Ultimately, I found myself following the homeroom teacher to the staff room without any real reason.
I still don’t understand why I should be scolded, but after listening to her, it turned out to be something related to her feelings.
“The teacher waited in the staff room all yesterday to return this. But does it make sense that the owner of the item doesn’t come to look for it? How do you think the teacher feels?”
‘What about the teacher who took the money?’
I tried hard to conceal my disgusted expression and muttered what I wanted to say inside.
If we were similar in age, I would have slapped her right away for that illogical reasoning, but she pretended to be calm while weaving it with her own feelings…
Removing the unnecessary parts, the conclusion was a feeling of ‘How dare you?’
How dare I, the teacher, wait in the staff room after school and you don’t come?
How dare I, the teacher, wait with your item, and you don’t come? How dare you?
If you think about it, shouldn’t the one who should feel worse be me, who showed the students the money and then got 1300 won taken?
“So Yeon, what’s going on?”
“I’m scolding a student, okay? Mari, answer me.”
“Well, if you think about it…”
“Don’t talk back.”
‘Is she out of her mind?’
She asked me to answer, and when I tried to respond logically, she suppressed me with her authority.
Since it seemed unlikely that this person would understand, I turned my question to the moral teacher who had just sat down next to me after the morning assembly.
“Moral teacher.”
“Mari, I’m talking to the teacher right now.”
“Uh?”
“After I returned from my trip to the United States, I showed my friends a dollar bill. But then the teacher took my money from the kid who was playing with that bill, so shouldn’t the kid who got robbed come to the teacher to retrieve it? I don’t understand why I’m being scolded.”
After lightly ignoring my homeroom teacher’s words, I presented the lengthy situation to the moral teacher, who gradually grasped what had happened but looked somewhat bewildered and turned to the homeroom teacher.
The moral teacher asked for confirmation, thinking they must have misheard something.
“Huh? So Yeon, is that true?”
“Well, of course, the owner of the item should come to look for it, right?”
“No… there are kids who got robbed separately, and there’s the one who comes to look for it? What are you talking about?”
Thus, the argument escalated into a battle between the unreasonable and the reasonable.
As the volume of their voices grew, the physical education teacher, who had been sitting far away, quickly approached and pushed me out of the staff room, saying, “Okay, Mari… go back to the classroom.”
“Yes.”
Following the physical education teacher, who remembered my name, I hurried back to the classroom.
When I returned to the classroom, the boy who caused this mess was happily playing with his friend, saying the teacher wasn’t coming.
Should I just hit him?
Then, as the bell for the first period rang and the teacher still hadn’t appeared, I discreetly stood up and checked the timetable stuck to the blackboard.
First Period: Moral.
‘That explains it.’
Something felt odd, and now I understood the reason for her absence.
Thirty minutes passed since the class began, and the teacher still hadn’t arrived.
It felt like we would continue to play and the first period would end until…
Suddenly, the classroom’s front door swung open with a bang.
There stood my clearly unhappy homeroom teacher, calling for that little brat who had taken my dollar.
“Seo Tae-hoon, come to the staff room.”
The boy looked confused as he glanced around, then got up and followed to the front door.
‘You shouldn’t be looking confused, you little brat.’
I silently cursed at the back of his head, wearing a look of disbelief.
Anyway, the boy named Tae-hoon, who was dragged to the staff room, seemed to have been scolded severely.
He returned with a gloomy expression and handed me the dollar, and just like that, I was able to reclaim the 1300 won I lost.
If it had ended there, it would be a happy story about everyone regaining their sense and learning common sense.
…But that wouldn’t be the case; the story wouldn’t end so neatly.
“Today’s cleaning duty is the three of you.”
[Kim Mari, Seo Tae-hoon, Shin Joo Hyun]
‘…I’m really marked.’
Unnecessarily, my name was called more often in the homeroom teacher’s subject, and my name was naturally included in the cleaning duty.
The homeroom teacher started to become sinister in the way they tormented students.
Naturally, during cleaning inspections, she began to point out inconsequential dust in nooks and crannies or pick a fight over chalk left on a fully dry blackboard.
Thinking I couldn’t go on like this for a whole year, I decided to seek assistance from the business card on the back of my phone.
“The call cannot be connected, please press the key to send your message…”
‘She’s not answering.’
After a few rings, a mechanical voice said they could not take the call at the moment, and I pressed the end call button.
It was three in the afternoon; I wondered if she was busy with work.
I hadn’t heard when the available times for a call were, so I felt frustrated.
If I had cleaning duty, it would be natural for Shiyeon to go home first.
Arriving home a little late, I took off my shoes and entered.
‘Huh?’
Before heading to the bathroom, while looking at my smartphone, I received a call again.
The number wasn’t registered, but it was the same number I had called just moments ago, so it was fresh in my mind.
“Hello?”
“Oh, hey, what’s up?”
From the smartphone came a familiar voice.
It was undoubtedly the rich voice of a politician, but after hearing it for nine days, it felt strangely familiar.
Even as I picked up the phone, I was hesitant and scratched my head, mumbling my uncertainty into the smartphone.
“Well, I’m not sure if I can get help with this…”
“Uh, uh.”
“About a teacher who maliciously bullies students… How can I respond to that?”
“What? There are teachers like that? Hold on a second.”
Then the voice on the smartphone faded for a moment, and I could hear a short conversation from further away.
It wasn’t so far that I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“Secretary Han, uh, who’s the superintendent of Incheon again?”
“### Superintendent.”
“Ah, okay, okay.”
With that brief conversation, the voice of the uncle came back closer through the smartphone.
“Uh, hello?”
“Yes, hello.”
“The superintendent there is my also my friend, what’s the name of that teacher, and which school?”
I answered with the same words as his greeting, and he began showering me with good news.
Without any hesitation, I instantly gave away the information about the crazy teacher while in the bathroom.
“Hyeran Elementary School, Jeong So Yeon.”
“Oh, okay, I’ll make sure to take care of it. Don’t worry.”
Just like that, the call abruptly ended, and I felt incredibly reassured.
After finishing my business in the bathroom and washing my hands, Jiun was looking at the bathroom door with a puzzled expression.
Somehow, like a meerkat.
As I walked toward the living room, she threw out a question as if she had been waiting for me to come closer.
“What were you talking about on the phone in the bathroom?”
“Oh, it’s nothing… just some complaints.”
“Complaints?”
I answered her question leisurely while slightly avoiding her gaze.
If you think about it, it was indeed a complaint, right?
Just not through the homepage, a very direct complaint.
…An enormous ball thrown by an elementary school student.
“No, how can you treat my child like this!”
‘Oh boy.’
Wednesday’s school was even more chaotic than Tuesday’s school.
That little brat named Seo Tae-hoon, who returned the dollar to me yesterday.
His mom barged into the classroom and began berating the homeroom teacher.
How did I know instantly she was Tae-hoon’s mom?
Well, she was holding his hand… and her behavior showed that neither mother nor child had good home training.
The teacher who had been using the student as her emotional dumping ground didn’t seem to anticipate such an occurrence.
The mom storming into the classroom was calling out, “Tae-hoon’s mom! Tae-hoon’s mom!” while bowing to her.
Meanwhile, I could hear loud footsteps approaching the classroom…
“What are you doing, So Yeon?”
A clearly older gentleman, dressed in a suit and looking like he might be the principal or vice principal, burst into the classroom, clearly bewildered by the unfolding scene.
“Vice Principal?”
The classroom suddenly turning into a chaotic scene, with the parents, the vice principal contacted by the superintendent, and the unreasonable homeroom teacher.
Under the leadership of the vice principal, the adults all exited the classroom.
An enormous ball thrown by two elementary students.
It fell from the skies like a meteor above the homeroom teacher, similar to a snowman in the middle of winter.
‘This really works.’
Indeed, it’s worth it to have accumulated connections.
Like the little green dinosaur from some cartoon, I couldn’t help but admire the situation.
