Opinion: The Introduction of M

ACS Ipoh was a place of sunshine, rainbows and candy sticks way back in 199x. Er - interminably long bunga manggar + kompang processions, stink-o-lethal toilets and broken furniture were more like it. The simple fact is, life was simple then; the canteen wasn't caged up a la Alcatraz, the Librarian room was an excellent hideout for self-appointed take-fives (now, don't tell Mrs. K that!) and the scariest student-eater by default was En. R, the afternoon session cane-wielder. En. MI the morning session Discipline teacher, aka teapot as he perpetually had an arm resting on his hips (the handle) and the other arm in an upraised-S, like the Snake kung-fu style, or to be frank - the camp camp flippy hand (the spout), only struck fear in oh, er, ants, I suppose.

Then by the-ancient-spirits-of-evil, M appeared. And her gargantuan hands literally held every single student's balls in her iron hands. *Gulp* Kecut telur semua. We were at the cusp of examhood, with PMR just around the corner. This would be the final year, we know, that the class would stay together, as after that, people would go off to MARA, or take different streams. Life would go on, but you'd only go through Form 3 once.

Now Main Convent, the fount of gorgeous gaggles of gals and the local Milan runway of sorts, had a few Third Form classes making their own class magazines. And we were struck by the idea - why not make our own class magazine? We had Michelangelos, Hemmingways and Dickens by the bucket. Pergilicious, our Form teacher, was nonchalant about the whole initiative. As usual, nothing mattered except her dentist husband and her infallible children.

Su, Yus and I (the ahem, ahem, editors) then approached Miss Cheong (a temp teacher, but the Dead Poets Society sort, well kinda) to be our adviser. Unbeknown to us, Pergilicious was seething mad that she, the wife of a dentist *gasp*, and the mother of 2 Einsteins-in-the-making *gasp, gasp*, was dropped for a young upstart. Ah, the frail egos of English teachers.

So happily, we got everyone to pitch in, and we even managed to get it with printed covers (all for less than RM 5 per book). I was definitely proud of our achievement. I guess we all were. We did not suspect anything malicious lurking in the background. After all, most of us just reached puberty - sucking up to teachers certainly ain't one of our maturity milestones. Pergilicious was biding her time, waiting for the right moment to strike. *Doo doo doo*