It turns out school was not as lovely as Teteh's stories made it sound.
When it was my turn to be a kindergarten student, I wasn't that thrilled.
The excitement was nowhere to be found.
Too many strangers.
Too many unfamiliar faces.
The school building itself was different.
I didn't end up to the school my sister attended a year before.
We moved to a new house. Consequently, we enrolled in a school close to our new home.
My excitement about going to school quickly faded.
Sure, my sister was around as my senior, but everything was still new.
And being in a completely foreign place made me feel all jittery inside.
The only thing I liked about this new school was my compassionate teacher, Bu Yani.
She was exceptionally pretty, with long black hair and always wearing dark red lipstick.
What I loved most was that she wore boots, just like me!
And this reminded me of the first time I experienced bullying.
I recall playing alone on the swings during recess when a classmate dropped a bomb in front of me:
"Ena, your shoes are weird.”
Spicing things up, my 2 other friends were laughing at her comment while pointing at my boots.
I was stunned and hurt.
I didn't know it was a form of bullying.
Teteh had never shared stories about friends saying hurtful things.
No one had ever told me how painful it could be when something I loved was ridiculed in front of me.
I nearly burst into tears.
The boots actually belonged to Teteh. I borrowed them that morning.
Teteh and I shared a pair of dark purple suede boots since our feet were the same size, allowing us to exchange shoes.
Lost in thought about Teteh, I wondered how she would react if she knew this.
And why having friends at school wasn't as fun as Teteh said it would be?
Had someone ever been this mean to her?
Had she ever kept some secret from me?
Had she ever been bullied?
Was this normal?
I wanted to scream my lungs out.
But silence won the battle inside me.
--
When the bell rang, Mama picked us up at the front gate.
In front of the kindergarten, a vendor was selling Indonesian traditional snacks.
We made it a daily stop. No kidding.
Every day after school, Mama would get me my all-time fave sponge cake, Bolu Pelangi!!!
It was the highlight of my day.
That sweet treat made the bullying nonsense vanish into thin air.
At least for a little while.
--
I never spoke to anyone about the incident with the boots.
Not until some weeks later when Mama asked why I never wore them again.
Well, I didn't say what happened to Mama because Teteh was there and I didn’t want to upset Teteh.
She wore the boots more frequently than I did.
That morning, Mama convinced me that my outfit, if styled with the boots, would be fantastic.
I agreed with her.
So... After a long time, I wore them again.
But seriously, going to school with something my friends hated??? It felt like torture.
So the unspoken social rule was:
Your love for your favorite things doesn't matter one bit.
No one cares about your preferences.
If your friends (or even just a friend, --singular) find your stuff irritating, you need to pretend that you don't like it either... to please them.
To be liked.
To be accepted.
To fit in.
It was downright pathetic.
Those bullies were not even my close friends.
But my tiny 4-year-old heart was still desperate for their nod of approval.
I was scared all the way to school.
I was on the verge of tears.
School sucked.
After arriving in front of the class, Mama left us.
Did I mention that Teteh was in the same school as me, but we didn't play together at school?
She preferred spending time with her classmates.
And that was one of the major reasons why school wasn’t fun for me.
On that day, my teacher, the very kind Bu Yani, leaned toward me and said,
"Ena, I like your boots. I wear boots, too! Look at mine! The only difference is that mine is black, and yours is dark purple. But yours is cooler. Is that suede???"
Wow...
I loved her.
So much.
She had always been my absolute favorite.
And the fact that Bu Yani complimented my boots, the ones my friends had mocked, made me smile from ear to ear.
Cherry on top: she didn't just whisper it to me!!!
She said it loud and clear enough for the whole class to hear.
My friends couldn't miss it.
Neither could those 3 bullies.
I couldn’t stop smiling.
And just like that... I fell in love with school and with my boots... all over again.
