The Terminator

Chinese was a subject we as ICAn students(ICA is the name of my school here in the Philippines) had to both learn and endure. In that thirteen year-stay in my alma matter I accomplished one of those requirements, I learned, learned to endure it. It wasn’t just a normal subject where the process of understanding was all you needed and you’re set to go. It was more like drawing a portrait where you’d scrutinize those complex characters from head to toe, sketch them over and over so that the image becomes sketched in the canvas of your mind. After two to three days, those same characters seem to untangle themselves stroke by stroke and just disappear. The more you look for it, the more you won’t find it. You’d just have to do sketch it from scratch.

Well the reason why I had to talk about my old school and that one part of it that sets our school apart from most of the others – the Chinese curriculum, is because a very precious memory of mine relates to it. It was a warm cloudy Tuesday afternoon. A long piercing bell rang followed by the thumping noises of students racing to get out of school. Unfortunately I didn’t take part in the ruckus. I was still seated at the far back of Grade IV St. Monica(my section then) stationed on the second floor, seriously dreading what was to come, another afternoon with my Chinese tutor, Miss “Cheeky” Chua. I looked around the room then watched my fingers trace the carved crevices of my seriously vandalized table. I then decided to get it done and over with.

Right beside Cardinal Santos Medical Hospital is a small nursery school named “Twinkle Star”, nursery by day, tutorial house by late afternoon. My mom dropped me off. Clutching my Chinese books by the right arm, I entered the blue gates and into the house which contained a room where I would meet my doom. Tomorrow was my Chinese Final Exam and I haven’t studied for Ms Chua’s sample test as she instructed the day before. All I had with me, apart from my books, were a piece of paper folded ten times containing page thirteen to eighteen of my Chinese text book in miniscule scales.

As I entered a wooden door with rainbow paintings on it, I pleaded with God if I could perhaps bribe Ms Chua with the pot of gold and take this day off. Well so much for that, Ms Chua suddenly opened the door motioning me to enter, much like a predator sensing her frail prey. She was a white skinny tall young woman, cheek bones prominent whether she smiled or not. Obviously, that’s the reason I always connected her with the word cheeky which described her perfectly in its literal and figurative context. I said a nervous good afternoon and seated myself as far from her as I could, there were already four other students taking the test when I arrived. She handed me her questionnaire, and went back to her seat around seven seats away from mine, thank god, now I could “answer” in peace!

I started of this escapade in as subtle a way as I could manage. I began by scribbling down words I could recall from memory but was not really the answer to the blur of questions in front of me. I said a little prayer, prayed to God, begging him to help me through this, ironic as it may seem. I looked around, to my left then to my right, rolled my eyeballs up and down, then glanced at my teacher before I stealthily made my move. I silently groped through my side pockets, forgot which pocket the paper laid, I was jittery, hands all sweaty, it was after all my first time. I copied the first few lines written on the paper, and then as if my hands got the hang of it, I felt like I was invisible and invincible. I placed the small paper between my thighs, so that I could simply open and close to take a peek. Already in number 48 out of 50, I decided to look up for a while. I didn’t want to seem too engrossed in my business. It was only then that I noticed Ms. Chua wasn’t at her seat. I looked around the room she wasn’t there either. I suddenly felt a slight tap on my shoulder. She’s behind me isn’t she, the tall witch, ready to jinx me if I don’t confess right on the spot.

She had her palms opened as if asking for something. She used silent treatment, she’s rather good at it, it was so effective that tears started slipping through my lids and yet I still wouldn’t hand her the evidence of my evil scheme, well not until she took it right out from me that is. The little hiding place between my thighs was not much of a hiding place after all.

She had a rule, set from the first day she tutored me and the others. On every one of her tests we take, she’d hit us on our palms for the number of mistakes we’d commit, multiplied by the day of the week. Vague? Let me make it clearer. Suppose I had five mistakes in a test she gave out on a Wednesday, She’d have to hit me fifteen times, since five multiplied by three, Wednesday being for her the third day of the week, renders fifteen. She even had this plastic “pamalo”(Filipino for slapper) shaped like a hand with a handle to boot! We’d call it the “terminator”.

So returning to the matter at hand, I obviously got a zero in that test over fifty. I remained there till nine pm since I had to study over and take a retest. When I left, my left palm was numb from the one hundred slaps it had to endure. When I went home that day, I tearfully begged my mom to tutor me instead of that witch. Well, my mom could be much of a witch too when it comes to tutoring, but she wouldn’t terminate me in the way I was terminated that Tuesday afternoon!