The new girl stood awkwardly at the front of the classroom while the teacher introduced her. She was a 155cm tall, bespectacled, looking rather anxious. The quiet looking girl just transferred from another school uptown of Tawau. I remembered her name, Bella. She was indeed as beautiful as her name. She introduced herself and she walked to the back of the classroom, then she sat down at a desk in the corner; The desk where nobody wants to sit as it makes anyone who sits there, feel isolated. However, she liked it there… she did not say it but I can tell she felt better there – away from all the students in the classroom.
Glad to have any form of distraction during the boring Mathematics lesson, my classmates and I spent our time sneaking curious glances in Bella’s direction. There were already forty of us in the class and the desk were neatly arranged in pairs. This meant that Bella had to sit alone, at a desk that was oddly placed in one corner of the classroom. The whole class waited patiently until recess time before we all crowded around Bella’s desk and bombarded her with all sorts of questions. We were all so inquisitive on what school she was from and why she had transferred to the other side of town.
To our surprise, Bella ignored us completely and stared steadfastly down at her desk. She refused strongly to utter even a word and since none of us wanted to waste our precious break time, we all left her alone. We decided among ourselves that she was either very shy or very weird.
Almost a week passed and my class began to think that we were half right in our assessment of Bella’s character. She was indeed slightly different and had still not spoken to any one of us. Even the teachers were growing impatient with her as she never did her homework and always mumbled inaudible responses to their questions. During recess, she frequently walked around the entire school building talking aloud to her own self. Although she never spoke to the people in her own class, she would often run after students from other classes, begging to join them and be their friend. The whole school began to think that there was something quite not right with her and many students tried to avoid her whenever she walked past.
Things got worse in next few weeks when our class was suddenly summoned to the principal’s office for a discussion. Our form teacher was also there and to our immense surprise, she began the session by asking us if we had been harassing Bella. Apparently, Bella had not been handing in her homework and when she was asked why, she replied “My classmates throw my books away.”. She had also accused two of our classmates of stealing her money and belongings. Upon hearing this, the whole class was extremely shocked. We all knew that we had done nothing to Bella. In fact, they had even tried to be nice to her and it was she who had ignored them. Luckily, both our teacher and the principal believed us and agreed to talk to Bella and her parents.
For the next three days, Bella’s seat remained noticeable empty. After all of her accusations, none of us missed her and some were even glad she was absent. We were all rather surprised - for the countless times, however, when at the end of the week, our teacher announced that Bella was no longer going to be in our school. She had been having problems in all her previous schools as well. Her parents had decided that she should seek counselling and professional help before she joined another school.