Learning fast

Prompt and Author's note ▼

Prompt: Write about someone starting a new academic year at a brand new school (or college) - and you must include EXACTLY 22 different emoticons - no more, no less - in your STORY.

Author's note: The 22 emoticons have been numbered^1-22 using supers. Thanks.

Jasmine was surprised, and a little annoyed with herself, to find herself trembling. "Come on," she told herself sternly. "They're just people, not s¹. They won't eat you."

But deep inside, she was afraid. She was shifting to the big city of Mumbai from the relatively more peaceful city of Baroda. She had been in an all girls' school with just 100 students in all - ten in each class. Now, she'd be meeting thousands of ² Mumbai boys and girls, a hundred to a class in this college. How would she survive? And she'd always worn the school uniform before. Would her ³ and ⁴ find favour, or be laughed at?

She had arrived early and chosen to sit in the front row, hoping the more ⁵ teenagers there would be kinder to her, or just leave her alone. She wouldn't be able to cope with back-benchers.

Her fellow classmates started coming in. She watched. ⁶. How tall they were. How expensive their clothes were. They wore make up, too, both the girls and the boys. Jasmine wanted to sink through the floor.

"HALLO THERE!"

⁷

Jasmine was so surprised, she couldn't respond for a moment. A plump girl with ⁸ was sliding into the bench next to her. "I have to sit in the front row, bad ⁹. Can't see a thing from the back. Which school were you in?"

"I'm from Baroda," Jasmine managed to stammer.

"I've never been there but I've heard it's pretty. You must've ¹⁰ it."

"I did."

"So how come Mumbai?"

"Dad got transferred here, a big promotion."

"Good for him, then. Did you come here by bus?"

"Yes."

"Where do you live? I'll take you back home on a ¹¹. You aren't a true Mumbaikar till you've been on a local train."

Jasmine had stopped trembling. Why, this girl was offering to show her a good way ¹² and they hadn't even exchanged names yet!

More people walked in. A few of them waved to her new friend as they made their way to the back row.

"You know so many people ¹³," Jasmine said.

"Well, I was in JB. That's a mighty big school and many of my classmates have chosen the same subjects. Here's my best friend now. Neepa!"

A girl wearing ¹⁴ pranced over. She took the headphones off. "Don't you love Billy Joel?" she asked Jasmine, as if she had known her all their lives. She got in on the bench next to Jasmine.

"I like Billy Joel," Jasmine answered.

"Do you sing or anything?"

¹⁵. "Er ..."

"Come on, what is it? Either you sing or you don't!"

"I sing Gujarati folk ¹⁶," Jasmine whispered, afraid of being scorned.

"Isn't that the coolest thing! We're planning to start a culture choir, you can be in it."

A ¹⁷ sounded from somewhere. Class was going to start! Students stopped chattering ¹⁸.

They looked at the ¹⁹, thinking the Professor would soon enter. To their utter astonishment, they heard a loud voice at the window. "Hallo, my new students!"

A middle-aged man in a ²⁰ was climbing in through the window.

"I'm Professor Bavala, and I see I have your full attention. You have chosen to study the great subject of ADVERTISING and the first rule is - get their attention. Once you've ²¹ that, the rest is easy. I expect all of you to wear strange headgear to class tomorrow."

The class progressed. Jasmine found herself very happy. She had two new friends, and this Professor was great!

Suddenly, she felt a sharp nudge in her ribs. She turned in surprise.

Her new friend was pulling out a ²² from her bag, for each of them! She shoved a note at Jasmine.

"My parents gave me a party yesterday and these were left in my bag. We'll put them on now and get his attention!"

When the Professor turned from writing on the blackboard, the three girls were sitting there in their party hats. "Very good, very good, you learn fast! Top of the class!"

Yes, they were crazy, the students and the Profs, but she felt warm and fuzzy and was going to be quite at home!