Prep D Blues

At age 6, I entered my first school.

Lourdes School is an exclusive school for boys, and since my 2 older brothers studied there, my parents saw no other reason to send me to another. I took the entrance exam which I vaguely remember as following the broken lines, and got into section D of prep school.

My father bought me a blue school bag with rollers underneath and the school logo painted white at the side. Inside were 3 notebooks: 1 for writing, 1 for math, 1 for assignments; a pencil box, and a box of crayons. I also had a Scooby Doo tin lunch box with a sandwhich for recess. My allowance was 50 centavos a day: 25 centavos each for 1 Santa orange during recess and another Santa during 2nd recess.

Man, life was good.

So there I was. I remembered entering a classroom for the first time and I was a terribly shy boy. A mouse made more sound than I did. I was seated beside a grinning, outgoing boy named Reynaldo Sta. Ana, and days after whenever I entered the room (dazzedly, at that), Reynaldo would point his finger at my seat and shout, "Dito ka Redentor!"

Ms. Dimaranan was my first teacher (later on I would find out that she was a substitute). I remember her with the horn-rimmed spectacles, slim figure, dark-skin, short hair and pearly white teeth (Gollum would have greatly fallen in love with her). But the scariest part of it was that she had the demeanor of a marine reject, and she made sure we were aware of it. (She would've given Sea Hag a run for her money!)

So one time, I was copying notes from the blackboard to my neat red and blue-lined notebook and during those days we would race one another to see who finishes first.* Needless to say I was one of the fastest "copiers" in class and after I was done I went to the teacher's table to have my notebook checked.

Ms. Dimaranan went through my notebook and then stopped with her lips pursed. My heart skipped a beat. I suddenly knew something was wrong. With her eyes almost bulging out of their sockets, she blurted out--"Ano 'to??!"

It turned out that 2 pages of my new notebook got stuck on each other so there were practically 2 blank pages that I skipped.

Wham!

My notebook came crashing on my head and the next few seconds saw me wailing my head off. I don't know how many millions of my neurons died that day, but surely not enough to erase this memory.

As an adult I would occasionally visit my old school and I would see how small and fragile those prep students are. Needless to say, I would stop dead on my tracks and wonder, "What kind of monster would hit a kid like that for two blank pages of a notebook?"

Ms. Dimaranan was one of them. God bless her soul.

Whatever happened to her? I don't know. I don't think I want to know. But according to my mother's account, she wasn't renewed when the permanent teacher took over.

And world sighed with relief.

Mrs. Lavides took over our class and she was the sweetest, bestest, teacher I had ever known. I had recent news that she is still alive and would like to see her if I only knew where to find her. With her as my teacher, I excelled in class and felt secure--a far cry from the substitute teacher.

Man, remembering these things aren't all that bad. Prep school was a good experience (at least after the 1st quarter)--I learned further how to write and draw and count and read time. We learned to speak English at an early age and we had it good.

Mrs. Lavides taught us about the itsy bitsy spider, Jack and the Beanstalk, and the holy man who talked to birds and trees and sky.

My classmates were neat. There was Jimby who cried perpetually, Patrick Ycaro who was the oldest and tallest in class (I saw him once flash his middle finger and when I showed it to my dad at home, his face turned crimson and scolded me), Joel Jacinto who was the brightest in class, Carmelo Guerrero the skinny albino, and the rest of the class who belted out "Little Poverello" and "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" during mass.

Reynaldo flunked prep school and had another fulfilling year with Mrs. Lavides.

We were kids. We were happy. Life was good.