Ch. 1: The Bad Egg

The boarding school for girls resided at the deep end in the town of Almstad down a large stone-paved path enclosed in a great ironed gate surrounded with beautiful green lush environment. It became none other than a traditional strict educational school housing advanced female students for the semester. The school was known to be the tallest building ever built in the town. However, there is only one Scrooge out of all the teens. A rebellious fifteen-year-old teenage girl who goes by the name, Swift Vilunim disdainfully takes the pleasure of learning meaning she hates learning. Her lack of showing student attendance is the sign of her daydreaming about exploring around the world and collect treasure. Learning in class is considered to be her lowest priority due to her annoyance against snobby people around her age. Swift has been bullied by the students every single day because of not only her small size (four-foot, eight to be exact), her quick temper caught the attention of the boys thinking she is cute when she is angry. She will not hesitate to fight back as having the brawler personality in her blood since her childhood.

One day in Ms. Stempali’s class, they were doing history lessons about how the world civilization evolved during the ancient years. Every pupil in Swift’s class jotted down notes and read their textbooks at the specific page. With her head down on the desk having her face flat against the hand-carved mahogany wood desk, Swift slept and snored real loud as if the subject became too boring for her. History was considered to be the top most boring subject out of Math, Science and so on. Ms. Stempali sensed the snoring and looked across at the sleeping pupil from her desk.

Nobody like Swift will be the Sleeping Beauty of my class, Ms. Stempali thought in her head as she took out her one-foot long wooden cane that was the length of a sword and walked past the other student’s desks reaching Swift’s desk. Just as she raised the cane up high, she thought about poking her gently to snap her out of trance. But it didn’t work on the first part. She literally once again raised the cane in mid-air and smacked the desk making a loud “SMACK” noise with the cane against the desk. The loud noise immediately woke Swift up like her dream cloud made a “poof” sound and rubbed her sleepy eyes.

“Swift Vilunim, nap time’s over,” Ms. Stempali told her tapping her desk gently with her cane.

Swift looked up at the teacher droopingly but lowered her head back down by mumbling, “Just give me a few more hours.”

Ms. Stempali clamped her hands on her hips, tapped her foot and began losing her patience.

“I’m not going to give you a time extender because you obviously wasted my time trying to teach these fellow pupils!”

Swift didn’t hear a word that flew out of her mouth like she might be saying nonsense.

Many of the children groaned about the lazy Swift wasting their precious time trying to focus on studies. Ms. Stempali calmed the class down and reminded them she will get the sleeping girl awakened in no time. Without attempting to speak again, Ms. Stempali pulled Swift away from her desk and picked her up by the collar of her school shirt. Swift opened her eyes in a flash and looked panicked. She realized her teacher had to lift her off her seat.

“Wh-wh-what are you doing, Ms. Stempali?!” She stammered wiggling her legs in the air. “Put me down! Put me down!”

“For sleeping in my class, I will put up a crib for you,” Ms. Stempali replied in a grumpy manner and gave her a disapproving look. “No sleeping in class during a lecture.”

“What gives you the right to do this?” Swift protested as she flailed her arms real hard struggling to break free.

“Little girls like you don’t need to know about such foolish answers,” Ms. Stempali rolled her eyes and ignored her protests. “Or you can sit in the time-out stool until you know that happiness in fairy tales and dreams do not exist.”

The words she exactly had just said gives off the message about why sometimes older people her age are reluctant to dreams and imaginations—people like killjoys often label them as “nonsense” and “whimsical” about childish make-believe stories.

Swift sat at the time-out wearing a large white cone-shaped hat with the words DUNCE written in large red letters as if someone had painted that word in blood. The hat looked like it could be painted red, add a little cotton ball on the top like a cherry on top to match Santa Claus’s hat. Being in time-out sucked the fun of Swift when she had nothing else to do besides sit on the stool and watch the other people focus on their assignments as they’ve already forgotten about her.

Time passed to the end of class for today. The bell rang while Swift jumped off the stool and blasted for the door. But Ms. Stempali stood outside waiting for Swift.

“Not on my watch,” she said, and grabbed Swift by the collar of her school shirt in an instant. “No running in the building.”

“Whatever, I do what I want,” Swift talked back to her teacher in a smart-aleck way. “And besides, this building doesn’t have any speed limits. That means I can run whenever I feel like doing it and no snooty monitor cop is going to give me a speeding ticket for running.”

Ms. Stempali did not appreciate that tone of voice emitting out of Swift’s mouth. She grabbed her by the ears picking her off the floor. Swift kicked and screamed real hard but nobody around paid attention to her loud screaming.

“I don’t like that attitude of yours, young lady,” she said while grabbing ahold both of Swift’s ears. “And if you say another rude remark,” she continued by giving a firm warning and gave her ears a quick twist making Swift yelp. “You’ll live in a place where happiness in fairy tales does not exist!”

Swift twitched her left eye as if she’s about to snap and tried to pull away from her hold still screaming in pain. “Ow! You’re tearing both my ears off!” she smacked her hands away trying to break free. Ms. Stempali finally released her hands off Swift’s ears, placed her hands on her hips and tapped her heel gently on the tiled floor. She looked like she is losing patience and was about to have enough of Swift’s smart mouth.

“Try ripping my ears from my head and you’ll be sorry,” Swift announced in a rude tone of voice. Ms. Stempali wasn’t definitely pleased.

“You’re wasting my time here,” Ms. Stempali continued tapping her heel. “And tonight, you are sleeping in the attic.” She then stared down at her to say one more word to her. “Alone,” she added to finish her statement.

The attic is where people sleep all alone as a punishment in separation from others sharing a dormitory room. If anyone crossed the mean teacher’s line, they would be sentenced to sleep in an uncomfortable bed lacking blankets and become roommates with mice lurking around for food. Of course Swift would be happy to choose that decision because she preferred solitude from smart academic students who would badger her for being a slacker.

“Fine by me,” Swift replied sarcastically. “Thank you for giving me my own room, Ms. Stempali,” she added in a smart-alecky voice.

“One more thing,” Ms. Stempali told her before she could leave. “No dinner for you tonight.” She pointed up to the other hallway that leads to the attic covered in a huge shade of darkness. It was sort of a feeling like going through a haunted house where many scary things could happen in the void of shadows.

“One more thing,” Swift replied mocking the headmistress’s judgment. “I didn’t want dinner here anyways.”

Swift closed her eyes, opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue. She then pointed her finger to her mouth like she was going to gag herself. “The food you guys make tastes like someone tried to give me food poisoning.”

Ms. Stempali grew grumpier and felt offended about her remark about dinner. Criticizing anything about food and how they make them can easily trigger ungratefulness about one stubborn picky eater. Perhaps it was time Swift was sent to the attic for the night without meals. Ms. Stempali directed her to the attic and told her, “Go.”

“There was no countdown,” Swift told her. “You didn’t--”

“Come along,” Ms. Stempali cut off her response. “Off to the attic where happiness in fairy tales does not exist,” she added as she grabbed her by the wrist real hard and escorted her.

She led Swift down to the hall toward the steps leading to the attic where the creaking noises on the planks of the staircase emitting within every single step they had taken. Swift had proved herself to be the worst egg out of all the other good eggs like an ugly duckling.