"What the hell, dude?" Taro literally squealed as he heard the announcement.
Since the ruckus in the meeting room was huge, no one other than their small group heard his squeal. It wasn't a pathetic squeal at all; rather it was a squeal with extreme grief in it. Although, it did sound a little bit annoying, so the squad felt thankful for the ruckus since it cut down the audibility of the squeal down a notch.
"Well, you got what you wanted, right? Annual day in two months. You were spot on about the announcement!" Kunjan tried doing a cheerful voice, but with his stoic face, it seemed as if he was trying to openly mock Taro.
"Argh… Not now, plankton. Not now. You know what I meant, right? I thought we were gonna get another two months of nothing to do. Instead, what do we have now? We gotta pump up our classes into accelerated mode to take two months portions in one! This isn't what I wanted." Taro groaned and cried quite a bit.
Kunjan sighed. "If you think we've got it hard, look around you right now." The plankton paused for a moment and urged Taro to turn around and look at each and every one of them.
Initially, Taro thought that the plankton meant it metaphorically, but with him having to turn around like that, he understood that he literally meant it.
"Yea, I looked around. Now what?" The Wadorian asked.
"See the panic in their faces?" Kunjan asked.
"Yup, just like the one we have right now." Taro replied.
"There's a distinct difference in our look and theirs." The plankton corrected him.
Taro looked around to reconfirm if he missed any difference in their expression. "What's that difference? I don't sense anything!" He exclaimed. The alien wanted answers.
"Look around once again. However, this time around, look out for our fellow English teachers." Kunjan ordered, to which Taro nodded his head.
The one thing that he noticed was that the English teachers he saw had much more relaxed expressions than the others, with Malayalam and Hindi teachers joining in this relaxed group.
By no means had they seemed as if they achieved nirvana or something, but the panic in their faces was much less compared to what Science teachers had.
"Is this the power of language?" Taro asked as he turned back towards the plankton.
"Rather than it being the power of language or something stupid like that, it's the relief of having comparatively easy portions to take. For the science teachers and stuff, they gotta take their classes multiple times for the students to get half of what they want to convey. Unlike them, the language teachers have to spend way less for the students to engrave their teachings in their heart. Now, look at the Malayalam teacher." Kunjan pointed towards a Malayalam teacher and ordered.
"Hmm, she looks relaxed, I guess?" Taro shrugged, not understanding the meaning behind why Kunjan made him look over at that woman.
"You know, Malayalam has the most to write even when compared with Social Sciences and all?" The plankton asked.
"Really?"
"Yup. And yet she looks calm as heck. Do you know why?" Kunjan asked again.
"Well, Malayalam is these kids' mother tongue, isn't it? Maybe that makes it easier for them?" Taro guessed.
"That's right. Also, its story based teaching, just like English, makes it the easiest subject for the students. So, it's not the length, it's the ease of understanding that worries most of the teachers here. However, we are in that language category. Think about your classes. I mean, you teach kids who are more than well versed in English. So, even if the syllabus is a bit more, they would pick up what you say pretty quickly. You also teach the polar opposite of the students, don't you? I mean, the second graders may find it harder to understand what you say, but their syllabus is seriously less compared to the one that the twelfth graders have." Kunjan paused for a moment before getting to his conclusion. "So, what I meant to say was that we have it way easier compared to what the Science teachers are going through right now." He shrugged.
Taro stayed silent for quite a while as if he was processing what Kunjan just said at a rapid speed. It wasn't just Taro, but the others were in a similar daze as well. What Kunjan didn't realize was that he was going way too fast with his conversational speed that the others had to take a moment to comprehend what he just said.
After a few minutes, Taro finally looked as if fully understood what Kunjan said. "Oh, yea! They definitely have it rough. I just wanted to vent about something." Taro gave out a sly smile.
"I see. I hope you had fun venting out." Kunjan spoke.
"Oh yea, I did." Taro gave out an even brighter smile.
"Cool. If that's done, let's go back to our respective classes. Or else, Thankappan might bring up that conspiracy theory of his yet again." The plankton said as he got up from his seat.
"Did you just mention me or something?" Thankappan, who was in a trance of some sorts, snapped out of it when he heard his name being thrown out.
"Nah, not really. Maybe it's just your imagination." Kunjan replied as he hastened his pace.
"Hey, wait! Hear me out about the theory we spoke about earlier." Thankappan tried stopping Kunjan, but the plankton was a step ahead of the junior agent.
"Yea, no. Not gonna happen. Didn't you hear the principal saying us to hurry? So, why the hell are we even here right now?" The plankton asked as he amped up his pace.
"Wait a minute. We're coming as well!" The others followed suit.
"You guys do that. Since I'm in the same block, I'll just loiter around here." Taro said as he waved goodbye to his roommates.
"Bye, Sadanandan!" The others waved back. At this point, they became familiar enough with his other alias that they don't accidently call him by his real name out in the open anymore.
"Yea." After the lads left, Taro stared at the empty podium for the longest time before getting up. "Ha, I got a lot to do this month, huh?" He mumbled with his fist still clenched, holding off Scarlet from running away.
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Back in the class, the students seemed to be eagerly waiting for him. Initially, he didn't get why, but soon enough he understood the reason. The principal calling for a massive meeting like the one that day was always a big deal. So, they were naturally curious as to why she called on them.
However, even after getting it, Taro decided to act oblivious for his own personal pleasure. "What happened? Why are you all looking so restless?" He asked.
"Princi called for you guys, didn't she? What was that all about?" Juan asked.
"Oh, that? She wanted us to accelerate with our portions since we lost valuable time with the flood and all. So, let me tell this to you already. The portions we were meant to take slowly in about two months or so, we are supposed to take them in a month. I mean, it is fine for me since we're talking about English here and you guys are smart enough to grasp it. However, it is gonna be way harder for you lot, since I'm not the only one who's gonna rush with their chapter. Damn, I can't even imagine learning two months' worth of Social and Science in just one month. I guess it'll be a lot of fun for you lot." Taro replied with a smirk on his face.
"How is that fair? It's not our fault that a natural calamity came by. If anything, the board should extend the dates of our exams or reduce the portions or something." Ross shouted out in frustration.
"Meh, you're lying." Juan, who looked dead straight into Taro's eyes, spoke.
"What do you mean?" Taro asked, still keeping that smirk on his face.
"You're enjoying it way too much. I'm not sure about it, but I feel like either you are lying about it entirely or you're hiding parts of the announcement made just to see our reactions. Or hell, you're just a full-on sadist who enjoys seeing us suffer." Juan shrugged.
"I guess I understand why he thought that the kid was part of the MIB now. He's way too intuitive for his own good. It's either that or he's pulling off an extremely wild guess." Taro thought, as he secretly awed at Juan's skills. "Who knows, it might just be the third option, you know?" Taro was the one who did the shrug this time.
"Yup. That's entirely possible." Juan nodded his head.
And with that, the class erupted to a level that Taro didn't fathom. The voice of disagreement rang out from the class to the point that the entire block could hear it.
Concerned that it might piss off certain people, Taro decided to reveal the truth. "Chill out, guys! Although the two month thing is the truth, the reason we're doing it is because in two months, we're gonna have our annual day." He proclaimed, to which the class erupted—just for an entirely different reason this time.
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