6 Chapter 6: Clubs

Chapter 6: Clubs

“How many times did I call your attention? I told you to wear a necktie!”

“Did I tell you in the first day of class to remove your piercing?”

“Tattoos are not for students!”

I wasn’t surprised to hear those things. I heard it from my brothers who earned the experience of being with Ms. Adele. She’s the school disciplinarian ever since, and Adele’s her first name by the way.

She’s a stern looking middle-aged woman, and her black hair is fixed in a neat and high bun. She wears those square-shaped eyeglasses and carries her clipboard around. She usually sees to it that everyone’s following all the rules that the school made, or she made herself. That means no kissing, no tattoos, no piercing, no miniskirts, and no fighting in the school grounds.

It’s just the third day of classes before the bell will ring for the second class, and she was making rounds again.

Ms. Adele’s going around, issuing slips of warning to students who caught her eyes such as the couple who was about to kiss in the locker hallway. She walked in between them, implying for them think twice.

I chuckled when I saw it. I remembered that my brothers told me that if you got two slips in a day, detention will follow. Well, I think I shouldn’t mess with Ms. Adele. I’ll try to follow some rules when she’s around and probably break them secretly if I have to.

She passed by me while I was opening my locker. I greeted her a pleasant morning, and at least she greeted me back even if it’s just lackadaisical.

She was about to walk away further when she stopped at her pace and looked back at me while adjusting her eyeglasses. “Hailey Madrigal? Greg Madrigal’s sister? I saw you unloading from the Madrigals’ car this morning.”

“Um, yes I am.” Here we go again, I told myself.

If it’s Trevor, another genius-praising remark. If it’s Greg or Corey, another don’t-be-like-your-brothers-who-give-headaches remarks.

I’ll forever anticipate and endure these cliché greetings and introductions for the rest of my high school days, and even if my brothers will finally leave the house to go to college, their legacy will forever remain in the teachers’ minds whenever they will see me.

“Hmm…during our Homeroom class last year, he repeatedly made paper airplanes and flew all of it around. You should have known he got a disciplinary report for that,” she said while looking sharply at me.

“Um, I think I remembered that, Ms. Adele.” I really don’t know what she was talking about. “I apologize in behalf of my brother.”

“Well, I don’t expect you to act the same.” She looked at me once more and walked away.

She caught a guy who carelessly dumped a wrapper in the floor. I heard her say: “Pick that up. Don’t you have proper decorum?”

The guy earnestly picked it up and threw it inside a trash bin. I sighed then got my books out from my locker. The bell rang just in time when I closed it before heading to my Science class.

***

We are in the laboratory room. Mr. Mabini, our Science teacher, is talking about laboratory equipment, safety and the course outline.

Right now, he wanted us to explore the equipment while wearing the proper gloves and laboratory gowns the school provided. I was mixing chemicals and was enjoying watching the colors change as I pour another one.

Terence Hernandez, a guy I’ve known since we were children, was enjoying testing the microscope beside me. Some girls were observing the structure of a frog’s bone inside a preserved glass, and others were mainly doing the same thing as I am.

“Hey, Hailey. What club are you signing up for?” Terence asked me while at the same time, looking at his microscope. Aside from the casual hellos by the hallway back at elementary, we don’t talk that much until now.

“I really don’t know? How about you?” I asked back as I continued mixing chemicals carefully, so that it wouldn’t explode.

“Maybe I’ll try to get into the young inventors club.” He went back to scrutinizing things under his microscope. I watched how the orange chemical was turning to light blue after I mixed another chemical into it.

“Do you think Dana Fernandez will run for president?” I wonder why I had to ask Terence for that. Maybe because I got the instinct that a guy like Terence feels a certain disdain toward girls like Dana. Plus I remembered Terence joined the student revolution in unseating her back in middle school.

“Hmm, as I have been informed, Susan Pacheco is in that position now,” he replied.

“But she’s a cheerleader, right? I mean you can’t have two clubs at the same time.” I paused and thought about how oblivious I am not to know that Susan is the council president.

“You can have as much as club as possible as long as you can handle them all, and Susan signed up to be president when she was in sophomore. I think she won repeatedly. So I think there’s no year requirement for that,” he explained.

I grew silent and got worried if ever Dana’s going to win. Of course she got all the possibilities. She’s one of the popular new faces in town right now, so she might end up competing with Susan. Well, I will be at Susan’s side when it happens.

My friends and I just finished lunch and went to the bulletin board beside the principal’s office. People were still crowding around it.

We saw new faces and the same ones who went there this morning but couldn’t make up their minds, so they have to go back. They were those who are forcing or suggesting to their friends where to sign up. The sign-up forms were inside boxes with the clubs’ names in front of them, and the multiple boxes in pastel colors are underneath the bulletin boards. I tried reading the club names, but people were still crowding, so I think I have to wait until everything’s cleared up. I even saw some of my classmates from different classes who were flashing their fake smiles at me, so I flashed my faker smile at them too.

Elaine started digging for a pen inside her bag and says, “I wonder where I would sign up.”

“You could be a cheerleader,” I suggested. I knew she was dreaming to be a cheerleader since we were in fourth grade.

“And be the next Brittany of Glee,” I added while she rolled her eyes. She smiled when she spotted that the cheerleader area was clearing up.

“Think I’ll be signing up and following my dreams then because you told me.” She walked toward the cheerleading box and picked up a paper.

Whoa, I could not believe that Elaine isn’t fickle-minded at all compared to me. She picked up a form, and then walked back towards us with excitement in her eyes, “Thanks, Hail!”

“How about you, Chris?” I noticed Christine who is still making up her mind.

“Well, how about you, Hailey?” She asked me back. I stood motionless for about three seconds. I really thought about it, but I can’t think of any club that will accept me, and that I will like to be in except for one. Despite the dilemma, it was nonsensical of me to still wish that I could be in the same club with him.

“Hailey?” Christine isn’t looking at me but she was staring at a sign up paper not far from her.

“The Young Volunteers Club?” Elaine read slowly.

“I always something to join a club that makes the world better.” She paused and took a deep breath before she started walking toward it. She grabbed a form before I could even make up my mind on what club will I join that would not make my freshman year miserable.

“Well, that couldn’t be bad, right?” I asked. It dawned on me that I was talking to myself because Elaine was nowhere. I guess she’s looking for a table to write on, and I saw Christine’s filling up the form while talking to some group of a good mix-up of girls and boys. I think they’re into the same club as Chris. I’m starting to think of a name for these good-hearted people who would want to change the world.

I scanned the surroundings to check if the British guy is around, but there was no sign of him.

Why is it that a person whom you would want to see is always nowhere to be seen? I think he would have been avoiding me because he might not want to see me send peanuts to the air again.

“I’m going be the best photographer in school.”

I overheard two guys who were talking about the clubs near me.

“We might end up becoming popular if our names will be published.”

The other guy agreed and filled a form they were holding. I peek and got the idea that they’re signing up for the school paper, the Wrenchplains Youth Gazette.

I know that this will be a good decision, I thought while taking a deep breath like what Christine did a while ago as I squeeze through the crowd.

I found the Wrenchplains Youth Gazette Club application form box. I picked one form and noticed that the box’s almost full with filled-up forms and gasped when I saw one last unfilled form-–I wasn’t too late! I gave myself a virtual pat at the back.

I wrote my name at the last form. I filled up what’s being asked and returned the form back into the box. I affixed my name together with my signature at a separate paper where we are asked to.

I wrote pretty long answers, I thought.

I got nothing else to do before the bell rang, so I went around reading the names in forms from each box.

A name caused misguided neon colors through my eyes that made my head ache each time I saw it at almost every registration form I read.

Her. Dana. She was almost everywhere. Everywhere. Under the cheerleaders, where Elaine’s name was almost at the last line, Dana’s name was at the second line next to Susan’s too. Dana’s name was also written at the Dramatics club, but I was glad her name’s not at the writers’ club. It’s pathetic for her to go to a club wherein pure talent and passion were the weapons and not mere popularity.

Despite getting dizzy from coming across Dana’s name, I went away with my heart as a weary traveler.

It might have found one home, but I was still alone. I thought on what he said all over and over again.

See you around.

The eyes are not blind, but empty promises make the heart hopeful, and the heart ends up getting lost every time. A young heart like mine is lost until it finds a home beside him.