The Corner (6 page)

When I saw Kenneth scanning
through us to choose the next “victim”, I raised my hand. “I need
to go to the restroom.”

Once he nodded, I rushed to a
door at the side of the gymnasium. Hastily pulling it open and
almost knocking into it during the process, I mentally scolded
myself and went down a short passageway to get to that safe
haven.

Upon entering the restroom, the
pale pink door, which croaked at every movement, slammed shut
behind me, bludgeoning the heavy silence in there. Beforehand, we
had gotten a scare from it when we used the restroom for the first
time. My deduction was that the hinge wasn’t working properly.

One of the taps was leaking. The
water was dripping out in a slow, rhythmic fashion. The splashing
of the liquid against the surface of the porcelain sounded
unusually loud when there was no one else around but me.

All those broken fixtures were
considered as minor issues as compared to the state of the one and
only men’s restroom in my school. The door was totally gone. A
rotting plywood panel was used as a makeshift screen to block the
view of the interior of the restroom. I suspected that they
bothered to put up a cover in front of the door due to the fact
that the restroom was facing the canteen. The male teachers and
staff were such poor things.…

Standing at the sink nearest to
the exit and looking sideways at the leaking tap, I was
half-speculating that blood might gush out from there soon. Then I
became hesitant to turn on the tap in front of me.

I could be quite a coward. Being
scared of almost everything.

Exhaling deeply, I gazed into
the mirror to check out the image of the failure in there.
Something was off about the reflection I saw.

I grimaced, and my reflection
followed suit simultaneously. All of my features looked the same.
Then I surveyed the surroundings through the mirror.

Light shone through a small
slotted window at the top of a corner. A pot plant casted a
deformed shadow onto the white tiled wall. Behind me was the
restroom door that stood ajar. From my angle, I could even clearly
see the spotless toilet bowls in each of the three empty cubicles.
The fourth one, which was furthest away from the exit, should be
unoccupied also since a notice “Do not use. Under Maintenance.” was
pasted on the closed door.

All of a sudden, I realized what
was wrong.

Staring down at the tap, I dared
not move. However, my teeth were chattering on their own accord. I
gripped the sides of the sink in futile effort to stop the obvious
trembling of my hands. My head hurt.

No.

It seemed like an eternity had
passed before I heard a creaking sound, followed by loud thud. I
took a deep breath to ready myself. Keeping my eyes closed, I spun
around to reach for the door handle. Right when my hand came into
contact with the cold metal, I curled my fingers around it and then
yanked with all of my might.

Not willing to see what could be
around and waiting for me, I stumbled through the door based on
general feel and direction. After gaining some distance away from
the restroom, I opened my eyes and dashed out to the main area of
the gymnasium.

The senior girls were taking
turns to jump over the vault while doing a centre spilt. The rest
of my schoolmates were sitting on the floor and observing the
senior girls performing the drills. I hurried over to join
Mandy.

Then a figure appeared at the
opened main entrance. A school bag and a guitar case were slung
over his shoulder. As that guy in T-shirt and gymnastics longs
strolled into the hall, I recognized him.

It was
unbelievable … that boy was in the gymnastics team. I had assumed
he joined the guitar club only.

“He’s here later than usual,”
murmured Rachel, who was resting by our side.

Mandy immediately regarded the
senior with an unwavering focus. “Who’s he?”

“Anton. A third year. He never
starts on time, but he also ends his training later than the other
dudes.”

The latecomer swaggered to the
shelves at a corner, then took out some items from his bag before
pushing it into one of the empty slots. The guitar was put aside to
be leaning against the wall. A middle-aged, small-framed man, who
was St. Andrew’s gymnastics coach, jogged to Anton after spotting
him.

The guys paid no heed to the
arrival of their teammate. There was neither greeting nor
acknowledgement of his presence. They treated him as if he was
transparent. Jareth, the team captain who was supposed to uphold
the team spirit, just threw a glance at Anton and went on to
perform a series of flips, twists and somersaults in one smooth
routine. I had to say Jareth had some impressive skills. That
fellow was probably very aware of it because after finishing his
moves, he made a victory pose with obvious pride and a smug look on
his face.

Quite a number of girls were
drooling over the captain … not literally. I thought he was pretty
cool, but still, there was no excuse for him to treat Anton in such
a hostile manner. Popular guys like Jareth would never understand
how bad it felt to be side-lined. And why should they care anyway?
People like us could only count on ourselves to make it through
anything.

While putting on the wrist
guards, Anton was listening intently to his coach’s instructions. I
couldn’t stop staring at him when he was looking attentive. He
might not be as suave when in T-shirt, but that expression on his
face was more than enough to make up for everything.

Mandy tapped me on my shoulder.
“Natalie, your turn soon.”

Being too engrossed in checking
out Anton, I hadn’t been paying attention to what was going on in
my own team. The sudden requirement to switch my focus threw me
off. All the excuses I had listed in my head were blown away to a
faraway land in an instant.

The slow-witted me had no idea
on how to get out of that. After Fiona failed to propel herself
over the vault due to the lack of strength, it was time for me to
face the music. My headaches were getting more intense, distracting
me.

“Just give it a try,” said
Kenneth.

Did I have other choices? At
least, I didn’t need to flip upside down for the vault. It was
better for me to quickly get over with it, so I wouldn’t hold up
the line.

I ran down the runway towards
the seemingly hulking structure. When my feet made contact with the
springboard, I opted to make a half-hearted small jump to show that
I had tried. The moment my hands landed on top of the horse, one of
them slipped. Despite the almost non-existent jump I had made, I
was in mid-air when my hand failed me. While crashing towards the
floor, I was unlucky enough to hit my chin on the surface of the
vault.

There were noises, and they were
getting louder. I was looking at my feet, trying to make sense of
the taste of blood lingering in my mouth and regaining my
orientation. I could even screw up when doing a small jump like
that. What a laughing stock I had transformed myself into.

Someone gently clasped my hand,
as if attempting to comfort me. Feeling grateful, I looked up at
that person, as a form of acknowledgement of the concern I had
received.

I saw long black hair right in
front of me.

Prising my hand off from her
grip, I recoiled from that girl. Then I bumped into someone behind
me.

“Are you okay?”

It was a male voice.

Under normal circumstances, with
a clear head, I would have just scurried away if a guy talked to me
out of the blue. Additionally, I would have recognized the need to
immediately peel myself away from his body. However, I hadn’t
recovered from the shock of the fall and the close encounter with
the corner girl. So I ended up turning around to see who it
was.

I got another shock when
realizing that the guy was Jareth.

The dude was staring at my
temple. “The right side of your forehead—”

The fear of attention being
drawn to my wound snapped me out of my stupor. I didn’t want to get
referred to June. Other thoughts began to invade my brain.

What if the girls misunderstood
I was interested in him? Would they have the idea that I feigned my
fall to get attention from him? How was I going to face them in
school if they thought so badly of me? They might spread those
untrue words about me.

“I’m fine.” Keeping my face
hidden from obvious sight, I pulled off my hairclip and crawled
through the thin crowd around me—the apparition was no longer among
them. I felt an utmost urgency to get away from Jareth.

Then I stood up and headed
straight to where most of my schoolmates were.

Kenneth ran up to me while I was
on my way to join the gathering of girls. “Are you really
okay?”

I made a small nod.

He appeared to be clearly
relieved. “Natalie, maybe you should take a break for the rest of
the session. And if you feel any discomfort, let me know
immediately.”

I was too ashamed to look at him
in the face. “Sure. Thanks.”

After a short while, everyone
was back in position and resumed what they had been doing. The
embarrassment resulted from the furore hadn’t left me. I kept my
head low and responded to questions with one-word answers.

When my schoolmates were trying
out the other exercises, with me sitting at the side, the corner of
my eyes caught Anton practising on the high bar. I had no clue on
how long he had been on there, but it seemed like he was going
strong, showing no sign of fatigue. Sometimes, he stopped the
momentum of his swings to perform a cast handstand on the bar
before swinging into motion again.

All of a sudden, he released his
hold on the bar to do a twist in the air. My breath was caught in
my throat as I gaped at him, worrying that he might fall. He
didn’t. My heart skipped a few beats when he caught hold of the bar
in time. After a few more swings, he did a flyaway: spinning and
sailing through the air before executing a perfect landing. Then he
walked off without striking any victory pose.

His strength and grace had
touched my heart. Whatever he did, he did it for himself. There was
no need for audience or attention from anyone. How I wished that I
could be like him.

“He’s good on the high bar,”
mumbled Mandy, her eyes were firmly on Anton.

“Yeah,” I replied in spite of
knowing that she wasn’t talking to anyone in particular.

She tore her gaze away from him
to look at me and whispered, “And kind of cute. This brooding and
mysterious aura around him …”

I didn’t know what to say as she
blushed.

Mandy pouted, then wondered
aloud, “Why do the rest of the guys ignore him? Maybe he’s a lone
wolf.”

I did feel connected to Anton
when she mentioned the fact that he was a loner. Nevertheless, I
knew I had no chance with him, especially when Mandy was interested
in him too. The affection and excitement shining in her eyes were
evident. As her friend, I didn’t want them to be extinguished.
However, some matters needed to be clarified.

I decided to divulge the truth,
hoping that she would be fine with it. “He takes the same bus as
me.”

While we were
making our way to the art room, Mandy slowed down her pace to walk
beside me.

“Guess what … yesterday Jareth
asked about you,” she informed with a cheeky smile.

Even after a week had passed
since my infamous screw-up, I was still hot topic to talk
about.

“I see …” I was feeling more
depressed as I dwelled on it.

She nudged my arm. “He seemed
disappointed when I told him that you’d opted out of the club.”

I could understand his
disappointment since everyone could no longer enjoy my clown shows.
“Uh huh.”

What was the use of telling
Mandy my thoughts when all the girls had good impressions of him?
They would stand on his side.

Mandy crinkled her nose as she
casted a disapproving look at me. “Aren’t you thrilled that he may
be interested in you?”

I stared at her, wanting to
rattle out my displeasure on how everyone had jumped to conclusions
about me being Jareth’s type, just because Rachel had made a
general statement about him having weird taste in girls. I still
remembered that particular moment when we were walking out of St.
Andrew’s school compound. All the girls turned to look at me when
our captain … my ex-captain said that. It was as if they had agreed
unanimously that I was weird. I might do things differently and has
difficulty mixing well with people, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t
normal.

Moreover, had they ever
considered that I could be further snubbed because of their
assumptions?

However, I didn’t reveal to
Mandy my worries and annoyance at their behaviour. I retorted, “Why
should he be? Plus I saw him checking out Fiona when we first
entered the gymnasium.”

It was a natural thing for any
guy to do that since Fiona was an attractive girl. Though not as
gorgeous as Kelly, she was pretty in her own ways. A feminine girl
with beautiful, fair complexion, she looked like a dainty porcelain
doll. Brian should consider himself lucky to have someone like
Fiona falling for him.

Mandy’s jaws dropped open.
“Really? I didn’t notice that.”

I nodded in confirmation. Maybe
all of them were too distracted by the awesomeness of the place.
The presence of boys made me so uneasy that I took note of them
right from the start.

She put her hand over her mouth
to mute the chuckles. “She may have her sights set on Brian, but I
think she’ll be happy to know this.”

I smiled. “Did she get to
befriend Brian already?”

“Nope. Only Jareth and few other
guys mingled with us. Brian hung out with the boys the entire
time.”