Chapter Five [ Similarly to a deer running away from predators]

 Chapter Five [ Similarly to a deer running away from predators]

  Ericka is already in her grade four level. in that community school. After one month, it’s their turn to do the convocation program. Her teacher gave her a poem to memorize for the program.

Her mother sews her a pink, simple dress but during the exact day, Ericka shivered and got nervous and she miss one line of her poem.

Her mother quickly comes closer to encourage her not to be terrified. Her male teacher also gazes at her seriously making Ericka becomes firm and courageous facing the audience whose eyes focus on her.

Her mother laughs when the strong wind blows making her dress fly showing her repaired colorful short underpants as her mother whispered,

“My little, tiny girl Ericka. I have more sympathy for you because you are a dreamer and courageous to face life’s challenges. Now, people can see your old, repaired underpants and newly sew dress which suits you. I am happy that you began to endure tough life without any complaints, my baby. Mama Loves you.”

 Mother started to weep and secretly hide pain for she has pity on Ericka but feels lucky to have such a nice tiny, small girl. She should wear her new school uniform because her mother likes to make her seem fashionable, which made her look amazing.

She insisted on wearing white T-shirts instead of the white blouse since she felt more at ease playing with her classmates who were also wearing this type of clothing. It was already popular. However, as a sign of respect for her mother, her sister advises her to quit reacting disrespectfully causing a fuss and instead obey the instructions for her good.

 Her mother has since made her a beautiful dress that highlights her enticing physical beauty, which has led to her experiencing conflicting emotions and mental worries.

 Because most of her male classmates made fun of her for looking interesting while they were still kids, naive, and innocent, she didn't like being that way.

 “Hello, darling!” her male classmates said, smilingly approaching her on the way to their school classroom one day. They were been good friends already but unexpectedly he changes his attitude towards Ericka.  This made her angry, gruff, and odd.

 When one of her classmates matched them up, she got into a fight with the boy who had previously been her friend. She lost control and yelled, screamed, and used foul language toward him in front of her teachers and classmates inside the classroom. Ever since the nice boy has shunned her, and they both treat each other strangely.

One day, she enters her classroom at school that day to find her teacher had not yet arrived. She is then made fun of by both her male and female classmates once more because she is donning the outfit.

 Though she was born a local, uncivilized, and unsophisticated country girl, she was so petite, frail, and adorable in her innocent face and smooth, fair complexion in her early childhood stage.

 She was so terrified as they viciously attacked her after seeing her wearing a new school uniform with an identification card attached to her front blouse and tried to hurt her that she was broken and they are strong. However, she had always made sure to locate a hiding spot, and that place was her older sister, who was enrolled in a higher grade level at the same school.

Even though they didn't try to damage her and only believed she was a sweet, helpless little farm girl, such experiences made her anxious since she was terrified of strangers. She still had the unfavorable assumption that they enjoyed making fun of her attire.

 The fact that her mother disapproves of the way she dresses and behaves—refusing to wear the nice dresses she has made and sticking with her worn-out, ill-fitting clothes so that her attackers won't see her and lose interest in her—made the girl at peace with herself. She did this on purpose to attract the attention of her teachers so that she could be named the best female learner and head of the student council.

“Okay, we will have a Learners Organization parade for our Foundation Day next week. Ericka will be our front line to head the parade”

The teacher instructs all the Learners as Ericka turned speechless knowing nothing to do as she thinks it over. Her teacher senses her struggles saying,

” You need to wear colorful, elegant-style gowns for the    Learners’ parade. Just rent one from the boutique!”

 Ericka’s parents understand it clearly and help her to improvise such an outfit to make her presentable. It silences her brothers, sisters, and classmates who bullied her and who often tease her as an oddball.

After the activities, the learner’s situation is back to normal. When two of her fellow female classmates who lived close to the school's campus and had grown confident from constant exposure to the public made them seem brighter, cleverer, and outgoing since early childhood approached her, she found herself abruptly alone once more.

Ericka used to always be in her uniform and seldom ever had a bath or changed her underwear.

Since she is accustomed to dressing in outside clothing when she goes outside and changing into house clothes when she gets home, even though her house clothes are old, soiled, ripped, and stinking, she may already smell fishy and filthy even though she still feels tidy and clean. The two female classmates came nearer and started to speak unpleasant language against one another but not directly to Ericka saying,

 ” You stink already! You have bad smells. Come on let me see your odorous physical beauty.” the other one replied,

” I am not odorous. Perhaps someone nearby who doesn’t use to wash daily. Ah ha ha ha!” They taunted chuckles as their haughty eyes focus on Ericka who was at that moment arranging her learning tools in her designated front seat.

She has been wearing her school uniform for four days straight and believes it makes her seem put together.

 She immediately sensed that her female classmates are insinuating her. Before she could move away from them, with their bare hands, they took off her top and skirt in front of the other students while showing her naked body, making her feel as though she had no right to be brighter than them.

 ” Let me go!”

  Ericka screamed because she already been unable to escape when they attacked her with her two hands in chains while taking off her front button and skirt. She has undershirts and short pants made which hardly exposed her nakedness.

 She was horrified as her rage over their insults and belittlements erupted, and she retaliated by saying,

 “You too, were filthy and smelled like dead, rotting rats.”

  She grabbed hold of their firm, smooth, wonderful-smelling long braided, straight hair and slammed their face into the writing table with all of her might as her eyes welled with tears from an explosion of feelings of oppression and bullying.

 As they immediately put an end to their quarrel, their teacher adviser enters, grinning, and makes sure that no one tells the instructor what happened.

 She returned home wearing a stained, worn-out uniform, which her older sister, who laundered their soiled clothes every weekend, found amusing. However, she allowed it because her little sisters knew that she was clumsy and playful and might ruin her uniform if she was not cautious.

After years in primary, Ericka enters the intermediate level.

 One day, she is already entering the puberty stage; at an early period, she never expects to come with her bloody menstruation that made her smelly and her blue, well-pleated short school skirts filled with blood stains that made her completely uneasy, restless, and her eyes that seem to be looking far away as she is thinking what had she done to suffer in such a bloody mess.

“I am unable yet to provide such a slim pad for emergency bloody, monthly visitors!” Her face frowning oftentimes as she struggles to find a piece of cloth from her mothers’ cabinet but nothing suits her taste.

“I like something soft, a bit thicker, and can be sewn easily to my underpants. This is stressful and a great disturbance to my daily routine.”

She thought eyes looking far away. Everybody is unable to understand her struggles because she hides them from all  as she stays very quiet, speechless, and never reacts to every word they mention even though it agitated her.

She feels utterly embarrassed because she is so playful and loves to dress up as athletes, but to her amazement, she had no idea that she was now becoming a lady.

That afternoon, she lost it since she felt like leaving before her teacher's session ended and was unable to focus on her teacher who was introducing a new lesson at the time.

” I couldn’t sit down anymore because my blue school skirt surely be filled with stains. I already turn it around and made me feel so bloody messy. I can no longer bear it. I should secretly ask my teacher’s permission to go home ahead of them hoping she can understand my situation.” Ericka continuously thinks it over again.

She is running home, and as she crosses the river that afternoon, she feels inclined to wash her lower body and wash her bloody mess with running water to feel like all of her sufferings ends in secret because she intends to keep that experience hidden from her family.

” Thank You Lord because You let it rain so that I have reason to demonstrates to them that I am wet because You let it rain. Hi hi hi!” Ericka outburst chuckles alone as she swims joyfully in the deepest part of the running water of the huge river.

As she releases a deep sigh of relief, Ericka is happy while swimming on the deeper part of the running water in the river where she often crosses to reach home in the farmland.

But the next day, when she arrived at school early, her female classmates, who had long been her rivals in the classroom as the top student, surprised her by greeting her and grinning at her making her think amazingly and ask, “What’s new?”

“The little, tiny, oddball girl turns now into a young lady!” She said smilingly adding,

 ” Are you feeling well now?”

 “I feel better!” Ericka replies pretending to be innocent of their reaction. She rushes to enter the classroom quietly.

 After a while, the whole class received news that their male teacher will be assigned to another neighboring school as the district already approved it. Ericka together with her classmates started to react protesting to disagree with that new amendment as all of them has to be separated to be transferred to other lower sections. Her new reconciled best friend transferred to the lower section as she has to be in the first, fast learners’ sections because she is running for the first and top one graduating honor students in elementary grade level.

She likes the new male teacher because he was her previous provisionary teacher during her primary grade level.

 But she failed her weekly test in mathematics which made an issue by her Mathematics teacher said,

 “Ericka is already falling in love with her male teacher, that is why she failed in the weekly test.” He said smilingly making Ericka agitated as she twisted her upper lip to show up frowning with tears.

 “That’s a lie! I never fall in love with him because I know well that he is married already with a son to a pretty woman who visited him a year ago.” Ericka made an excuse.

  After a week, her Mathematic teacher slowly made an excuse and secretly sneaked out as he receives an offer to be a guidance counselor in one school. It made Ericka depressed because that teacher likes her to be the top one in graduating class and help her to push through her endeavor to maintain the top one position.

 Since then, Ericka is unable to get the rating for top one as another newcomer supported by the Barangay Captain and relatives help her gain the position. Ericka accepted the fact that she couldn’t comprehend the lesson very well and she began to engage in athletic game competitions, Scout Jamboree, and camping as well as other activities to develop her gifts and talents outside academic standards. Besides, her teacher notices her weak points in matters of facing in contact with the audience and public speaking.

 “Ericka is very good in writing skills, expressing herself through writing and she is outstanding in literary works, science, and other written activities but weak in speaking orally before others. But she can develop it further as she pursues her higher education.”

Her teacher adviser gives a remark to others who protested for Ericka.

Since then, her classmates have been awkward approaching and teasing her. They saw how wonderfully her teacher treated her although she has weak points which needed to strengthen and develop when they motivated her. Her teacher handed her a pocket English dictionary and an English tale book while advising her to practice reading and study her lessons very well mentioning that she had received academic awards ever since she started elementary school until graduation.

Her family didn’t notice her academic struggles to get the first honor in the Elementary grade level graduation commencement exercise. She was not happy but still thankful to be the very satisfying graduating student of the Elementary grade level of that community school located across the farmland and mountain range region.

They are just happy seeing her wearing her fashionable, white dress as she climbs up the stages to receive her Certificates of Completion.