they're up to something...but what? She walks up to the scoreboard to see how she did on the last exam. Not at all surprised to see that she ranked first, she turns to walk away, but a hand on her shoulder stops her. As she turns around, she finds that the hand belongs to her homeroom teacher, Namida-sensei.
"You need to go see the principal after school, understand?" After Tsukino nods, Namida-sensei leaves. Not understanding what's going on, she just goes to her homeroom and waits for the teacher to come take attendance. The morning was quite normal: students snickering and Tsukino ignoring. But at lunchtime, she overhears something quite interesting; students were whispering, if you can call talking at the top of your lungs while covering your mouth 'whispering', something along the lines of "I heard that Tsukino cheats on her exams! That's why she does so well on them." Eyes widening a little, she now understands that that's the reason she needs to see the principal after school. To avoid students from knowing that she found out about their 'prank', she goes on with her day and goes to sensei's office at the end of her last class. Some students discretely follow her, but she already expected that they would do that. Just as she's entering the office, she can hear several people laughing and snickering loudly. With a straight posture and a serious face, she finds herself in front of the principal with Namida-sensei standing beside him.
"Tsukino-san," Koujou-sensei starts. "I have heard several people talk about you for the past few days."
Hearing this, her eyes widen a little. 'How is it possible that these idiots were able to keep a straight face for the past few days without my knowing?' she thinks to herself without showing any emotion outwards.
"As much as we, the teachers and staff, know and believe these accusations to be false, it was somehow reached the ears of the administrators on the education board. Now these people are insisting that you take several exams to prove that you have not cheated on any examinations."
"I understand. I assume that I will be taking these exams right now?" This is more of a statement that a question. And had it not been Tsukino who said that, surely the student would have been reprimanded.
"Yes. The education officials are waiting for you in the library. You may go now, and good luck Tsukino-san," says Koujou-sensei as he nods in her direction.
"Yes. Thank you very much Principal," Tsukino bows. She turns and leaves the office quietly. As she walks towards the library, she is surprised that some students stayed to watch her...they ACTUALLY stayed to watch her 'supposed humiliation'. Of course, she pays no heed to them, and why should she? She never has in the past, and she certainly isn't going to start now. As she steps into the library, she bows to the people sitting on the chairs behind a large wooden table. "I'm Tsukino Usagi, a second year student in class A," she presents herself.
As the officials nod, they ask her to take a seat at the desk in front of them. "As you already know, you will be taking an exam in every single subject to prove that you do not take exams unfaithfully."
"Hai, I understand," she answers with a very serious tone.
"Good. You will start with Japanese literature," and for the next eight hours, Tsukino Usagi wrote an exam for all eight subjects that are taught at school. By 11:30 at night, all the exams were corrected and the results are tallied.
"Out of the 1600 possible points, you have, quite impressively, attained all of them. There was no way for you to be unfaithful when it comes to these exams, especially with us in the same room. Congratulations Tsukino-san. However I do have a question for you," says the highest official. "You say that you are in second year, am I right?"
"Hai."
"I see...I have talked it over with the rest of the officials here and we do not believe that you belong among the second year students."
"I do not understand Sensei."
"You see, we think that it would be a much better challenge for you to be in third year instead. These exams you've just taken, they are, by no means, easy tasks. In fact, we actually use them to determine what level a transferring student should be in. We did not expect any student to be able to answer several questions, and yet you were able to achieve a perfect mark in every section. It shows that you are very devoted to your studies and that you have, in fact, read and studied quite a bit of material outside of the school curriculum. There is no way for a student, in any level, to learn if there is nothing to learn or to keep their interest. A person shows their strength only when challenged. Do you have any objections?"
"No Sensei. It is an honor to be considered as such by figures of such high respect as yourselves. And it would be a most tremendous honor to be part of the student body in the third year level," she says bowing.
"Good. I will talk to your principal immediately about this arrangement. You may go home now," he says as he dismisses her.
"Thank you very much," she bows one last time before turning around and walks through the door.
Well...how was it? Excellent? Good? Ok? Bad? Horrible?
I don't know when will I add anything to this since I'm just going to let it go...let the story come to me instead of chasing after it. So it may be a while before I add another part to this. Just warning you first.
I really would like more people to tell me how they like this one...I think I have a better start and I can play with this a lot in the plot, but I can't really continue if no one tells me their likes and dislikes. A writer will not know how to improve or where to improve if not given any directions.
Comments, critiques and flames welcomed!!!
PLEASE!!!!
ONEGAI!!!!
PI PYOUNG EUL JOO SHIM SHI YO!!!!