The Burning of the Notebook | Teen Ink

The Burning of the Notebook

May 30, 2018
By -Sara- SILVER, Tirana, Other
-Sara- SILVER, Tirana, Other
7 articles 0 photos 0 comments

A normal day at Petronini Luarasi would start with jumping over the wall and into the school to avoid getting send back home because you showed up late. Then all the class would sit down so that the learning could commence, which included break time which consisted of people throwing whatever they found at each other, and using backpacks as goals to play soccer inside. Sometimes someone may jump from a second floor window too.
It was no wonder some teachers would hate their jobs, the music teacher was a prime example as usually she left in the middle of class crying, because of us screaming instead of singing. Though, professor Dudi had it worse.
For he taught the most useless class of the time; Motor Engineering, at a time where there were no cars available for the public. And memorising and drawing every part of the engine was too much, and since my mother's time students still used the cheating method of drawing on your skin and hiding it with long sleeves or your skirt.
Professor Dudi didn’t help as he made it his personal vendetta to torture the entire class with pointless questions and useless behavior reports, as a way to get back at us for also torturing him by throwing chalk or paper at him during class. However this only caused the entire situation to escalate into a war.
Every time he dared show us his back everyone would throw anything they could their hands on; paper balls, chalk, pencils, etc. Then when he turned back to catch anyone in the act we were all quietly sitting in our desks like angles. Though the the war shifted into our advantage with the discovery of the notebook.
Nobody knew much about the notebook, it only made its brief appearances during the beginning of class, but everyone knew that it significance as it foretold who was going to be called to the blackboard at the beginning of the class.
Being called to the blackboard was a horror that every student wished to avoid, for the fact that they might have not bothered to study or because they could remember every pointless fact. You could only blame your luck if you were called and sigh in relief if someone else was called.
Though the notebook held even more secrets inside of its blue plastic-cover. The subjects written inside ranged from grades to how someone was behaving. The notebook was a gold mine and everyone couldn’t help the smile that surfaced on their faces.
The dot next to the name of the person who would be called to the blackboard was erased and replaced with someone who studied or who everyone hated. Grades were changed and notes were erased. Everything was going well until professor Dudi got suspicious.
Before class started, everyone huddled together for an emergency meeting to discuss what to do with the notebook now that it had become littered with indecipherable symbols and signs.    
“To hell with it! What if he found out?”
“He’s just suspicious, he would have reported us already if he knew.”
“He might already know and just be waiting to catch who did it! He even stated using squares and circles! Do you know what the square and circles mean?”
“We didn’t do anything, right?” The threat was accompanied with a glare, and our classmates all responded positively or with half-hearted nods.
“We should burn it.”
The door opened and in walked professor Dudi and sat down on his chair and reached for the second cupboard. His head was in the clouds, or else he might have noticed the smiles on our faces that we couldn’t hide or how everyone was leaning forward. With rehearsed movements he set the notebook on the desk, and opened it.
Ash exploded from the blue plastic-cover, reaching out to cover everything it could find. Luck wasn’t on professor Dudi’s side as he was completely covered with ash, even his tomato red face was obscured and an expression of disbelief on his face.
Everyone was laughing, I had to calm myself down so that I could breathe. Someone had it worse as they were wheezing and their face was almost the same red as Dude's face.
Professor Dudi still remained frozen in disbelief.



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