Eventually, I found myself following without a case to the teacher’s office.
I still don’t understand why I have to be scolded, but once I hear the details, it’s related to someone’s feelings.
“The teacher waited here in the office all day yesterday to return this, but does it make sense that the owner of the item didn’t come to look for it? How do you think the teacher feels?”
‘Does it make sense for the teacher who took my money?’
Hiding my rotting expression, I muttered the words I wanted to say deep down.
If someone my age had made such a nonsensical statement, I wouldn’t mind slapping them back, while pretending to calmly speak as if it’s connected to their feelings…
When you strip away the unnecessary bits, the conclusion is ‘Dare you treat me like this?’
Dare I, a teacher, wait in the office after school, and you don’t come?
Dare I wait with your belongings, and you don’t come? How dare you?
If we think about it, shouldn’t the one who is more upset be me, who showed the kids the money and ended up losing 1300 won?
“So-yeon, what’s going on?”
“I’m scolding the kids, okay? Mari, answer me.”
“Uh, well, if we think about it…”
“Don’t talk back.”
‘Is she crazy?’
She tells me to answer, and when I try to respond logically, she suppresses me with her authority.
It seems this person won’t understand, so I aimed my questions at the moral teacher who just sat down next to me after the assembly.
“Moral Teacher.”
“Mari, you’re talking to the teacher right now.”
“Huh?”
“I traveled to America and showed my friends a one-dollar bill. But then the teacher took my money from the kid who was playing with it, so isn’t it right for the kid who got robbed to come to the teacher to retrieve it? I don’t understand why I’m getting scolded.”
Ignoring the homeroom teacher’s words lightly, I handed over the long-winded explanation of the situation to the moral teacher. After some thought, the teacher turned slowly to the homeroom teacher with a perplexed expression.
Surely, it must be a misunderstanding, the moral teacher checked again.
“Huh? So-yeon, is this for real?”
“Well, of course, the owner of the item should come looking for it!”
“No… are there different kids who got robbed and the kid who should come looking? What are you saying?”
The debate quickly turned into a battle between the unreasonable and the reasonable.
As both raised their voices, the gym teacher, who had been sitting far away, quickly approached and nudged me out of the teacher’s office.
“Alright, Mari… go back to the classroom.”
“Yes.”
Following the gym teacher’s reminder of my name, I hurried back to the classroom.
When I got back, the very boy who caused this mess, Tae-hoon, was happily playing with his friends, not even realizing the teacher wasn’t coming.
Should I just hit him?
Then, even when the first-period bell rang, the teacher still hadn’t shown up, so I discreetly got up from my seat to check the timetable posted on the board.
First period, Moral.
‘Ah, that explains it.’
I sensed something was off; there was a reason why she hadn’t come.
Thirty minutes into class, the teacher still hadn’t arrived.
It seemed we were going to continue playing until the first period ended when suddenly—
With a loud bang, the front door of the classroom swung open.
The visibly upset homeroom teacher stood there, calling for that little brat who had stolen the one dollar.
“Seon Tae-hoon, come to the teacher’s office.”
With a confused expression, he glanced around and then stood up to follow her out of the front door.
‘You shouldn’t be the one looking confused, you little brat.’
Cursing inwardly at the back of his head, I wore an incredulous expression.
Anyway, Tae-hoon, who got dragged to the teacher’s office, seemed to be in big trouble.
He returned with a solemn expression, somehow managed to bring back the one dollar, and handed it to me. Thus, I reclaimed the lost 1300 won.
If it ended there, it would have been a happy story where everyone regained their sense and learned some common sense.
…But this is not going to end nicely.
“Today, the cleaning duty is these three.”
[Kim Mari, Seo Tae-hoon, Shin Joo-hyun]
‘…I’m really marked.’
Of course, my name would come up more often in the homeroom teacher’s subject, and now it’s in the cleaning duty list like it’s utterly expected.
The homeroom teacher began to employ insidious methods of tormenting us.
Naturally, during the cleaning inspection, she started picking on us about the dust in the corner and complained that there was chalk left on the dry board.
Thinking I couldn’t go on like this for a year, I decided to grab the business card that was behind my phone for help.
“The connection could not be made, beeping sound….”
‘No answer.’
After several tries, it finally reached a computerized response saying it couldn’t take the call, and I pressed the end button.
The time was three in the afternoon. I had no clue if they were busy with something.
I hadn’t heard when the call could be taken, so it was frustrating.
If I was on cleaning duty, of course, Siyeon would go home first.
I got home a little late, took off my shoes, and stepped inside.
‘Huh?’
Right before I went into the bathroom, I got another call.
It was an unknown number, but since it was the same one I had just called, I clearly remembered it.
“Hello?”
“Ah, yes, what’s up?”
A familiar voice came through the smartphone.
It was surely the deep voice of a politician, and after nine days, it almost felt friendly.
Even after answering the call, I was filled with doubts, scratching the back of my head, unsure.
“Well, I’m not sure if I can get help with this….”
“Uh, okay.”
“One of those teachers who maliciously bully students… how can I deal with it?”
“What? There’s a teacher like that? Hold on a sec.”
Then, the voice on my smartphone faintly faded away while a short conversation occurred somewhere clearer beyond the phone.
It wasn’t too far that I couldn’t catch the gist.
“Which secretary, um, who was the superintendent of Incheon again?”
“### Superintendent.”
“Ah, okay, okay.”
With that quick exchange, the politician’s voice grew close again through the smartphone.
“Hey, hello?”
“Yes, hello.”
“The superintendent there is my junior, what’s the name of that teacher and which school?”
I answered his greeting back with the same words as he shared loads of good news.
Without any hesitation, I promptly sold out the crazy teacher’s info while I was in the bathroom.
“It’s Hyeran Elementary School, Teacher Jung So-yeon.”
“Ah, okay, I get it. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”
With that, the call ended abruptly, and I felt incredibly reassured.
After finishing up in the bathroom and washing my hands, Ji-eun was looking at the bathroom door with a puzzled expression.
She looked a bit like a meerkat.
As I walked toward the living room, she threw the question at me as if waiting near.
“What were you talking about on the phone in there?”
“Nothing much, just… a complaint kind of thing, you know.”
“A complaint?”
Answering her question leisurely, I slightly averted my gaze to avoid meeting her eyes.
If we think about it, it is a complaint, right?
Just not a typical one made through the website but a very direct complaint.
…A ridiculously big ball thrown by an elementary school student, just you wait and see.
“No, how could you kill my child’s spirit like this!”
‘Wow.’
Wednesday’s school was even more chaotic than Tuesday’s.
That boy, Seon Tae-hoon, who returned the one dollar to me, had his mom storming into the classroom, confronting the homeroom teacher.
How did I know instantly that she was Tae-hoon’s mom?
Well, she was holding his hand… behaviors like that screamed poor upbringing, perfectly matching the kid.
The teacher, who had been using students as her emotional trash can, probably didn’t expect such a scene to unfold.
Amidst the chaos in the classroom, Tae-hoon’s mother was bowing and addressing her.
Then came thudding footsteps loud enough to be heard all the way to the classroom…
“What on earth has the teacher done!”
An elderly man in a suit, clearly a principal or vice principal, burst into the classroom, clearly bewildered by the situation unfolding.
“Vice Principal?”
A flurry of parents in the classroom, the vice principal contacted after the superintendent, and the senseless homeroom teacher.
In a situation just shy of total chaos, all the adults vanished from the classroom under the vice principal’s authority.
A ridiculously big ball thrown by two elementary school students.
It fell like a meteor on the homeroom teacher’s head, just like a snowman in the middle of winter.
‘Great performance.’
Indeed, I should’ve invested in building more relationships.
Like a green dinosaur from some comic, all I could do was gawk in admiration.
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