2014: It’s Hard to Differentiate Real from Fake, for Faces are Deceiving_The Enigma of Leadership #1

On the first day of school, Vera and I met up before proceeding to the assembly venue. At the venue, Jerome approached us.

“Sup,” he said.

“Oh hi. You’re in 5A?” I asked him.

“Yes. 5B isn’t too bad as long as you work hard. And your name is?” Jerome turned to Vera.

“Vera,” she replied.

“I’m Jerome. So, how were the holidays?”

“The same old things. Studying, playing, hobbies and hanging out with siblings and friends,” I replied.

“Your brother is Elijah from 6A and your sister is called Rebecca?” Jerome queried.

“Yes! Your siblings told you?” I replied.

“Right. I have four older siblings and two younger ones, so there’s seven of us. What are your interests?” Jerome asked.

“Astronomy. I want to be an astronomer. I love Geography a lot too.”

“What about you, Vera?” Jerome turned to Vera.

“I like to play Plants VS Zombies 2 and Minecraft,” she replied.

At that moment, Jerome smiled and waved at someone. Within seconds, I heard a new (probably not) voice.

“Hey Jordan! Congrats for topping your class in Chinese last year!”

It was Daniel.

“Er…how did you know?” I asked, still shocked by his sudden appearance.

“Willis told me just now. Have fun in class! I’ll catch up with you later,” Daniel replied.

“Top in Chinese? How? My Chinese has been so bad even though I attended a Chinese church all my life!” Jerome chuckled.

“I’m from a Chinese church too. I just like the subject and study it a lot. I’m sure you can do well if you study hard for it,” I shrugged.

“Yeah, alright I’ll see both of you around! I’ll talk to some new classmates,” Jerome said and went to join his classmates.

While waiting for assembly to start, I chatted with Vera about how Jerome was a much nicer and less dangerous person than Daniel. Vera agreed to some extent, as from her own experience, Daniel did not make an effort to socialise with her. Overall, she did not see much difference between the two, besides Daniel being much more popular than Jerome. She then told me that she felt sad she was not chosen to be a junior leader because she could not take part in the relevant activities with me. That triggered a thought - why didn’t Vera get nominated out of nearly 40 students in 4B the previous year?

That thought made leadership seem like an even bigger grey area. Vera was very well-behaved, hardly got into trouble in class and was serious about her studies. Could it be her being too reserved which hindered her ability to lead?

Recalling how Elijah mentioned that P5s who were not nominated as junior leaders in P4 could be nominated in P5, I told Vera to take up a leadership position in class. She said she would want to be the IT (Information Technology) Representative. As she was a shy person, she found initiating conversations with new classmates a challenge, but she said she would try to do it.

There were two other junior leaders in 5B, namely Rayana Aliyeva and Wong Li Xuan. They already seemed to have friends in class so I had no chance to speak to them. Our seats were allocated according to registration number so I was separated from Vera. As her name began with ‘Ang’, her registration number was one, so she sat at the front right corner of the classroom. On the other hand, my registration number was 21 so I sat in between Sonia Lee and Thalia Siew.

Sonia actually turned to me to say something, “This teacher is so boring. She takes so long to think of an activity for us to do. I want to sleep.”

“I heard from my sister that she cannot control the class and keep it quiet, and our class is unusually quiet,” I whispered back.

“I think things are like this on the first day of school. Everybody just wants to sleep, stay at home and play their games,” Sonia groaned.

“Hear the noises coming from next door? That’s not surprising at all because of people like Daniel Lim. He kept annoying my classmates last year and there is also a junior leader called Ethan who talks a lot,” I said.

“Ethan is not a junior leader anymore!” Sonia laughed. “He didn’t wear the junior leader uniform for quite a long time. I sort of know him because he is Jasmine’s friend. They take the same school bus. Daniel is friends with Jasmine, I think. Both are in Band. I was in 4C last year and Daniel mostly talked to the Band people and his classmates in P2?”

“What do you think of him?” I enquired. “And serves Ethan right.”

“He’s okay. I don’t really know Daniel well but my classmates last year are quite good friends with him,” Sonia replied.

I realised at that moment that I forgot about initiating talk with Thalia, who has been my classmate for the previous two years too, but I have yet to interact with her.

“Hey Thalia, what do you think about our new class?”

Thalia just rolled her eyes and gave the gesture that our new class was average.

“Ah. How do you feel about entering P5?”

She just shrugged. I decided to stop, as I was probably pushing her a bit too much. She stuck to her close friends most of the time, so I had no position to criticise that, since I spent most of my time in school with Vera and Kristy. Anyway, I felt Sonia was quite friendly and someone whom I could continue talking to. Before we were dismissed for recess that day, Vera came to my seat.

“My CCA friend wants us to sit with her later,” she said as we walked out of the classroom.

“What? You have a CCA friend in this class? I am the only one from Choir here,” I remarked.

“There are two others from Chess in our class. I am only friends with one of them. Today was so boring but I like how quiet the class was and how I don’t need to talk to anyone,” Vera said.

“I wonder how new prefects are going to be chosen from our class,” I sighed. “Thalia sits beside me but she doesn’t want to talk to me. I can talk to Sonia. She’s not bad.”

“So that means I have no chance. I already volunteered to be the IT Rep. If our teacher is still not happy with me that’s it,” Vera grunted.

“Don’t give up. We have our English and Chinese teachers who can help to decide too, and don’t forget your CCA teacher,” I assured Vera.

At the cafeteria, Vera led me to the table where her CCA friend and another girl were. They were Joey Lam and Clarice Ng.

“Hi Jordan!” one of them chirped.

“Hello. If I remember correctly your name is Joey? And you are Clarice?” I replied.

“Right! You two can join us next time!” Joey said, bouncing.

We settled down with our food and continued talking.

“It was so funny just now when our teacher said nothing when Joey introduced herself,” Clarice said laughing.

Joey accidentally spat her food out on hearing that. “And she was staring at the class list!”

“Wait, what’s the joke about? I don’t get it,” I questioned.

“I think I know,” Vera smirked.

“Yes, because it happened during CCA last year! The name you see on class lists is Lam Cho Yee. My Chinese name is Zu Er. My parents said it is Zouyi in Cantonese, so they just call me Joey,” Joey explained.

“Do both of you take Higher Chinese?” I questioned.

Clarice shook her head. “I don’t have the time to take an extra subject. I have a lot of swimming training. I have water polo and kayaking classes during weekends too.”

Vera looked at me and shook her head.

“Can’t relate,” I commented. “I hardly exercise outside of PE lessons. You sound like you want to take part in the Olympics.”

“Yes I want to. My brother is training to be an Olympic water polo player,” Clarice replied.

Soon, it was our Chinese lesson, which would be held in the 5A classroom. Vera and Huayi took Higher Chinese too. While waiting to enter the classroom, I bumped into Leo, who was the only one in his class, 5D, who took Higher Chinese.

“I can’t take Foundation English with Higher Chinese. I checked with the teacher again and he wants me to take normal English,” Leo complained.

“Just work harder. We can help you,” I reassured him.

“Jordan, Daniel is taking Higher Chinese. Look, he is staying in his class,” Huayi told me with a smirk.

I did not believe him at first, but when I looked into the class, my heart almost escaped from its original position...Daniel indeed stayed in class with his textbook on the table. My perfect eyesight asserted that the textbook was definitely the Higher Chinese textbook. Daniel was talking to a girl beside him.

“What? This can’t happen!” I turned to Vera and Leo.

“You are still scared of Daniel now?” Leo asked.

“We already told you that Daniel is not a bad person,” Huayi said with an irritated tone. “If you want to be stubborn we’ll let you be. I can’t help you anymore.”

I saw Willis still in class with a few empty seats around him. The 5A seating arrangement was in groups, unlike my class where everyone was seated individually. Huayi was set on sitting with his other friends. I pointed at the seats beside Willis, signalling Vera and Leo to sit at those seats. When the non-Higher Chinese students left, we entered the classroom. Meanwhile, I made eye contact with Xuanyu, whispered to her to sit with us and she agreed.

“Hello! How’s 5B? Willis asked Vera and me.

“It’s so bad! I felt like sleeping the whole time!” Vera groaned.

“It will be better next time. 5A is really not bad, quite a fun class..” Willis replied, and I felt someone appear by our side.

“Hi!” It was actually Daniel.

“Hey! How’s your drumming?” Leo asked him.

“Not bad so far. It’s really fun! My sister is teaching me how to play the saxophone too! And you were learning the Cantonese songs?” Daniel said with his usual bubbly voice.

“Yes. I am learning songs by Faye Wong and Leon Lai, but mostly doing Art. I’ve also been doing this cool thing called Rainbow Loom!” Leo replied.

Why would Leo be so enthusiastic when talking to Daniel? Leo told me before that he got to know Daniel through his friend but they did not meet very frequently.

“And what’s your name? I’m Daniel,” Daniel asked Vera.

“Vera,” she replied and gave me a weird smile.

“And here’s our Chinese talent,” Daniel said while giving Xuanyu a light slap on her back. Xuanyu was trying to move over to sit with us.

“China Talent? My English is bad,” Xuanyu giggled.

“But it’s not as bad as me!” Leo interrupted. “I asked my teacher to give me Foundation but he said no.”

Daniel left and went to talk to some other students.

“Er...where do you want me to sit?” Xuanyu asked with a confused look.

I was sitting between Vera and Leo so I checked if Vera was fine with me switching seats with Leo so I could sit beside Xuanyu. She was, so I managed to sit beside Xuanyu.

“I want to know. How did Daniel manage to take Higher Chinese?” I whispered to Xuanyu.

“Because he likes it? And I think he got above 80 for Chinese?” Xuanyu seemed uncertain.

“What? He actually got above 80 for Chinese? I thought his Chinese is bad?” I asked.

“Our teacher said so last year. He asked me for help a lot, so I asked him to help with English,” Xuanyu laughed.

“No way, no way,” I muttered. “Alicia was very sure his Chinese is bad.”

“Daniel is quite smart. He's just too lazy to study Chinese,” Xuanyu replied.

I was still recovering from the state of shock. I could not accept the fact that Daniel and I would have common Chinese lessons. During that first lesson as Higher Chinese students, I realised Daniel and quite a few of his classmates were quite participative, though Daniel was not the best of them. He was actually quite humorous and eloquent and would make everyone have a good laugh when he pronounced words wrongly or used words wrongly (I don't know whether it was deliberate or not). Admittedly, I did laugh at some of those. I guess I understood what my friends meant by Daniel being a funny person. The issue was: what exactly made him get selected to be a junior leader? No one could give me a definite answer.

After the lesson, Leo nudged me, “You made Vera sit with your friend because of Xuanyu.”

“It's okay,” Vera chuckled. “They have important things to discuss.”

“Which is Daniel Lim,” Leo continued.

“Yes I need to know what he is like during Chinese,” I said. “I forgot to ask you if you want to be a prefect. They are going to select more soon.”

“Me? A prefect? I'm doing too badly to be one!” Leo protested.

“What? Aren't there junior leaders from 5F and G? If your teacher doesn't select you because you do badly, that is stupid!” Xuanyu answered with a slightly raised voice.

“I want to be a prefect,” Vera groaned.

“No chance!” Leo teased. “Why don’t you ask your parents to call your teacher and make her nominate you?”

“Are you for real? We should cheat like this!” I said.

We left the classroom and bumped into Alicia.

"Daniel takes Higher Chinese! How did he--"

"Oh my, I'm so sorry! I didn't know he actually made it in! I only saw his level position last year. I totally didn't know he is taking Higher Chinese until today," Alicia apologised.

“He’s quite funny during Chinese lessons!” Jerome added. “I don’t dare to answer questions that much because my Chinese is worse than his.”

“Er...he was funny,” I admitted.

That was only the first lesson so I could not ascertain whether Daniel was genuinely a funny person or someone who was asking for trouble. The teacher did not seem annoyed with him and the noisy students. As for Vera, she was still very keen on being a prefect that year but was afraid that our teacher would not bother electing new candidates due her attitude then.

On the second day of school, I needed to report for my morning duty. Vera usually came quite early, as she took the school bus. Sonia was there too.

“Do you usually come this early?” I asked her.

“Yes, I take the school bus. I stay in Beachfront. Where do you stay?”

“The newer parts of Middletown. I take the train with my siblings. Do you know when Joey usually reaches school?”

“On the dot, I think.”

“Has she gotten caught by the prefects before?”

“I think so, why?”

“Do you know more junior leaders will be selected soon? I am thinking of encouraging more of us to be junior leaders. Vera wants to be one so she became the IT Rep to try out leading,” I explained to Sonia.

“No please. I can’t lead. I am too quiet to control people,” she laughed.

“Ah. I can’t force you. See you later!” I said and was about to leave for my buddy class.

“You are going for your duty now? So early? Li Xuan is still sitting there,” Sonia pointed out.

“Why not?” I smirked and left.

At recess, I walked down with Vera again. We saw Joey walking and chatting incessantly with our Indian classmate Graham Stewart whom she sat near to. I told Vera about how I had the chance to get more information about Daniel if Graham sat with us because he was from 4A. We saw both of them and Clarice settling down at a table in the cafeteria. On seeing us, Joey waved and signalled us to go over. She said that Graham would join us from that day on. After getting our food, I was ready to ask Graham things regarding Daniel, but Vivian came to sit with us.

“Hello, can I join you guys today?” he asked.

“Yes yes,” Graham replied.

I lost my train of thought, so instead of enquiring about Daniel, I asked the rest if they wanted to be prefects.

“Erm, you are not asking me right?” Vivian smirked.

I did not know why I got so distracted at that point in time that I failed to remember that Vivian was actually a junior leader.

“In case you are wondering why I’m here, I actually switched with Isabel so I will be in charge of latecomers now,” Vivian explained.

“What happened to Isabel?” Graham asked him.

“I don’t know. She just wants to switch with me,” Vivian shrugged.

“And to answer your question Jordan, I don’t want to be a prefect. I am so busy and tired,” Clarice complained.

“I don’t really care about these prefect stuff,” Joey said.

“Sonia said she doesn’t want to be a prefect because she is quiet and cannot lead,” I told them.

“She didn’t really talk a lot in class. She mostly talked to Milenka and some girl who went to 5C,” Joey clarified.

“You see here Jordan, I know you’re concerned about how prefects are chosen. If the teachers told us exactly how prefects are chosen, don’t you think there will be a lot of competition? Everybody’s going to act according to the requirements and put on a nice show for the teachers, so nobody will know who is a true prefect and who is an actor,” Vivian explained.

Graham applauded and said, “Woah! That was good! Who told you that?”

Vivian just winked.

“Is it Daniel Lim?” I asked.

Vivian sighed, “It’s not important who said it.” He then whispered things to Graham.

“You are actually very curious about Daniel and want to know what he does all the time?” Graham asked me. “He goes to the boarding house, so that is how he makes a lot of friends. He talks to everyone in class too. Vivian told me you always said he is annoying. I don’t think he is. He’s just outspoken and likes to crack jokes. In class and Band, he is very helpful and kind to everyone. He has a lot of good ideas for Teachers’ Day and Christmas gifts. I think it’s because his parents drag him out for a lot of volunteer work.”

“His parents didn’t drag him! He told me he likes volunteering!” Vivian corrected Graham. “And back to you Jordan, you really need to stop avoiding Daniel. You don’t have to be friends with him, but just don’t keep thinking he is a bad person. You are actually smart but you did worse than usual on purpose last year to avoid getting in 5A. That’s not worth it.”

“Whereas I did badly because of performing arts,” Graham added.

“Oh! And someone is in the same performing art as you,” I said.

“Like what Vivian said, I think you should stop talking bad about Daniel,” Joey said.

I gave up speaking. I did not want to waste my breath on arguing about Daniel anymore. I would always lose the argument anyway, thanks to the sheer number of people Daniel tricked. After eating, Vera and I went to meet Elise at the staircase she was doing her duty at.

“Hey! How’s life?” I asked her.

“Good! 5A is really fun, but I have to guard this staircase all by myself. Hope the P2s don’t give me too many problems,” she replied.

“Why don’t I help you after I am done with my food? Oh!” I turned to Vera. “It’s your chance!”

Vera jumped. “You are so right!”

“Thanks for your help. Vera, you want to help with prefect duties?” Elise asked.

“No, I want to be a prefect,” Vera clarified.

“Uhhh...let's hope Mrs Edgeworth or Mr Sinnathamby sees us here,” Elise replied. “How's your new class?”

“I don't know what to say about it. I don't really like it,” I replied.

“I see. 5A is quite a noisy class. Like you said, I did talk to Jerome and Alicia. The Alicia you were talking about is Alicia Tan right? She's from Choir and close to Jerome. They are really fun to talk to. There's also an Alicia Chng if you don't know,” Elise said.

“Alicia says she has a boyfriend,” I said.

“Ace? She is always with him. I haven't heard anyone saying they are dating. Oh and I know you’ll want to know more about how Daniel behaves. He's quite friendly and nice to the newcomers. Many of the 4A students are quite friendly too. I feel the class spirit is quite good. We do cheers and set goals as a class.”

“If you say so, can Daniel really do all of those?” I asked.

“It’s not just him. There are others in class who lead all those. I know Jerome does quite a lot too. Alicia does sometimes,” Elise replied.

“Is there a very talkative guy called Ethan?” I questioned.

“Ethan Tay? There is an Ethan Johanan who is quiet so far but yes, Ethan Tay is very noisy. He’s on suspension from his position according to Jerome,” Elise replied.

“Serves him right,” I said. “He’s already on suspension and still doesn’t realise his mistake.”

“You’re right. He can’t control his mouth. He comments on almost everything the teacher says. Daniel doesn’t do that. Daniel has to tell him to shut his mouth sometimes. But Ethan is quite a nice guy too. He can lead and make the newcomers comfortable. I realised I can actually get along with him,” Elise spoke.

I may never know how teachers elect junior leaders, but from Ethan’s example, I know that one should behave responsibly on getting the position. It does not mean that one should act and portray a favourable image in front of the teachers just to get a leadership position, then behave however one wanted after the position is obtained.

For the next three weeks, Vera and I helped Elise with overseeing the staircase she was stationed at. The job was not too difficult, as most of the P2s already accepted the fact that they could not go up to the classrooms before the end of recess. Vera was glad that she was able to help, even though Elise could actually manage mostly on her own. Furthermore, there were not many students waiting at the staircase every day, as quite a few of them would be with Daniel in the school garden. Apparently, Daniel would distract the P2s from misbehaving by telling them stories and explaining the various flora and fauna in the garden.

The fourth week of school was a week full of suspense for Vera, as she would know whether she would be nominated by our teacher. Within those weeks, I saw improvement in her, as she took initiative to help the teachers whenever they encountered difficulties with the electronic equipment in class. She also did well in explaining to the P2s why they were not allowed to go back to the classrooms before recess ended, that was when Elise let her try explaining. However, Vera felt that our teacher did not really put her in her eyes, on top of the fact that she was still very shy and reserved. As such, she was not confident of being elected at all.

One of the days in week four, Sylvia came up to me and said, “Eng Soon got the form.”

I understood. Our teacher silently nominated our classmate Neo Eng Soon.

“Only him?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Sylvia replied. “I only saw her holding one form, and Eng Soon got it.”

I felt as if I was bamboozled. What did Eng Soon even do to get the nomination? I did not really pay much attention to his behaviour since P3. He was in the same seating group as me for a term in P3 but I noticed nothing significant about him. He was generally quiet and attentive. He did contribute well in group discussions and activities and was relatively patient when working with others. This description of him does fit Vera too, but the issue is that Eng Soon was never in the class committee since P3. He was in the Visual Art Club (Leo was in it too) and not any CCA which requires a lot of interaction with other students like the sports, uniformed groups and performing arts. Nonetheless, I decided to congratulate Eng Soon - perhaps the first time I would initiate an actual conversation with him.

“I heard you got nominated to be a prefect! Congratulations!” I told him.

“Thank you. Do you know when the installation ceremony is?” he asked.

“Week seven,” I replied. “Your interview will be next week and the results will be out the following week. Were you told why you are chosen to be a prefect?”

“No. I just got the form this morning. I have no idea why the teachers chose me,” he replied.

That was even more perplexing. It seemed as though our teacher nominated a new prefect by merely drawing lots. Vera was disappointed, but she already expected that she would not be nominated. The main thing that made her upset was that Eng Soon was nominated out of all students in class, as he did not stand out in terms of leadership qualities. I felt sorry for her too. However, she said it was good in a way, as she felt she would not like wearing a sleeveless dress every Monday to Thursday. On the other hand, Joey and Graham were happy for her, as they felt not being a prefect would mean a less busy lifestyle. I begged to differ, due to the fact that prefects hardly do much outside of their curriculum time. They do assist the teachers in maintaining order within the school, but have no influence on school culture and spirit.

The following week had the interview sessions for the newly nominated P4 junior leaders and P5 prefects. I signed up to be one of the interviewers. I got accepted...was this a sign I would be promoted to a prefect too? I was quite relieved that I was not allocated to be in the same group of interviewers as Daniel. Despite that, he still found a way to talk to me.

“Hey Jordan! How’s everything?”

“Good! How many of your classmates got nominated?” I decided to give a proper reply to play along.

“Three. Darren, Khairul and Cynthia. Darren is a Math genius. Really. How many are nominated in your class?”

“Just one, I don’t even know what he did to get nominated.”

“Hmm...Eng Soon? I think the role of a prefect suits him.”

“How do you know?”

“From what I observe he’s quite respectful and will complete his tasks well. You will be interviewing the new P5s, I saw the list. I’m interviewing the P4s.”

How did Daniel get information about every single student in the level (maybe not as many as I thought)? Based on our conversation, Daniel did not delve into the details about Eng Soon’s character so he probably knew him on the surface only. Anyway, it was not possible for Daniel to know every student thoroughly. I had to admit - Daniel was right when he said that being respectful and able to complete tasks well should be qualities a prefect should possess.

I was allocated to be interviewers together with my classmate Li Xuan and two P6s. The interviewees were Darren Gore from 5A, Clarissa Yeo from 5C, Priscilla Collins from 5E and Rei Fujimoto from 5E. Li Xuan and I looked at the interview questions and rubrics. They made me very dissatisfied, as they were too shallow and only asking basic ideas such as why the interviewee thinks he or she deserved to be a prefect, his or her strengths and weaknesses and how he or she would carry out his role.

I spoke to Li Xuan, “The questions are not good enough. They need questions on how the Prefectorial Board should be improved, how the nomination should be improved and how prefects should actually contribute to the school besides just doing their duties.”

“Wow! Those are quite hard. I think they are for the teachers and not students,” Li Xuan chuckled.

“You want those questions in?” one of our P6 partners asked. “If you’re the school captain next year, you can try asking for those questions to be added in, but the final decision is made by the teachers.”

The contest for the position of School Captain was obviously a popularity contest. It was a rigged selection process, where those prefects deemed more popular by the student masses and more favoured by the teachers would have the upperhand. The system was terribly flawed.

Before the interview started, Clarissa asked me, “Are you doing morning or recess duties?”

“Morning. I am a class buddy. Don’t worry about your duty, the teachers should give you one that you like,” I replied.

“I want to help with the aquarium!”

“Yes, it’s quite nice to be there.”

The interview began shortly. The P6s told me and Li Xuan to grade the interviewees leniently. I let Li Xuan do the final grading, as I did not trust that I would be as lenient as expected. All four interviewees fared well for the interview. Darren mentioned additional points on how his junior leader friends would want to help with the academic aspect of student life by mentoring the younger students. I had a feeling that was Daniel’s idea, but it was indeed an excellent initiative and it answered my suggested question which I did not reveal to the interviewees. Clarissa was quite polite and maintained her enthusiasm throughout the interview. Priscilla talked about her experiences with class buddies when she was in lower primary which encouraged her to accept the offer. Rei pointed out her lack of confidence to be a leader and how her teacher was willing to give her the chance to improve her confidence.

After the interview ended, I walked towards the train station with Li Xuan.

“Just asking, why did you think of those extra questions?” she enquired.

“A lot of things have been bothering me,” I explained. “The Prefectorial Board is severely flawed, especially with how prefects are chosen. The biggest mistake made was nominating this person called Joseph Ezekiel Adams. I have friends who know he is not a good person but one who acts and threatens others to be popular. That was the biggest mistake, which caused him to be chosen to be the vice-captain later on and wreak havoc in school. I heard the prefects from his batch did not really have a good time under him, except those girls he liked.”

“Yeah. I heard those too. My friends also ask me how prefects are chosen,” Li Xuan said.

I sighed. “Vera has been wanting to be a prefect. She volunteered to be the IT Rep and helped my friend out at Staircase 5 during recess to try out serving. And guess what? Eng Soon got nominated. I was his classmate since P3 and I totally can’t tell why he got nominated.”

“I don’t really know much about Eng Soon but I see he’s well-behaved. Hope Vera is not too sad,” Li Xuan said.

“She’s fine. I told her that she does not need a leadership position to lead others in school, and that prefects don’t really do much because the teachers do most of the leading work. Anyway, she doesn’t like to wear this dress four days a week.”

“This dress is good! My sweat dries up really fast than when I am wearing a shirt with sleeves. Like Vera, I didn’t like dresses without sleeves at first, now I quite like them.”

“Back to what we were talking about, someone from 5A got suspended from being a junior leader because he talked too much in class. He is quite friendly and can lead, but comments on everything the teacher says.”

“Heheh, that sounds like one of my classmates last year. She’s quite naughty and will get into trouble very often. She’s quite close to the Clarissa we interviewed just now. Do you know Mavis?”

“Oh so that’s her name! I saw her getting scolded before. Clarice did mention her before. Do you remember what Darren said about how else prefects should contribute to the school? He was actually answering my suggested question! We should have boosted his score even more! I feel the idea of mentoring the juniors belongs to Daniel Lim.”

“Wow that guy! He talks to a lot of juniors. I was in the boarding house last year. His father is a parent volunteer and would bring us snacks he baked every week. He will play games, joke and sing songs for us with his guitar. I guess Daniel got influenced by his father a lot because I notice they behave pretty much the same way.”

“Let me ask you. Is Daniel really a good person? Does he deserve to be a prefect?”

“Why not? With his father’s influence I don’t think he’ll dare to act in front of teachers. I’d want to help out if he is starting the mentoring.”

“I want to do more to help the school too, but I’m still very cautious about Daniel. People like him are probably going to be school captains automatically because they have everyone’s support.”

“School captains are not chosen by how popular you are. I’m quite sure, but you were so right today about how prefects don’t actually do much to help the school.”

That day was a fruitful one. It actually helped me to see the need for prefects to step up more even more clearly. Prefects cannot be students with enhanced portfolios for unknown reasons but contribute to the school as much as ordinary students.

The next week was the week of true suspense, as the finalised list of P5 prefects would be released. It would be known whether the P5s recently interviewed would get their positions, and also whether the current junior leaders would be promoted to prefects. There were a handful who were not promoted, but fortunately, my friends and I were all promoted. The four interviewees got their positions too.

During that meeting, there was a major reshuffling of duties, especially for the recess duties. There was no change to my duties. We got our new ties and badges, and had an individual photo-taking session for our pictures to be flashed on screen during the installation ceremony the coming week. For Elise, she got a new partner to help her with her staircase duty - Yong Kok Weng from 5D. He was good friends with Leo too.

On the day of the installation ceremony, parents were invited. The ceremony took place in the school hall, but we were waiting in the auditorium before it started. I sat with some of my friends from 5A (it was fine because it was not time for me to get in position yet). I was in between Xuanyu and Elise, with Jerome in front of me and my classmates behind me. Daniel was some distance away so it would be unlikely that he could hear what we were saying.

“So guys, from next week onwards, we’ll talk to all the other prefects about our plan. Agreed?” Jerome hollered.

“Why don’t we split the job? Daniel has a timeline for this right?” Willis asked.

“Yes that’s an amazing idea,” Darren replied. “We need the full namelist. I assume Daniel knows everyone’s names-”

“Wait, what’s going on here?” I interrupted.

“Daniel and Jerome feel the prefects can do more than just their duties. They say the teachers will be very tired if the load of taking care of students is fully placed on them, so we are thinking of asking the other prefects how we can help,” Elise replied.

“Yup! We’re gonna make this student-led as much as possible!” Jerome said.

Why did that sound exactly like what I was thinking about the role of prefects? How did my thoughts get aligned with Daniel’s?

“Oh! I remember now! Darren, you said something about that during the interview,” I said to Darren.

“On behalf of Jerome and Daniel, I forgot to say,” Darren laughed.

“Is Ethan helping us with advertising?” Elise asked and Xuanyu began to chuckle.

“Hmm...I trust him but do the other prefects trust him anymore? He was an imposter among us!” Jerome said sternly.

“Wow Jerome!” a girl laughed.

I whispered to Xuanyu, “Daniel is the imposter among us.”

“Okay…” she replied, giving me a weird look.

“I heard that Jordan,” Jerome smirked. “So...should Ethan help us?”

“He was talking too much in class and got kicked out. Serves him right,” I said.

“That’s just half the story,” Jerome clarified. “He was supposed to do his duty at the field last year but he was fooling around, which got him into trouble.”

“Why don’t you help us? You seem very interested in helping,” Willis said.

“What’s your phone number? We can communicate on Whatsapp,” Jerome said.

“I don’t have a phone so you can send me via school email. Search for Lee Sheng En Jordan when you are finding my address,” I replied.

“I can help out too!” Vivian said from behind. “I don’t use Whatsapp too, so send the namelist to Ho Wei Ren Vivian.”

“But how are we going to tell everyone? Somebody can make an announcement now?” Xuanyu asked.

“Er...let’s not steal the job from the teachers yet. Like what Daniel said, we have to get their approval before we start anything. We can ask everyone for their opinion first. No harm. If the response is good we can tell the teachers. Should I get the entire namelist from Tricia?” Jerome said.

“Will she feel like we are leaving the P6s out?” Elise asked.

“I doubt they will want to help,” Jerome replied. “Let’s not give them additional pressure. My siblings say the P6 prefects shouldn’t be very keen on such projects.”

“Good for us to include the P4s because we’ll have more manpower, but it’s a bad idea to overload them when they just get installed, you see. We have to integrate them first. That’s why we need the entire level’s help,” Darren explained.

“Wow! Nice one! You’re so right! We need a wel-come par-ty!” Jerome said, while clapping his hands.

“So many things! We don’t have so much money!” a girl said.

“Yeah...if we were supposed to have a welcome party, we should have planned weeks ago,” I said.

“Yes, you can’t plan one on the spot. Don’t scrap the idea. We can try having one. I think for the advertising, we can actually tell just one student from each class and they will help to inform the rest,” Willis suggested.

“Are you sure? The other classes are not bonded like ours. Jordan already said how divided 5B is. Even among the prefects of the same class, they may not talk to one another. The best thing to do is to split the job up among us. I’ll talk to Tricia about it during the reception later and I’ll try to get the name list with your assigned prefects sent to all of you by tonight, through Whatsapp or school email,” Jerome said.

I was quite impressed with Jerome. He could lead a discussion so well. I silently wished I would be in the same class with that bunch of prefects, as they were so enthusiastic about serving the wider school community. However, that paled in comparison to wanting to stay in 5B for Vera and to avoid Daniel.

Soon, we were asked to get ready to form our line to enter the hall. I was supposed to be standing beside Vivian. While scrambling for my position, I felt someone tap my elbow. I turned and saw Clarissa waving at me. What a polite person! I felt bad for not talking to her more so I decided that I would talk to her after the ceremony.

There were light refreshments outside the hall. Mother was there talking to Sylvia’s and Vivian’s parents.

I was chatting with Sylvia and Vivian when I heard Jerome shout, “Uncle Jerome!”

I was literally confused at that point in time.

“Hi Jerome! Congrats!” a man replied.

“That’s Daniel’s father. His name is Jerome too. He bought snacks for the band members and played games with us during our camp,” Vivian whispered to me.

Meanwhile, I might or might not have heard Daniel saying this to his father: That’s Jordan, Vivian and Sylvia. I might or might not have seen Daniel’s father walking towards us. I might or might not have felt him shake my hand. I might or might not have heard him congratulating us. I might or might not have heard him offering to take a picture for the four of us.

Sylvia slapped me. “Stand here! We’re taking a photo!”

Daniel’s father offered to take a picture for the four of us and Daniel was standing beside me! Daniel’s father then greeted Mother and Sylvia’s and Vivian’s parents before chatting with them. I realised he was actually equally animated and lively while talking to people, just like Daniel. Li Xuan was right! It was soon time for us to return to our classes, so I had no chance to talk to Clarissa and congratulate her.

That night, I checked my school email and actually received the namelist with allocations from Jerome.

Ariana Khine Minh Thant

Daniel Lim Jia Jun

Darren Wayne Gore

Elise Wong Jing Wen

Jerome Koh Wing Khuen

Li Xuanyu

Muhammad Khairul B Ahmad Ismail

Nazreen Nandita Pranav Mahendra

Png Cui Tiang Cynthia

Sim Jia Jie

Tanaka Izumi

Willis Chia Yi Heng

Chew Huayi

Daniel

Chisaka Sylvia

Ho Wei Ren Vivian

Lee Sheng En Jordan

Neo Eng Soon

Daniel

Rayana Aliyeva

Jerome

Wong Li Xuan

Clarissa Yeo Su Yin

Goh Chin Eng Elliot

Lim Xin Ying

Jia Jie

Mohamed Irfan Bin Danish

Poon Kok Keong

Viktoriya Kozlovskaya

Vivian

Wong Hui Wen

Yap Xin Jie

Elina Khachatourian

Elise

Felicia Chua

Lloyd Karimov

Megan Teo Shan

Jordan

Stuart Low Kay Poh

Yong Kok Weng

Chiam Guang Dao Joash

Xuanyu

Elvin Chong

Fujimoto Rei

Priscilla Thirlynn Collins

Willis

Ian Sean Tsakonas Zheng De

Kamon Chanthahom

Liew Xuan Ling Isabel

Darren

Ler Wei Xuan Novan

Nur Farah Mariam Bte Danial Irfan

I was actually surprised Jerome allocated me to advertise to prefects I already knew. He actually knew me well, or was very observant of me. During recess the next day, I gathered Stuart and Megan to discuss the plan.

“The 5A prefects are thinking of ways to improve student life here and I agreed to help them publicise their plan. They feel the prefects should do more than their duties to help the school. I feel the same too. We want the rest of the P5 prefects to help us with this so I’ve been appointed to ask both of you, and Kok Weng later, how you feel about this,” I told them.

“That’s very nice of the person who started it and I want to help out,” Stuart replied.

“I’m not so sure...I heard my friend from CO talking about it. I may not have time and my parents may not allow me to have extra duties in school,” Megan said.

“Alright, thanks for your responses. We’re only studying the suggestion. I’m not sure when this will actually start,” I said.

Later, Jerome approached me. “Daniel is very happy that you are willing to help us! How’s the publicity going?”

“Stuart said yes but Megan is still unsure. I’m going to Staircase 5 to ask Kok Weng later,” I replied.

“Ah that’s nice! We don’t need all to say yes. Staircase 5...Elise might have told him already, I don’t know,” Jerome replied, then raised his eyebrow and pointed to someone behind me —Daniel. It turned out there was another prefect stationed at the school garden so he could take a toilet break.

“Thanks for your help man!” he said. “We really appreciate it. Good news! Your classmates all agreed to help us!”

“No problem. I feel, as prefects, we should help the students and teachers out more,” I replied. Was I indirectly making Daniel my ally?

“That’s so true. I give the credits to my parents. If not for them we wouldn’t have learnt to look out for others more,” Daniel said.

“Your parents?” I was puzzled.

“His father is a parent volunteer,” Jerome explained. “He would chat with us about our school life and show his concern. Quite an amazing dad.”

“My mum cares a lot about the school too, but sadly she can’t afford the time to be a parent volunteer,” Daniel said. “And before I forget, I talked to Tricia yesterday. She said our plan sounds tough, but not totally impossible. I can bring it up to Mrs Edgeworth soon. I bumped into Kok Keong from our Higher Chinese class just now and he said he can be part of the planning committee.”

“My brother can help us,” I said.

“And my siblings too!” Jerome added.

“That’s nice but we don’t want to reduce their PSLE preparation time. It is heartwarming that our P6s want to help, but we have to draw the boundaries between serving excessively and not sacrificing their studies. I might have said that PSLE is no big deal but it might be a big deal to a lot of our seniors...yeah. Worth brainstorming,” Daniel said.

How reliable were Daniel’s words? He did sound sincere about not bothering the P6s too much. As for what he said about PSLE not being a big deal to him, it was valid, since Rebecca often emphasised that PSLE is nothing compared to the O and A Levels. Like what my friends said, I should not be so stubborn regarding my stance on Daniel and instead try to understand him more, with our plan being my chance.

As usual, Vera and I went to Staircase 5 to wait for the bell to ring.

“He knows about it,” Elise said.

“Yes, she told me. The plan sounds cool and I am most likely able to help,” Kok Weng added.

“Argh! I haven’t asked the three I am supposed to ask yet! I don’t even know them!” Elise complained.

“Who?” Kok Weng asked.

“Elina, Felicia and Lloyd,” Elise replied.

“They are my classmates. Elina and Lloyd do recess duties too. We can ask them after we’re done. I can ask Felicia for you,” Kok Weng said.

“I wonder why Jerome made the list, giving you names of prefects you don’t know while I got names of prefects I know. Or was it Daniel who made it?” I said.

“Jerome, not Daniel. Tricia emailed the list to him and he just added the allocations on the right. He told me he’s quite sure you know two of those he assigned you. He said we don’t need to follow the allocations too strictly and we can swap if we want to talk to someone we know,” Elise replied.

“Anyway, I think I want to try conquering my fear of Daniel. I already volunteered to help you and your classmates so I want to try how it is like to work with Daniel,” I said.

“And I will keep you company, like I said,” Vera added.

“Err...we haven’t decided whether non-prefects can help. Ethan wants to help a lot. I think he did talk to one of his prefect friends about it. We told him to be patient,” Elise said.

“He has a lot of energy. Sadly he got suspended and then kicked out,” Kok Weng said.

“You know him?” I asked Kok Weng.

“I’m in Boys’ Brigade too!” he replied. “I know Jerome as well. Both are quite good leaders. The problem with Ethan is that he cannot control his mouth. I heard rumours that Jerome will be the Staff Sergeant next year.”

A week later, Jerome approached me and my friends during recess.

“So, the final result is...yes!”

“Who said yes? The teacher?” I asked.

“More than half of the students said yes! We have decided to proceed with it but we do hope that all prefects can be involved-”

“What’s this extra prefect duty going on?” Graham interrupted. “Is it to take away more study time?”

“You’re not even a prefect so why do you care?” Joey asked with a chuckle.

“I’m concerned! Sooner or later they will ask us to help and make our lives even busier!” Graham complained.

“It’s okay Graham, if we’re involving non-prefects we won’t make it compulsory. You can concentrate on your studies and piano. I know you indicated interest in helping, Vera. Thanks so much! We are still discussing how non-prefects can help. Mrs Edgeworth wants us to do a rough proposal. My older siblings in secondary school know what it is so they are formatting it for us. She didn’t say no but she thinks we can’t do it,” Jerome spoke.

“We can’t do it? Because we are young?” I asked.

Clarice laughed.“You may be right,” Jerome said with a smirk. “But we must prove to them we can! My classmates were not very confident at first. Daniel said that we shouldn’t let our young age stop us from doing good.”

“Precisely!” I replied.

Graham turned to Vera. “No, don’t join that. If you are going to help them you will get below 200 for PSLE.”

“What did you just say? Helping us out won’t make you do badly! I think you need to think about it, Graham. Band did not make you do badly. Look at Daniel, Darren Tan, and the other band members who are able to do well even though they are in Band,” Jerome said.

Graham just flicked his hand repeatedly at Jerome.

“Where’s Vivian? I need to tell him too,” Jerome continued.

“He got a new recess duty at the first floor classroom corridor,” I replied.

After finishing our food, Vera and I walked through the school garden to Staircase 5. It had been a long time since we used that route and I wanted to try that route again, as I wanted to overcome my fear of Daniel.

“Hi Jordan! Hi Vera!” Daniel hollered.

Before he could repeat whatever Jerome said, I decided to inform him about my awareness of the news.

“Hello, I heard we need to make a proposal and Jerome’s older siblings are helping us,” I said.

“Yup. Elina!” Daniel called out to the other prefect, Elina Khachatourian, on duty. “This is Jordan, and Vera. She wants to help us with our project too.”

“Oh hi! You are Leo’s cousin right?” Elina asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Let’s not stand here. We should move around because we should still keep a lookout for any misbehaviour around here. Basically, we have to make our intentions clear. It is not to boost our portfolio or anything, but to improve the learning environment for the school and strengthen cohesion. We believe the students themselves know better what kind of schooling environment best suits them so we are negotiating with the teachers to let us have student-led initiatives to improve school life,” Daniel explained.

“Yes, and Jerome was saying the teachers think we cannot do it because we are young?” I said.

“That’s a good question,” Daniel replied. “We believe so, but there are other factors that will make our project challenging. There are quite a few of us who can’t help for the moment - Farah, Joash, Xin Ying, Isabel; just to name a few. That makes our project exclusive in some way. They have a lot of concerns regarding time, parents and studies, the same applies for the teachers. What can overcome these obstacles is unity, something our school lacks.”

“You’re right, I have to say. It’s definitely not easy,” I said.

“Hey!” Daniel yelled in the direction of the Pacu in the fish pond. “Improving unity in school isn’t easy right?” Daniel waited for a few seconds before turning back to us to say, “Yup, it isn’t.”

“Daniel likes to do this with the P2s,” Elina said.

I did not find that funny at all. How would they be amused by Daniel?

“Daniel!” a few P2s shouted.

“Your juniors are looking for you. We won’t bother you. Bye!” I decided to end the conversation with Daniel there and left with Vera.

I told Vera it was a bad idea to walk that route every day, as I would not want to meet Daniel on a daily basis. At that point, I recalled I had not congratulated Clarissa yet. Vera said she would wait for me at Staircase 5. Clarissa was stationed at the school aquarium, which was relatively near to Staircase 5. When I made eye contact with her, I waved at her, and she waved back. Before I could say anything, the bell rang - it was time to return to class. I bit my teeth in disappointment, which led to Clarissa laughing. She then waved at me again and I hurriedly went to find Vera.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Daniel created a Google document. He says we can meet online at 8 pm to discuss and do part of the proposal,” Elise told me before I went up the stairs.

That night, the meeting amazingly took only an hour to complete. There were three new members in the planning committee - Nazreen, Ariana and Kok Keong. Daniel’s instructions were very clear and the document was already well-formatted by Jerome before the meeting started. Daniel wanted to communicate via video call, but not all of us had the software, so we used the Google Drive chat.

We decided on the objective - To promote unity and improve the learning environment of students. Daniel had also suggested having a bottom-up approach to some extent, where students would provide us with feedback about student life and what can possibly be done to improve it. The idea of having a welcome camp for the P4s was well approved by most of us. As our plan was not one-time, we decided to have multiple service learning (SL) projects open to non-prefects. To give more of us the chance to hone our coordinate skills, I suggested rotating the main prefects in charge of each project. Xuanyu suggested that we could create presentation slides and split up to present to each class in the school during the 30 minute administrative period every morning after assembly. Those were the main points we needed to submit to the teacher, on top of some project ideas.

I was very amazed by how Daniel and his classmates could coordinate the discussion so well. He seemed to give the impression that he was passionate about the welfare of others. That led me to think about Joseph Adams, who did not initiate such SL projects as far as I knew. All he cared about was his own prestige. I was starting to see the distinction between the two, but I was uncertain whether Daniel was doing all these for prestige or because he genuinely cared for others. I just had to observe him more.

The next morning, the prefect teachers-in-charge called for a meeting with the P5 prefects and P6 exco. They wanted us to explain our rationale for spearheading such a major project. Someone was supposed to give an explanation.

Darren said, “Daniel, you’re the best speaker here and it’s all your idea.”

“What is the purpose of a physical school? Since we have computers, why don't the teacher just record all the lessons and post them online? Isn't that very good? Nobody needs to go to school and we can all stay at home? You might like the idea, but how are you going to apply your life skills if you are just cooping yourself at home, absorbing knowledge like a sponge? We are humans. We need social interaction. We need one another's support. That's why we come to school. We can't expect to learn all these skills through online lessons and boom! We apply them perfectly when we grow up and start working! Many students may not have the privilege of learning these skills effectively so the school is a very crucial place for them to learn and apply these skills. For this to happen, we need unity. Unity among students and unity among teachers and students. Name me a person who can master everything by himself....”

There was no response.

“See? Nobody! Unity is plainly lacking in FRPS. We can't have a cold school environment. Our school spirit needs to be lifted up. As prefects, we should not say ‘Ha! Look at me! I'm a prefect!’ We are here to assist the teachers in driving FRPS to a brighter future. Unity is a big step to that.” Daniel continued.

A boy began cheering and applauding. Others followed.

“You’re awesome!” Tricia, the school captain said. “All these years nobody dared to step up to present such an idea to the teachers. I don’t think Eunice did it.”

“Don’t say that please! Eunice has a heart too. She and our parents inspired me a lot. She wanted to do more but a lot of prefects objected. We should be thankful we have the opportunity to contribute,” Daniel replied.

At that instant, I remembered who that Eunice was. She was my class buddy back in P1 and thereafter became the school captain in 2011. Many of my then classmates liked her a lot and would still maintain friendship with her until she graduated.

It was my turn to speak. “Our project cannot just take place once because we want the school to be improved for as long as possible. That means, we have to train the P4s later this year. Some suggestions of projects we can organise can include mentoring our juniors, writing encouragement notes for others during the exam season and even some that can extend to the community outside of school. To give each of us the chance to lead a project, we can have a rotation of project leaders.”

“We feel it would be easier to communicate with the P4s if we have more activities where we can work and have fun with them. It will be good to have a prefects bonding camp for P4s and 5s during the June holidays, so sorry P6s. If we do not have enough money to run a full camp, we can think of something else,” Willis said.

“Nazreen, do you want to give it a shot?” Daniel asked Nazreen, who just joined the planning committee.

She nodded and began to speak. “This project will have a...a…” She then looked at Daniel desperately.

“Bottom-up approach,” he whispered back.

“Bottom-up approach,” Nazreen continued. “For the first few weeks of term two, we will go to each class to present our ideas and conduct a survey to find out what should be improved in the school. This is to help us plan the projects. Participation is open to non-prefects too but we hope all of us can help, whether or not we are in the planning committee.”

“That was a great one,” Daniel said, patting Nazreen’s back.

“I’m actually surprised you know ‘bottom-up approach’,” one of the teachers said.

Stuart put up his hand. “Can I join the planning committee?”

“Oh yes oh yes! Thank you!” Jerome exclaimed. “Anyone else? You don’t have to decide now!”

No one responded.

“We can ask more teachers to help if you need,” one of the teachers said.

“That’s nice but we feel all of you teachers have done so much for us and you really deserve to have your load lightened. We do appreciate your suggestions and feedback but we don’t wish to make your lives busier. Instead, we hope to strengthen the teacher-student bonds, yeah,” Daniel explained.

“But can all of you really do it?” an exco prefect asked.

“If we say yes, feel free to take it with a pinch of salt. It is our vision and it doesn’t mean it will be fulfilled,” Daniel replied.

“Not to worry. For the presentations in classes, we can ask the P6s for volunteers to help out,” Tricia said.

“Oh yeah! If any of you cannot help out with presentations, please let us know, if not we will allocate every single one of you to a class. It will be done in pairs,” Vivian announced.

Li Xuan whispered to me, “Should I just not present? I can’t speak well.”

“I’m not too good a speaker either. You can present with me,” I replied.

“We need an easy way to communicate and make announcements. Who doesn’t have Whatsapp?” Kok Keong asked.

A few of us put up our hands, including me.

“I don’t think all parents would want to give their kids a smartphone at this age, or even a phone,” I said.

“Yes,” Xuanyu said. “I don’t have a phone too. Maybe we can use the school email and Google Sites?”

“That works. We can use Google Sites to post the announcements and plans,” Jerome said.

While we were leaving the room after the meeting, someone tapped me on the back - it was Clarissa again.

“Oh hi! We meet again! I’ve always wanted to say - congratulations for clearing your interview!” I said.

“Thank you! You guys are really awesome to think of these ideas!” Clarissa replied.

“Not me. Darren already said it during the interview. See you during recess!” I said and caught up with my classmates.

Wow. Daniel actually raised so many valid points about the purpose of a school. He must have quoted his parents’ words because they did not sound like what an eleven year old would say. I noticed he was quite encouraging and willing to give others the chance to speak, like Nazreen. However, I highly suspected that Daniel was doing all those to gain approval from the exco and teachers, just like Joseph Adams. It was not time to jump into conclusions yet, I just had to observe further.

During recess, I went to look for Clarissa at the school aquarium.

“Hello! How’s your duty?” I asked.

“Fun! It’s nice to see everyone excited about the fish and other creatures!” she replied.

“Yes I’m excited too, but can I ask why your teacher nominated you to be a prefect?” I asked.

“You’re so interested! I remember my teacher just said ‘Good job!’,” Clarissa replied.

“Yes I’m interested. I don’t know why. I feel there are flaws in how the school selects its prefects, same for the secondary school but that’s a different story. The best example is Joseph Ezekiel Adams. He’s totally fake and nasty. My senior says he bribed a lot of students to cover up the bad things he did. Even in secondary school he cheated people for money. Oh yes, he was dating a girl called Geraldine in P4 and broke up with her because he did not want their relationship to affect his chance to be the Vice Captain. I don’t know why the teachers were so blind to select him! Never mind, that was a bit rude, but you get what I mean right? I want to talk about Daniel Lim. He seems good and looks like a good leader but I’m very afraid he will be the next Joseph. Everyone says I’m thinking too much. I have decided to try getting to know him better. I have to admit - he didn’t do anything bad to me.”

“He’s okay. I heard things about you and that you’re quite special,” Clarissa said.

“In what way?” I asked.

“You like to say funny things about Daniel, Viktoriya told me-”

“Funny? I wasn’t kidding when I said Daniel is dangerous!” I protested.

Clarissa giggled. “We all laugh at your Daniel jokes and how you like to tell people to watch out for him.”

“I’m actually quite sick of telling everyone those but I felt I needed to tell. I want to surrender. Everyone just disagrees with me,” I said.

“You can tell me! I want to hear them!” Clarissa said.

“Nothing too interesting for now. What I can think of is the project a bunch of us are planning. Remember the huge chunk of words Daniel said this morning? His parents are probably helping him to be the next school captain in secret. There was once he was talking to me and my friend in the garden about the purpose of the project. He said that there are a lot of challenges we will face but unity will solve the problem, along those lines.”

“Yeah. He must love the school a lot for him to start this project. I know you guys feel the teachers do everything and you want to lighten their burden?”

“Absolutely. Come! Join our committee!”

“Should I? Do you guys stay back a lot?”

“It’s not confirmed. I think we will be notified of committee meetings via the Google Site so anyone can see them. Some of us don’t have phones so all announcements should be made there. Think about it. You don’t have to join us now.”

“I’ll take part but I’m not sure whether I’ll join the committee.”

It was a nice recess talking to Clarissa. She and her classmates took my complaints about Daniel as jokes. Was that a compliment? I was indeed very tired of warning everyone about Daniel, but I felt I should continue telling Clarissa about Daniel, since she found it funny. Without a doubt, I was still set on conquering my fear of Daniel.

That evening, Jerome created the Google Site and there was already an announcement asking the committee members to fill up a Google Form. We were supposed to indicate our mode of transport back home after school, whether we attend afternoon supplementary classes, whether we have CCA sessions on other days aside from Friday as well as our preferred mode of discussion.

Over the weekend, Xuanyu posted an announcement which mentioned that the best possible times for physical meetings would be during the lunch break after normal dismissal before supplementary lessons every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. We would not be required to carry out our duties during those timings.

The coming Monday, we had the meeting during our lunch break. Vivian and I were dismissed first so we managed to get seats in the cafeteria with our food. When we returned to the seats, some of the 5A prefects had just arrived.

“Hello! You two are quite early! Thanks for finding seats for us!” a girl said.

“No problem. You are Jia Jie?” I asked.

“Yup! Is everyone here? Oh wait, where’s Kok Keong?” she said.

“Kok Keong is right there queuing up. I’ll call him,” Daniel replied.

“Who’s not here today?” Vivian enquired.

“Darren!” Jerome replied. “He’s too smart so he doesn’t need supplementary.”

“Smart Jerome! Darren was always excused from Monday supplementary because he doesn’t take Mother Tongue!” Jia Jie laughed. “But Xuanyu still comes even though she doesn’t.”

“Erm...wasn’t supplementary always compulsory especially for Higher Chinese? Anyway nobody in our class got excused and my parents will be too lazy to write an excuse letter,” Xuanyu said.

“Ariana left too right?” Jerome asked.

“I’m here!” Ariana replied.

“Oh man I’m so sorry! Thanks for staying back!” Jerome said.

“I’m not taking the school bus so I can stay,” she said.

“Such passion and dedication! Keep it up Ariana!” Daniel came back with Kok Keong, holding their food.

That day, we were supposed to confirm the list of P5 prefects who would be doing the presentations in different classes the next term as well as discuss the feasibility of a welcome camp for the P4s.

Jia Jie opened her laptop and said, “So far, we have Novan, Rayana, Felicia, Lloyd, Joash and Isabel who do not want to present. Anyone knows of more?”

“Rayana is just unsure. She didn’t say she doesn’t want. I will check with her again,” Vivian replied.

“Okay, is that all?” Jia Jie asked.

No one said anything.

“If not, did any prefect voice any concern?” she asked again.

I replied, “Pair Li Xuan with me please. Thanks.”

“Hui Wen and Xin Ying want to be together,” Daniel added.

“Xin Ying doesn’t want to take part in our projects,” Kok Keong pointed out.

“She’ll just need to help with the presentation because there are so many classes. To make it clearer, this round of asking is different from the previous round. Those who cannot take part in our projects have to present if possible because the presentation will take place during admin time in the morning,” Jia Jie clarified.

Jerome then volunteered to create a Google Presentation to give all P5 prefects the chance to contribute to the contents of the presentation. We would finish the slides within a week and spend a couple of mornings the next week running through what to say during the presentation.

“We only have a little bit more time before we round up. So, we can talk a bit about our welcome camp. Just asking, did any of you talk to the P4s about it?” Jia Jie asked.

“Daniel and I did tell some of our P4 Band juniors,” Vivian replied.

“We did tell the CO people right?” Kok Keong asked.

“Yes! Never mind. We’re not asking the P4s like that, but we need to know what to say to them. There are many other considerations like the duration of the camp, whether we need trainers from elsewhere and so on,” Jia Jie said.

“We can have a meeting with them next week and ask them to fill up a Google Form which we can post on our website,” Ariana suggested.

“Of course, and we’ll talk more about that tomorrow? Should we have a meeting tomorrow?” Jia Jie asked.

“We might as well use the time to bond. Only Darren won’t come tomorrow for sure,” Jerome replied.

“Wait a minute guys!” Daniel said. “I think someone’s missing...Stuart!”

“Was there a Stuart in our committee? I don’t know anyone called Stuart,” Elise said.

“I just remembered he asked to join. He did not excuse himself from Chinese supplementary so he should still be in school. I’ll check with him later on the way up,” I said.

Daniel said, “Well done Jia Jie! Ariana, you gotta germinate that seed!”

What exactly was Daniel talking about? I did notice that Daniel was unusually quiet during the discussion, same for Jerome. Him complimenting Jia Jie could mean he appointed her to lead the discussion. He actually gave others the chance to lead. That could be a good quality of him, as I remembered during the leadership training course the previous year that leaders should try to give others the chance to step up instead of getting everything done by themselves.

On my way up to my Chinese class, I saw Stuart waiting outside his classroom. I instantly asked him why he was not at the meeting.

“There was a meeting? They didn’t announce it this morning,” he replied.

“It was posted on the Google site. The same website where you did the Google form about committee meetings,” I said.

“Oh no I didn’t do the survey! I forgot all about the website!”

“It’s fine. They are not angry with you. Just come tomorrow during this same lunch break. We should have the meetings every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday before supplementary.”

The next day, I understood what Daniel meant by Ariana germinating the seed - Ariana would lead the second meeting. We had nothing much to discuss that day. We decided on several options for the welcome camp. The P4s could indicate whether they wanted to stay over during the camp as well as their preferred activities. Jerome also shared the presentation slides for the publicity of our mega plan and told us to start working on it.

Contrary to what we expected, hardly any of the non-committee members contributed to the presentation. That Thursday, Willis said I contributed to the slides the most and should conduct the briefing on behalf of the committee to the teachers, the P6 exco and the other P5 prefects. Most of the other committee members agreed, even Daniel. I was quite lost at the moment. I did not know how to go about conducting a briefing. Daniel assured me that the teachers would not put pressure on me and I should just be myself and talk as if I am talking to friends. I begged to differ. It was easy for him to say that, since he was friends with everyone.

I got home and stared at the presentation slides. What was I supposed to do? I could not deliver a slipshod briefing. I had already paired up with Li Xuan and told her that I would guide her during our presentation to the classes. I would be contradicting myself if I did a bad job and gave her the impression that I was unreliable. I was very confused at the moment. I had no idea what to do. I gave up, picked up my bass and continued practising the song I was learning most recently - We’re An American Band.

The next Monday was the start of the last week of term one and I totally did not prepare for the briefing - all the best to me. Before I started speaking, I looked around the room, hoping the prefects would give me some form of encouragement. Weirdly, I began to open my mouth upon seeing Daniel nod his head.

“Good morning to you, teachers, P6 exco and P5s. I will be running through the slides we created and what we can say to the classes we’ll be presenting to next term. If you have any questions, you can put up your hand and ask. For those who are helping to present next term, thank you, and you will be paired with someone else. We tried to pair non-committee members with committee members and the exco so the presentation can be done more easily. We will show you the pairs and the classes you are assigned too later. If you can’t remember...that’s okay.”

Some of the prefects began giggling. I was actually proud of my performance so far. I doubt I fared that badly. What was wrong with including some (accidental) humour in my briefing?

“Because we’ll upload the list on our website. Firstly, you will need to tell the class what our mega project is all about. We feel a school is not just a place to study, but a place to connect with students and teachers, and to strengthen the community spirit. Then, we will tell them how our project will address the concerns of the students and teachers in the school and how we can try our best to help.”

The first content slide went well. I hoped I would not mess up the next slide.

“Over here, we will tell them some examples of areas that can be improved and what they can give feedback on…”

I had no idea what else to say for that slide, as it was merely listing the examples. I looked around. Stuart was smiling at me. Sylvia was smiling at me. Viktoriya was smiling at me. Elise was smiling at me. Xuanyu was smiling at me. Clarissa was smiling at me. Soon, laughter spread throughout the room, including mine.

“Dude! Do you know you were moving your hand up and down the whole time? We can see the examples!” Huayi pointed out.

I had totally no clue that my hand was still moving up and down even though I had finished speaking for that slide. What a laughing stock! At that point, I could not control my laughter. Not even the teacher could stop me from laughing.

“Guys! Stop! Let him continue!” Jerome hollered.

The laughter hardly subsided.

“Do you want me to take over?” Jia Jie asked, while I was still laughing.

“Sing a song for us!” Stuart said.

That seemed to work, because I immediately began singing.

“Out on the road for forty days

Last night in Little Rock, put me in a haze

Sweet, sweet Connie was doin' her act

She had the whole show and that's a natural fact

Up all night with Freddie King

I got to tell you, poker's his thing

Booze and ladies, keep me right

As long as we can make it to the show tonight

We're an American band

We're an American band-”

“Stop! I didn’t know you like those dinosaur bands!” Jia Jie said.

“Hey that’s mean!” Daniel answered back. “It’s okay Jordan! Is that Grand Funk Railroad? Your taste is good. You should start your rock band soon. Guys! Settle down! Let him continue!”

I finally settled down and tried to recall what I needed to say next.

“Next, we will tell them that we cannot just limit the community building to within the school, but outside the school too. To keep things simple, we can encourage them to think of how we can contribute to Lakeridge districts such as Hyacinth, where our school is and Gentian, a nearby district. After this, we can let the teachers take over. They will help to collect ideas and feedback from their students. I think that’s all from me. Anything else from the other committee members?”

Daniel stood up. “Let’s give a round of applause to Jordan!”

Why would Daniel say that when I obviously messed up?

“Erm...I mean, did I miss out any points?” I clarified after the applause died down.

“To add on to what Jordan said, I feel some students might be shy to share their feedback in front of everyone, so can we have a box where students can drop their feedback in,” Darren said.

“Someone’s gonna mess with it,” Kok Keong pointed out.

“Maybe we can get a cover, cut a hole and tape the cover to the box?” Xuanyu suggested.

“Absolutely, the box can stay there until it is full. We can’t be going into classes to collect feedback every week,” Jerome said with a chuckle.

“Good points raised,” Daniel said. “I think we should take note of some etiquette when we are presenting and facilitating in each class. It is good to encourage our schoolmates to give their views, but we shouldn’t go to the extent of forcing them to do so. The harsh reality is that not everyone can look beyond themselves, so we can’t make it compulsory to make them identify areas of improvement either. We want a genuine uplifting of our school spirit and not one which is done for the sake of it.”

“And one more thing! Work with your partner on a script you can use next term, so you won’t have a terrible presentation like mine!” I gave a final reminder.

Before I knew it, the meeting had ended. I instantaneously made my way beside Li Xuan.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you trust me. I did such a bad job today because I didn’t prepare at all,” I said.

“You didn’t prepare? It sounded like you did. Don’t worry, I still trust you,” Li Xuan replied.

My classmate Rayana joined in the conversation. “It wasn’t that bad!”

“You dare to present without preparing. Can’t relate man,” Sylvia said.

“Are you coming for the Math Olympiad next week?” Darren asked me.

“No. No point going for such things, and you should know if you didn’t see me at the training sessions,” I replied.

“We participate for the fun of it! For the excitement! School is not just preparing for PSLE!” Daniel said.

Had Daniel gone mad? How would one find a Math Olympiad exciting? Being unable to do most of the questions and wondering whether they are answered correctly is definitely not exciting. Anyway, I was shocked that Daniel defended me when Jia Jie said I like ‘dinosaur’ bands (I knew Jia Jie had no intention to insult me). I was actually glad he knew the song I sang was by Grand Funk Railroad, which made him seem like someone I could talk to about music. With that and him asking everyone to give me a round of applause after my briefing, my impression of him was starting to improve, but I decided to stay wary.

That recess, I looked for Clarissa again.

“I messed up this morning so badly!” I told her with a chuckle.

“No no no! It was real fun!” she replied, laughing too.

“I was supposed to prepare for this morning, but I didn’t. Last week, I just stared at the slides. I didn’t know what to do, so I gave up and hoped I would somehow know what to do. I just continued practising the bass afterwards.”

“What song are you learning?”

“We’re An American Band by Grand Funk Railroad, the one I sang just now.”

“Oh! That was funny! When you were asked to sing you really sang! And you are a good singer!”

“Thanks. I’m in the Choir. Did you hear what Daniel said? He said I should start a rock band.”

“You should!”

“My brother plays the keyboards. My sister plays the guitar. They love singing too but they are probably too busy. My cousin plays the drums but he wants to focus on Art. We are so bad at English that we probably can’t write our own songs. I feel like writing a song after PSLE. Do you play any instruments?”

“No! I look at music scores and I want to die! Music lessons are death for me! But I like hearing music.”

“I see. Before I forget, Daniel said something weird to me after the meeting. He said that he participates in the Math Olympiad for the excitement. Has he gone crazy? How is doing tough Math papers exciting? They make you rage and lose your sanity!”

“Right! I hate doing Math so much! But anyway, I saw that Daniel was quite encouraging to you just now. He cares about you.”

I sang two lines of a song. “Nan fan zan yu ga, yan min do him ja.”

“What?”

“It’s from a Cantonese song. It means it’s hard to differentiate real from fake, for faces are deceiving.”

“Oh. I don’t know Cantonese. My father is Hokkien and my mother is Japanese. All we speak is English.”

“Do you plan to learn Japanese?”

“Of course not! Learning English and Chinese is already killing me! Why do you think Daniel is fake?”

“I can’t confirm he is. What I mean is you can’t tell what a person is like but just looking at him. You need to study the person carefully.”

That afternoon, we had another meeting. It was headed by Elise regarding the prefects camp. We were undecided whether we would still participate in the joint training programme with FRSS and FRJC because having an additional camp would take up a lot of time. Daniel pointed out that having a prefects camp would be essential, since we should focus on bonding with other prefects within the primary school first. Jerome mentioned that just like 5A, the prefects should have a set of cheers. Willis pointed out that there should be school cheers as well. We agreed that we could write the cheers together with the P4s during the camp.

During the meeting with the P6 exco, P5s and P4s on Wednesday, we got to see Darren shine. Many of the P4s were quite enthusiastic about the idea of a camp, but their main concern was the date, as they wanted to keep the dates for the camp free. There were several suggestions, which included an islandwide treasure hunt, obstacle course, hiking, a picnic at the beach as well as board games. Darren was so encouraged by the zeal of the P4s that he went on giving a brief outline of our mega project. The teachers commented that they were quite glad to see the prefects in my batch being so passionate about serving the school and the wider community. They said that the P4s should learn from us.

That made me ponder. Did Joseph Adams even bother to make use of serving others to boost his prestige? He did not. The more I observed, the more it dawned on me that Daniel was not really boosting his prestige explicitly, which was suspicious. He could be making use of his ability to divide manpower to flaunt his leadership skills, which made him a manipulative person. Again, I decided to wait and observe still.

Over the remaining days of the week, Li Xuan and I made use of our evenings to craft our script for our presentation for the next term. The plan was that we would make use of the full March holidays to rehearse our lines and be fully prepared by the first Tuesday of the second term, which was when we would present to our first class. However, I discovered a challenge - presenting words from a memorised script reduced flexibility and hindered improvisation. That made Daniel’s advice on making a presentation as if I was talking to friends make more sense, but both were definitely different and cannot be approached in the same manner. I consulted my siblings. Rebecca believed what Daniel meant was that I should speak comfortably, just like how I spoke to friends, and not robotically follow a script. I decided to remember the key points only and be more flexible when speaking.

Anyway, my friends said I did a good job for the briefing I did not even prepare for, so that gave me some confidence. My worry was Li Xuan. She had put in effort in trying to practise so it was not nice for me to drop her a comment, telling her to practise presenting in a more flexible manner. I just had to wait until the day itself before I could see how it turned out.

For the first Tuesday of Term Two, Li Xuan and I were supposed to present to a P2 class.

“I have to say this. When I was trying to practise with the memorised script in mind, I had a hard time-” I said and was interrupted.

“Same! I kept messing up! Argh!” Li Xuan grumbled.

“Before we enter. I have to say this one thing. If you can, don’t follow the script word for word. If you mess up later, you will have a hard time clearing the mess, so if you can, use your own words. One more, if you think of something interesting, just say it.”

Li Xuan did not reply. I could hear her heavy breathing. Well, the teacher should know we are only around eleven years of age and unable to present like a professional. We entered the class, set up the presentation slides and got ready.

It was my turn first. “Good morning teachers and fellow students, my name is Jordan.”

“And I am Li Xuan.”

“We are prefects from the P5 level and we are here to present to you The Mega FR Project. The name of this project sounds lame as of now, but we can accept suggestions for better names along the way. On the whole, this project will aim to improve the learning environment in school and unity among students and teachers.”

“Before we talk about the project, we have a question for you to think about - what is the purpose of coming to school?”

Li Xuan and I decided that she would ask that question to get the ball rolling. Little did we expect that the P2s answered the question out loud instead of just thinking. The answers we heard were quite similar, along the lines of learning and making friends.

I said, “Yes. You are right, but is that all?”

There was no response, so I gestured at Li Xuan to continue.

“A school is not just a place for education. It’s where we build relationships and learn valuable lessons which will greatly help us in life, so it is important that the school environment is suitable for those. Your experience in school will not be fun if everyone is minding their own business. Imagine you are struggling with a Math question and there is no one you can ask for help. I’m sure you don’t want that to happen. We hope to work together with all of you to make FRPS an awesome place to learn and grow.”

“So, how will we be doing that? We will be accepting feedback from all of you and we will try our best to work with you to address your concerns. Here are some areas you can give feedback on. First, academics. You don’t have to give me your answers now. There will be time for that later, don’t worry. How are you coping with your studies? Do you find yourself struggling? Do you feel that you are unable to complete your homework? Do you feel that you cannot improve even though you are working very hard? Second, school facilities. How can the students behave better in the library? The cafeteria? The school garden? Is there too much littering and vandalism? Third, school spirit. How do you feel being part of this school? Is school life fun enough? Do you enjoy interacting with your schoolmates and staff?”

“We hope that we will not only build community within the school, but also outside of the school. We learn how to build relationships and care for others in school. When we graduate from school in future we will not have teachers to guide us in doing so, so we feel it is good to start looking beyond ourselves from a young age. You can inform us of any issues you see outside of the school in Lakeridge and we will see if we can solve them together. Some issues you can suggest are pollution and lack of community spirit. Teachers, you can feel free to take over and help with the collection of feedback and suggestions. Thank you.”

“Sorry, a couple more points. We’re not forcing you to give your suggestions now. We’ll leave a box outside the staff room for you to drop anything you want to tell us. You can do so via the online portal too. We can’t accept feedback like ‘This teacher is bad, please fire him or her’ or ‘The cafeteria is too dirty, please hire more cleaners or make them work longer hours’. Those are just mean and totally not the point of our project. We want to make the school a better place, so please don’t say those.”

One of the teachers asked, “Do we write the suggestions on the board or key them online?”

“A piece of paper will do,” I replied. “You can use the visualiser. We are not using the computer anymore.”

The class was not very proactive, but that was not an issue, as we did not expect immediate answers. There were a few students who wanted more breaks and PE lessons, as well as some who complained about the stressful workload and needing to juggle other commitments outside of school.

“You can feel free to give feedback on those, but we can’t ensure that we can address everything. We are students too. We’re not the government or principal so we cannot do things like changing the timetable. You can still tell us about that because we want to know how you feel, but, let me say again, do not give offensive feedback on the staff and students in the school,” I said.

Before I knew it, our first presentation ended.

“I’m sorry. I should have let you speak more. The part on the box and online portal was supposed to be yours,” I said to Li Xuan.

“It was scary! It would be scarier if you let me speak more! I think you added more to your script!” she replied.

“I did? They just came to me, I guess.”

“You were good! How do you actually present so well?”

“I’m definitely not the best. Look at those in 5A. What I do to force myself to present well is thinking of Daniel. I think about how his speaking skills are so good, get jealous, and force myself to be good. I don’t really present much but that was what I was doing when practising at home.”

“I didn’t know you like to compete with others!” someone said from behind. It was Kok Keong.

“Uh...you heard other things about me?” I asked him.

“A lot! I know you always talk bad about Daniel. I notice you always gossip about him with Xuanyu, Willis, Leo and Vera during Chinese lessons,” he replied.

“Don’t accuse me of always talking bad about him. I don’t talk bad about him during Chinese lessons that much now. You know what? I seriously give up because all of you won’t believe he is bad and I am starting to see the good side of him more. Right now my plan is to just observe him and try to figure out why all of you think he is so good. Anyway, how was your presentation?”

“Weird, the kids were saying things like the school bus driver is too slow and the cafeteria queues are too long. How are we supposed to solve those?” Kok Keong complained. “And, you’ll understand why Daniel is good one day!”

“Fine! Anyway, I told the class that we are not the government or principal so there are things we can’t help with, but they can still tell us how they feel,” I replied.

“Woah!” Kok Keong explained. “There were some of them who complained about students from other classes. They gave names!”

“Not surprising at all. I told the class not to give mean feedback about people in the school, because it doesn’t help in reaching our goal,” I said.

“What? That’s smart of you! Why didn’t I think of that?” Kok Keong said.

“Yes!” Li Xuan interjected.

“Oh, my sister was sitting beside me when I was writing the script,” I explained.

“I don’t think I saw the mean feedback stuff in the script,” Li Xuan said.

“Was it not? It may not be my sister. It could be her friend. We were talking about the project last week when we went out,” I said.

“You and Daniel must be related. You two are probably cousins who didn’t grow up together. Both of you seem to have the same thoughts,” Kok Keong pointed out.

Why did Kok Keong’s words make so much sense? I highly doubted that Daniel and I were smart and mature at the age of eleven. What could explain the similarity was possibly our upbringing and influence from siblings (thumbs up to parents who have raised their children well). In addition, Daniel liked songs I listened to. I just found myself discovering more things in common with him.

That day during lunch, we had no official committee meeting, but a few of us gathered to eat.

“So how was today?” Jerome asked.

“4B wants supplementary to be cancelled,” Elise said with a chuckle.

“3F said that too,” Nazreen added.

“1C was a bit quiet, so Priscilla and I got them to play a game. They were supposed to draw something or someone that would first come to their mind when they think of FRPS. Then, Priscilla and I picked a few students to share with the class what they drew and their thoughts about it, inclusive of areas for improvement,” Daniel explained.

“That’s cool. We should do that for every class tomorrow,” Xuanyu suggested. “Where did you get the idea from?”

“The childcare centre I volunteer at,” Daniel replied.

“That’s a good way to get the P1s and P2s interested but I think it won’t work for the older ones,” I commented.

“Totally,” Daniel replied. “What we can do for the older classes is tell them stories of our experiences at the various school facilities or the neighbourhood, if applicable. We don’t have to get answers during that half an hour. If we finish presenting early we can just talk to them about life and so on so they won’t feel pressured.”

“Yes, that’s some community spirit there!” Jerome said.

“Alright, I think we must address something. Kok Keong told me that the class he presented to said things like the school bus driver is too slow and the canteen queues are too long. We can allow them to give such feedback so we know how they feel about what’s going on in school. But, we have to tell them we are neither the government nor the principal, so we can’t address every single concern. What is unacceptable is the students giving nasty comments about other students and staff. We can’t accept those because it is against our goals,” I said.

“Yes, that’s so true Jordan! How are we informing the rest on that? You know what? I’ll post an announcement on our website later,” Daniel said.

The next day, Li Xuan and I were assigned to present to a P3 class. I decided to let her take more lines of the script and interact with the students more. We managed to hear more feedback about the students’ inability to manage their time and study effectively. What impressed us most was a girl saying that we only celebrate Teachers’ Day and do not have a day for the non-teaching staff. She was really on point. My siblings and I had that thought too. The girl went on to talk about how we could befriend students of other primary schools in Lakeridge. It sounded like a good idea but we needed to be clear on what we would do to forge ties with them.

That afternoon before supplementary, we had an official committee meeting (without Darren as usual).

“Are things better today?” Jerome asked.

“Yes I actually did what Daniel said yesterday and it was better,” Xuanyu replied.

“The announcement?” Stuart asked. “I forgot about it.”

“Fret not guys. We are not demanding a lot of responses today. Don’t be sad if you didn’t really get any responses,” Daniel reassured.

I spoke, “There’s this girl from 3A who is really amazing. She said we need a day to celebrate the other staff in the school besides teachers, and we can befriend students from other primary schools in Lakeridge to improve community ties.”

“Wow who’s that?” Willis asked. “Future school captain.”

“Do you have any idea what her name is?” Daniel enquired.

“No, Li Xuan doesn’t know too. We only know she’s Chinese...or Japanese, can’t confirm,” I replied.

“Similarities I heard for both days are mostly academic-related. Many students complained about how they hate studying and the mountain of homework. Many also wanted more places in school for entertainment like a video game room, a movie room and more places for sports,” Jia Jie said.

“We literally have a game room in the boarding house!” Daniel said with a chuckle.

“It’s a bad idea to have those in our school,” Vivian pointed out. “Our principal talked a lot about how games are bad and we should not spend so much time on them. I think it’s not possible to have those rooms because we have no more space. How big must they be? If they are small, everyone will just fight for them.”

“Yes Vivian, it is best to not have those rooms in a primary school. My oldest brother’s secondary school has a student lounge where students can rest, watch TV, play some games and music. They must sign in and out and can only spend a maximum of 30 minutes in there. It will be a bit hard to control because we probably need teachers to help maintain order, which is the opposite of our goal,” Jerome explained.

“I think a lot of students raised that too. One even wanted a playground and a slide from the roof of the building. I think for this we need to work with the teachers because there is nothing we can do ourselves,” Ariana said.

“Darren has been giving ideas for a tutoring programme. I think that’s more important,” Elise said.

“Yes we need his gifted brain cells!” Jerome remarked.

“He skips supplementary so he can use that time to teach the P1s and 2s!” Willis said.

“But he needs to catch the school bus,” Daniel pointed out.

“Where’s the discussion going?” Stuart asked.

“Thanks Stuart. We are supposed to discuss how we can narrow down to specific projects but we won’t decide the projects now. I guess the one on tutoring is pretty much confirmed because everyone complains about studies. Who wants to volunteer to bring the box home every weekend?” Jerome spoke.

“Do we have to?” Xuanyu asked with a chuckle.

“I think so,” Nazreen replied. “We don’t have time to check everything in school.”

“Yes. We are not allowed to bring ‘weapons’ to school so someone has to use a penknife to cut the tapes off at home. Who wants to volunteer?” Jerome asked.

“I can,” Nazreen replied.

“Thanks so much. Since you can see all the responses, can we trouble you to dump the inappropriate ones, keep the remaining and sort them out into those we can help with and those we cannot? You can create a document for that,” Jerome said.

“Jordan, do you mind reiterating what’s appropriate and what’s not?” Daniel asked.

“Inappropriate feedback includes those which insult other people in the school. If you feel it is quite mean just don’t key it in. Appropriate ones are those which are not too negative. Those we can help with include tutoring, organising activities and so on while those we can’t are building a giant slide, renovating the library and setting up a games room,” I explained.

“Don’t worry, you can ask any of us if you’re not sure,” Jerome assured Nazreen.

“Are you in our Whatsapp group?” Nazreen asked me.

“Wow! You are already using Whatsapp at P5?” I asked back.

“Why not? Just download it!” Jia Jie said.

“Not everyone gets a phone at this age. My older brother doesn’t have a phone either. Please understand that it is not compulsory to get a phone now,” I replied.

“I don’t have a phone either,” Stuart added.

“It’s okay guys. Jordan is right. We shouldn’t expect everyone to have a phone and use Whatsapp, because our parents have their concerns about phone usage. Over this weekend, we can look at the various concerns and group them together by category. Whoever has ideas of projects can suggest thereafter,” Daniel said.

“Is this open to the whole level?” Kok Keong asked.

“Yes. Open it to all the P5 prefects. Who knows? They can have ideas but just cannot join our committee,” Vivian said.

“Why do I feel Khairul has ideas?” Willis randomly asked.

“Wait, is the Google Form up?” Vivian asked.

“Darren is supposed to inform the teachers to put it up. He did it already so don’t worry. Nazreen, you can create the document anytime,” Daniel said.

By the end of the week, we received a deluge of responses, mostly from the box. It was discovered that most of the suggestions were to provide more help with academics and stress management. There were quite a number which mentioned that expectations from parents were too high and that they are always feeling sad because of their poor performance and heavy workload. There were a decent number of responses which raised the issues of bullying and negative behaviour. Lack of environmental awareness, lack of empathy, lack of respect and lack of concern for the wider community unfortunately made up the minority of the responses.

Darren created a section in the document for project suggestions. On top of the tutoring project, he suggested synthesising it with a time management workshop, since there were responses which talked about poor time management. There were not many contributions by non-committee members (in fact most of them just glanced through the document). There was a suggestion by Sylvia to increase the frequency of classroom spring cleaning. I felt the need to have chit-chat sessions with students facing difficulties coping with issues with studies, stress and relationships. It is essential that prefects were approachable and able to provide a listening ear to their schoolmates, for they may not be willing to open up to adults. There was an obvious challenge here, as we were not trained in counselling and coaching our peers.

The next Monday, we had a meeting to address two things - first projects under our mega project as well as the prefects camp.

“Thanks to those who contributed, we have four suggestions. I’ll start with Sylvia’s. Special thanks to her because she tried to add something even though she’s not in our committee,” Vivian said.

“Get her in!” Jia Jie suggested.

“She doesn’t want to. I asked her last term,” Willis replied.

“Yeah, same,” Vivian continued. “On the document, she said that we only do spring cleaning at the end of a semester, which is true. What she suggests is we do it more often, so we will learn to love the school property more and do our part to keep them clean often, instead of being forced by the teachers to do so. Any thoughts?”

Jerome spoke up. “Wouldn’t the teachers still force the students to clean? And it will be worse this time because the teachers are forcing the students more often?”

“Yes. I think what Sylvia means is the prefects decide on when to do spring cleaning and not the teachers,” Elise said.

“That’s part of it. I asked her this morning for a clearer explanation. She did say the prefects can help decide on when to do the spring cleaning but we shouldn’t always decide for them. The students are supposed to decide as a class how often they want to do the spring cleaning,” Vivian explained.

“That sounds a bit weird. If they want to clean themselves we need to make time for it, because they need to catch the school bus and return the class keys in time. If the teachers don’t decide anything, I think nobody will clean the class,” Ariana commented.

“Absolutely true. Good points raised by all of you. If we want to help the students learn how to love school property, spring cleaning is not the only way. To ensure regular cleaning of the classroom by the students, we should have scheduled spring cleaning dates rather than let them decide themselves, unless the class can be trusted with meeting expectations. Is there an ideal class in this school? If we can have one class in the school which can take ownership of classroom property, totally lighten the burden off the teachers’ shoulders and has very supportive classmates who all have a common positive goal, I’m sure that class will make headlines tonight. The point is - we can’t let the students take charge of everything because things won’t turn out right. The mission, again, is to lighten the load from the teachers, not totally remove the load, so we have to work closely and cooperate with them,” Daniel said.

“Yes that’s right,” I added. “I think we have to conduct surveys and check with the students. Is there one of us in charge of communicating with the teachers.”

“Thanks for asking. We were supposed to appoint roles today. Sorry if some things were already discussed without you knowing. Darren Gore is pretty much confirmed the role of communicating with the teachers. Who wants to be the overall project leader and assistant leader? Anyone wants to volunteer?” Jerome said.

I glanced at Daniel, then asked, “What does the overall project leader do?”

I expected Daniel to self-elect as the overall leader, since he was so ‘great’. I continued to glare at him, and he did not respond. I was seeing if I could have a chance to overpower him.

“Daniel and Jerome,” Willis said.

“You are saying that we should be the overall leaders?” Daniel asked.

“Obviously! Both of you are the best at organising projects! If anyone disagrees please say now!” Jia Jie said.

I wanted to voice up, but it was too late.

“Alright, let’s just confirm that,” Vivian said.

“Don’t worry, this is not a serious school project so don’t be sad if you’re not the leader now. I’m sure Jerome is fine with doing a rotation,” Daniel reassured us.

“Yup, there are more roles to come and you can be leaders for each project too! Any suggestions of roles?” Jerome asked.

“Nazreen is the Box IC,” Elise said with a chuckle.

“That works,” Daniel replied. “Who wants to be the Online Form IC?”

“Me!” Kok Keong replied.

“Okay guys, I am creating a table in our document now. Shout out some roles please. Don’t say any names yet. I’ll be confused,” Vivian said.

“Timekeeper!” Xuanyu suggested.

“Announcer!” Stuart said.

The next few minutes were just the shouting out of random roles. Vivian resorted to creating a table with our names then typing out the roles one by one.

Daniel

Overall IC

Jerome

Assistant Overall IC

Darren

Link to teachers

Kok Keong

Online Forms IC

Nazreen

Box IC

Elise

Assistant Manpower IC

Ariana

Post-project IC

Willis

Assistant Post-project IC

Jia Jie

Publicity IC

Xuanyu

Timekeeper

Jordan

Manpower IC

Stuart

Categoriser

Vivian

Assistant Publicity IC

As you can see, I was the Manpower IC with Elise as my assistant. Our role was to oversee allocations of participants for the different projects to come as well as track attendance. Jerome was disappointed that we accomplished much less than expected. He told Xuanyu to take over Vivian in leading the discussion the next day. She was quite stressed up at the moment because she was the timekeeper and needed to oversee not only the discussion and meeting timeframe but also the project timeframe. I volunteered to help her, and suggested that we could have an online meeting that night.

The meeting that night was mainly to advance our discussion regarding the prefects camp. We managed to confirm that the camp would span roughly three days - the first three weekdays of the June holidays. Due to budget constraints and a potential strain on manpower, we agreed to make the camp a day camp, provided there were no objections from the other prefects. We also settled on the decision that the P6 prefects could choose to participate in the camp if they wanted to. Kok Keong created a Google form and sent it to the teachers for vetting. It was to confirm the types of activities the prefects preferred to be in the camp. Fortunately, that meeting went pretty well and we were up to date.

The next day, we were supposed to generate ideas for our first project - the tutoring project.

“Before we start, let’s think of a cool name for this project!” Xuanyu said, trying to sound convincing.

“Er...something like Worry About Grades No More or Your Brain Expands Today?” Jerome said, laughing.

“What kind of names are those?” Jia Jie asked with a raised voice. “Even top students worry about results, right Darren?”

“Worry about whether you can maintain your standard,” Darren said.

I knew the discussion was veering off. Ensuring eye contact with Xuanyu was made, I repeatedly raised my eyebrows. Seeing that she was totally oblivious, I tapped on her watch twice and she gave an annoyed look. Anyway, I was supposed to assist her with facilitating that meeting.

“I think we should really start now,” I said, then raised my eyebrow at Xuanyu again.

“Sorry, we should do that later,” she said with a giggle. “What we need to discuss is the duration and what we need to do for the project.”

“Thanks Darren!” Jia Jie said while plopping her head on Darren’s shoulder for a brief instant.

“Oh please! For the benefit of those not in 5A, I was thinking that this tutoring programme should be a long and sustainable one. Along the way, we should train our junior leaders because they have to take over next year. For P1s and 2s they can use the remedial time slot so we might have to liaise with the teachers and request for some students to be excused. For P3s and 4s maybe use the morning assembly timeslot? I haven’t thought deeply enough about it yet. Oh yes, besides tutoring, the same project can have a time and stress management workshop. Goal setting should be good too. I’m so sorry but I really need to leave now or else I’ll miss the school bus. Have fun guys!” Darren rattled and picked up his bag. After walking a few steps, he turned around and said, “I’ll probably withdraw from the school bus programme to help out soon!”

Jerome clapped his hands. “That’s finally happening.”

“Can we actually use the supplementary lessons for the tutoring? Like what we saw from the feedback, supplementary lessons should be cancelled. It doesn’t make sense for the primary school to end later than secondary school. At 2 pm everyone is already leaving the secondary school in case you don’t know,” Stuart pointed out.

“The teachers did look at the feedback,” Daniel said. “They are aware that we don’t want supplementary, but...it’s hard to convince them why. If we say we have private tutors, we can go out of school to the shop selling cleaning supplies to buy brooms and dustpans to clean up the pieces of their shattered hearts!”

“What he said about using the morning assembly time can be good,” Ariana said.

“Yes! That is the exact time the I Can Read programme takes place, but more people will disappear from assembly,” Jerome said.

“Huh? There’s a morning programme? What is it about?” Elise enquired.

“It is a programme to help the P2s and 3s with reading, mentored by secondary school students. My oldest sister is involved in the mentoring. She said you don’t exactly skip assembly because you will still need to sing the national anthem and say the pledge indoors. My sister is in charge of mentoring those who need help with reading English which takes place every Monday and Tuesday. She said Wednesday and Thursday are for Mother Tongue. Darren knows about this already so he is asking the teachers about the possible time slots for our project,” Jerome explained.

“Can we actually combine I Can Read with our programme?” Vivian asked. “For English and Mother Tongue we can include sessions for Comprehension and Cloze Passage besides reading.”

“Yes, that's a nice one. I’ll note it down,” I said.

“Anyone knows of better times to do the mentoring?” Xuanyu asked.

“Weekends,” Kok Keong replied.

“Weekends? I dare you to ask a random student at that table if he or she is willing to come to school six days a week,” Daniel said with a smirk.

“That’s the problem. The students are asking for help, and we need time to give them the help. Publicity ICs, I think we need to do something,” I said.

“And that something is to broadcast to the school and ask them to suggest their preferred time slots,” Jia Jie added.

“Looks like I have to make a form later,” Kok Keong said, chuckling.

“Wait wait wait. Broadcast as in, make the morning announcement? Are we allowed yet? They haven’t chosen the new P5 assembly leaders!” Vivian voiced up.

“To play safe, both of you might want to write down the pointers for whoever is making announcements to broadcast. There shouldn’t be too much a difference here,” Daniel said.

I finally realised how hard it was for a bunch of children to work together for the purpose of improving the schooling environment. There was literally so much to accomplish and unity was indeed crucial, like what Daniel said.

When walking back up to our classes, Xuanyu said to me, “Argh! This is getting so stressful. Thanks so much for your help! If only I can have an assistant for timekeeping!”

“You can ask me for help, but don’t expect too much, because I seriously need to top my class,” I replied.

“You’re just like Josephine Lo. Wait, I remember Elise telling me you are smart but you didn’t study last year so you could do worse and avoid Daniel?” she asked.

“Yes she’s right. I think I half-regret doing that now. Your class is a lot more fun than mine, but I dare not leave Vera on her own,” I replied.

“Woah you’re such a good friend. I see Graham hanging out with both of you,” Xuanyu said.

“Yes. Does he always complain about his parents forcing him to learn music?” I asked.

“I think so. He got scolded quite a few times for daydreaming or sleeping in class. I don’t think he studies a lot. He said he is so busy that he has no time to play computer games. I think he just does nothing at home,” Xuanyu said.

“What he told me was that music drains his energy completely until his brain cannot work when he studies. That sounds wrong, just wrong. Don’t be too scared that I am wasting my time helping you. Jerome, Daniel and Jia Jie told me you are smart, and I don’t think I’m smarter than you,” I said.

“Erm...Daniel beat me a lot of times. I only started learning English when I was six, when I came here. How much do you study every day?” Xuanyu asked.

“You can’t study much in primary school,” I explained. “What I do is finish the homework, do assessments until I am bored, then do my own things, oh and practise my Choir songs too. I should have enough time to help you at night.”

“Ha! Media Club doesn’t need practise! Yeah mine’s similar to yours. I watch shows and play Candy Crush during my free time. Wait, I think Daniel also said that we can’t study much in primary school,” Xuanyu said.

“I said the exact same thing as him? This is not looking good. Kok Keong told me I am probably Daniel’s relative of some sort because we think the same. What’s going on?” I grumbled.

“Jia Jie says both of you care a lot about serving the school. You’ll be his good working partner,” Xuanyu said.

“Yes? No? Maybe? He isn’t as bad as I thought he is, but I just have to watch out. Before I forget, how can I help you tonight?” I asked.

“Erm...look at the Google Calendar and make sure our past meetings match the dates. Also, make sure the upcoming meetings and stuff are not too packed. Thanks so much,” she replied.

The next morning during assembly, a message was broadcasted to the school, saying a tutoring cum stress management cum time management programme was in the works, and the committee needed the student population to indicate their preferred time slots for the programme via the online form or the box. We confirmed that the project name would be Project Phoenix, something arbitrary and we would study the details of the project more in-depth over the weekend, after the responses have been collated. Thankfully, Daniel decided that the committee should take a short break before the collation of responses for both Project Phoenix and the prefects camp during the weekend.

Although I could take a breather, I was still worried that the committee would lag behind for the subsequent discussions and tasks, so I made the point to talk to Sylvia about her suggestion that day.

“We finally confirmed our first project! I want to know more about your spring cleaning suggestion. Vivian did talk to us about it but I want a clearer picture,” I told Sylvia.

“Er...it was quite a random idea. It may not work, actually. What do you guys think about it?” she asked.

“We feel that doing spring cleaning more often is not the only way to show love for our class and school property. If we let the students take charge of the spring cleaning, they won’t do it at all. We can give them dates to do the cleaning, but will they listen to us? They listen to teachers, not prefects. Anyway, no point cleaning if the class is going to be dirty again after cleaning,” I explained.

“It is to lighten the cleaners’ burden, not just the teachers,” Sylvia pointed out.

“Ah yes! We saw responses about cleanliness, so we can have the spring cleaning in the cleanliness projects. As for love for class and school property we may need another project,” I said.

“Yup, of course. You can talk to Daniel about how to love the class. I think he’s quite good at it, same for the other prefects in his class. I see that you can get along with him now,” Sylvia said.

“I can get along with Daniel? I can’t say yes or no yet. I’m still observing him. Nan fan zan yu ga, yan min do him ja. In English, that means it’s hard to differentiate real from fake, for faces are deceiving,” I explained.

“Like what Huayi said, stubborn people will learn the hard way,” Sylvia said, before giving me a smirk.

“I’m already trying! I stopped telling everyone to watch out!” I protested. “Anyways thanks for your explanation, I’ll tell the rest about it. One more thing, are you able to join our committee?”

“All of you have roles right? If I join, what will I be?” Sylvia questioned.

“Probably an assistant timekeeper? Just tell me whether you are interested in joining or not,” I said.

“I can’t, but I’ll take part in the projects if I can,” she replied.

The Thursday meeting was skipped as Daniel suggested, and I waited eagerly for Kok Keong and Nazreen to key in the responses from the online form and box respectively. Due to the responses from the box suggesting a wide variety of time slots, Stuart had to sort them out based on the time slots given in the online form - 7 to 8 am on weekdays, 2 to 3.30 pm from Monday to Thursday, 3.30 to 5 pm on weekdays as well as Saturdays. Majority of the older students preferred the programme to be run on weekday mornings whereas the younger students seemed to prefer weekday afternoons. This was totally brain-wrecking.

The other committee members were panicking over the Google Docs chat. They had no idea what to do. Daniel was unable to make it for that particular meeting, as he was at a church event. Both the preferred time slots seemed totally unfeasible, since most of us would be involved with our morning duties and supplementary lessons. It looked like we had to trouble teachers to oversee the project if it took place during those two time slots. I tried to calm the rest down. I tried to explain that we agreed the project could involve non-prefects. I tried to explain that it was not compulsory for all prefects to help out. I appreciated the fact that Vivian was trying to back me up amidst the chaos in the chat. All of the sudden, Jerome ended the meeting and everyone just left. What exactly just happened?

All I could recall was Darren typing long chunks of text in our document chat and allocating work to Ariana and Kok Keong.

I felt uncomfortable. I had a chat with my siblings about it. Being the awesome siblings as always, they gave me my much needed support and encouragement. I realised how tough it was to coordinate with others in a bid to make improvements in school. We were only a bunch of eleven year olds - in what position are we to effect change in a school (while trying to lighten the burden off the teachers’ backs)? For some reason I could not explain, I thought of what Daniel said regarding not letting our young age stop us from improving the school and how unity could overcome it. How naive! I wonder why Daniel would be simple-minded enough to think unity was the answer to overcoming the problems in school. Still, I was going to continue observing him.

No one edited the document or posted any announcement over the weekend. I felt I had to address this straight away on Monday morning. I walked at my maximum speed to class and was already breathing heavily when I reached my seat.

“Are you okay? You’re quite early! Why are you rushing?” Sonia asked.

“I have urgent things to settle,” I hurriedly replied and aimlessly paced around the class before stopping at Li Xuan’s table. “I’m sorry but I need to ask you a quick question. Is conducting Project Phoenix during assembly time for P1s and P2s and during supplementary time for the rest good?”

“Yes, so they can skip the boring assembly and useless supplementary,” Li Xuan replied.

“If Vivian comes before you leave for your duty, tell him not to be rash with any decisions about the project. Discuss with everyone before doing anything. And you can tell him what you think about what I asked. Thank you! I need to go next door now,” I said and scurried over to the 5A classroom, where I saw Jerome, Jia Jie and Nazreen chatting.

“Sup Jordan!” Jerome said. “I’m so sorry about what happened last Friday. I got very mad so I ended the meeting on impulse. I shouldn’t have done that. I was just upset that we couldn’t get anything done then.”

“Don’t say that. We will find a way. Anyway, I came here to say that we should discuss this together and not make any rash decisions. We can’t mess this project up with someone’s wrong move,” I said.

“Thanks. Don’t worry. Our Whatsapp group chat was completely quiet. I bet no one did anything at all. The thing is - should we even meet for lunch discussion?” Jia Jie said, sighing.

“Yes please, I need to apologise to everyone,” Jerome said.

“I support that, where are the rest?” I asked.

“The rest don’t come so early. Willis is sick. Daniel is downstairs asking for opinions from the younger ones,” Nazreen replied.

“Wow he actually cares,” I muttered. “Anyway, I’m going for my duty now. Tell the rest that we should have a meeting today.”

After assembly ended, I walked with Elise up the stairs.

“What was that last Friday?” she asked with a grumble.

“Jerome said he’s sorry. He got mad and ended the discussion on impulse,” I replied.

“Nah! He told me. I mean, why was everyone out of control on Friday?” she asked.

“Because Daniel believes that unity can solve everything but actually no!” I said.

“He did not say exactly what you said. I think this project is way too hard. We are the Manpower ICs and I think we have the hardest job! I think Ariana wants to quit,” Elise said.

“What? Why?” I asked.

“I feel she wants to. Darren was a bit too much with all his expectations. Jerome was trying to explain to her just now but she told him to go away. Same for Jia Jie.”

“Oh no...this is not good. Do you want to have a lunch meeting?”

“I don’t mind. Something random - Jerome likes to talk about religion in class.”

“That’s good to hear...anyway, please tell your classmates to meet during lunch. We need to make peace.”

When I settled down back in class, Vivian turned in my direction and showed me the ‘okay’ sign. I nodded. I understood he meant he agreed with what I told Li Xuan. I had difficulty focusing in class that day. I was afraid this committee would crumble and fall apart.

During lunch, all of us were present, except for Willis, Darren, Ariana and Kok Keong.

On seeing us, Kok Keong immediately chided, “What’s this now? Trying to pretend nothing happened? What was the point of creating that Google Form?” He walked to Jerome. “And you? What’s with those nonsense you were typing in the chat? And you just stopped everything? Coward!” He walked away afterwards.

“P..please come back! L..let me explain!” Jerome articulated with a quiver in his voice.

“Yes! Let’s talk things out!” I added.

“Guys, calm down. Give him a breather,” Daniel said, then turned to Jerome. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It will get better.”

Meanwhile, Jerome faced away from us, with a red face, taking deep breaths.

“So what are we supposed to do now?” Stuart asked.

“Alright, just one question. How many of you still want this project to continue?” Daniel asked.

All of us put up our hands.

“That’s great. Willis is sick. He texted me this morning and said that he did not want our efforts to go to waste and hoped that we would continue what we are doing. As for Ariana, give her some space. She’s quite stressed. She has to juggle her Soccer training and tuition classes on top of our project. It’s quite heartwarming to see her help us even though she is in charge of the post-project consolidation. I worry for Darren though. He says he can do more work while Ariana takes a break,” Daniel said.

“Darren is smart, he can still do well. He’s in a club so he doesn’t need to dedicate time for CCA,” Jia Jie said.

“Do we need replacements? I can try asking,” I suggested.

“Better not. We managed to form this group of friends and are progressing quite well. It will be hard for someone new to fit in,” Vivian said.

“Progress is important. What does getting a replacement hint to Ariana or Kok Keong? It can mean ‘We found a new member! Thank you and goodbye!’. We’re not giving them a chance. We can be sure they were not reluctant when they joined us, so I doubt they will leave us like that. Cheer up guys! We can do this!” Daniel said.

“We really need a group cheer now,” Jerome said.

“We will write the cheer when everyone is present. Leave no one out!” Daniel said.

“Oh yeah Daniel, you went around the school asking for opinions on the best time slot?” Elise asked.

“I almost forgot! I only managed to talk to the P1s and 2s. Not many of them actually care about Phoenix. Nothing wrong, those are the more carefree years and you won’t have much issues with coping with your academics and time management. A lot of them like to play and watch shows after school so it’s not nice to deprive them of their entertainment. So, the 7 am slot is best for them. Darren said we shouldn’t force so many P1s and 2s into Phoenix because the P1 and P2 exams aren’t that important. He says select those at risk of retaining. What do you guys think?” Daniel said.

“Good,” Nazreen replied.

“Can we also give them the choice whether they want to join or not?” Stuart asked. “Those we didn’t select.”

“Depends on space and manpower,” Jerome replied.

“Did you ask people in the boarding house?” I asked Daniel.

“I left the boarding house last year,” Daniel said with a chuckle. “There is a mentoring programme by the JC but it only takes place once a month. I can ask my boarding house friends if I see them. Mentoring the P3s and above will be more challenging because they may prefer different time slots.”

“So who’s mentoring the P6s?” Elise asked.

“Ahaha...call the secondary school people,” Jia Jie said.

“P6s and perhaps P5s are challenging. We have a new problem now because we have to hire mentors from elsewhere,” I said.

“Is anyone taking the points down?” Vivian asked.

“I can remember them,” Nazreen said.

On one hand, I was relieved we made progress regarding Project Phoenix for the P1 and P2 students. On another hand, I was worried. We could not afford to lose committee members and potentially friends because of one tough discussion. No one was in the mood for a meeting the next day, since two of our members were unhappy and likely to withdraw. It seemed as though we had to take a hiatus for a week.

On Friday that week, Darren approached me, saying he successfully withdrew from the school bus scheme and would be able to attend any afternoon lunch meeting. He also mentioned how the teachers were chasing us for more information about the prefects camp, and he agreed to have a mass prefects meeting the next Monday morning. He actually analysed the responses from the online form regarding the prefects camp on behalf of Kok Keong.

Daniel and Jerome did try apologising to Kok Keong and convincing him that we would be more careful and prevent failed discussions from happening again. He said he needed to take a break and was fine with anyone replacing him for the time being. Ariana, on the other hand, was harder to convince.

The next Monday was already the start of the third week of the second term. I became even more afraid. Could the projects go according to what we planned?

While we were waiting for the auditorium to be open for the mass meeting, I asked Xuanyu, “Honestly, do you think we can keep up to date with what’s on the calendar?”

“Argh! I get stressed when I look at it!” she growled, pressing her temples before sighing. “I did not look at it since Wednesday. I hope Darren will do a good job later.”

“Wait, he is presenting the whole thing himself? The entire camp briefing?” I asked.

Xuanyu nodded.

“What? He must be so busy! He has to take over Kok Keong for the time being and communicate with the teachers at the same time! No way he can present all by himself. I must check with him!” I replied, then approached Darren.

“Are you presenting everything by yourself later?” I checked with Darren.

“I guess…” he replied.

Daniel who was beside us said, “I think you need a break. You seriously deserve one!”

“I’m not tired,” Darren retorted.

“Why don’t the three of us present together?” Daniel suggested.

“Erm...I have no idea what to say. Wait, are there slides?” I said.

“The teachers kind of made one and asked me to fill it in. I was quite undecided on whether I should let you guys contribute. The door’s open, let’s settle this inside,” Darren replied.

As Darren was the only one who had seen the slides, he insisted that Daniel and I would only improvise his points and say any relevant information.

“Good morning teachers, prefects and junior leaders, hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend. Wow! Time flies! It’s already Week Three and we have amazing things coming up! Allow me to talk about the camp first, since I know you’re very excited about it. The confirmed date is from second to fourth June, from 9 am to 5 pm. There is no staying overnight, because of the concerns voiced against that. I want to thank the P6s who are willing to come for the camp to get to know the rest better. It's quite admirable to see you sacrificing your revision time for the camp. I want to thank our fellow brother Daniel who has been helping us source for external vendors who can help us with the camp. We can’t lead the camp entirely on our own, nor should we bother our seniors in the secondary school and JC. They’re taking a more important national exam than us! It’s not nice to throw a new project into their faces! Moving on, we have narrowed down to these activities - hiking, picnic, sandcastle building, treasure hunt and amazing race, sufficient for the three days. The purpose is to not only have fun, but to also get to know one another better and hopefully develop a sense of belonging to the Prefectorial Board. The consent forms will be given out in the weeks to come, hang on there! Next, we’ll talk more about Project Phoenix. Here’s the analysis of the responses from the box and Google Form. Weekends are out, definitely. The same goes for 3.30 to 5 pm on weekdays. That leaves us with 7 to 8 am and 2 to 3.30 pm. Special recognition to Daniel, Jerome, Jia Jie, Willis and a couple of non-prefects who helped to ask students from all levels for their opinions. Here’s the findings - majority of the upper primary prefer the 7 to 8 am slot while the rest are neutral between the two. Due to constraints, we will work with the teachers and select the students at risk of retaining. We can’t accept too many students for now. Is everyone here fine with the time slots? If there are any objections please voice up! No? Okay, we will give more details about mentor recruitment some time later. Here are a couple of future projects we are currently studying. Feedback about stress and high expectations is commonplace, so we are studying the possibility of a project where we can befriend those who have problems and are willing to open up to us, not professional help though. One of us suggested increasing the number of times we do spring cleaning. We feel we can have a project about maintaining cleanliness in the school. We look forward to hearing your inputs as well, thank you and have an awesome week ahead!”

I was taken aback. How did Darren manage to deliver such a smooth presentation amidst his busyness? Daniel and I literally had nothing to add on at that juncture.

“Did you prepare for this?” I asked Darren.

“Kind of, I went through a rough script twice,” he replied.

“Good job man!” Willis came forward to congratulate Darren. “Did you have a plan behind this?”

“What do you mean?” Darren asked.

“Are you kidding me? You did all the online form stuff?” Kok Keong came walking to Darren.

Darren answered with a smirk, “Why can’t I? Didn’t you allow me to cover you for the time being? Are you guilty of taking your leave?”

“Ohh…” Willis said, laughing.

“I’m...I’m..” Kok Keong tried to explain himself.

“Yes you’re guilty. We really need you back! We can’t move forward with someone missing!” Jia Jie said.

“I didn’t say I’m coming back!” Kok Keong retorted.

“Coming back or not is your decision, we won’t force you,” I said.

I was starting to see light at the end of the tunnel. Was Kok Keong actually guilty for backing out? I thought about it. Were we actually planning too much for the school that the project consumed too much of our time? The more I pondered, the more I felt Daniel was right in the sense that building community was as important as academics. There is absolutely no point in pursuing perfect grades when you are apathetic about the community. In this age of busyness, it would be hard to inculcate such a mindset. We needed to find a way to emphasise that.

Unexpectedly, the teachers were already sending in names of shortlisted students for Project Phoenix for all levels. That sent us into a stronger whirlpool such that Daniel called for a lunch meeting on Thursday. Darren was finally able to attend, as he stopped taking the school bus home.

“So far, I got five names from P1, eight from P2, four from P3, six from P4, two from P5 and three from P6. I’m trying my best to negotiate with them to delay the starting of the project because we are simply not ready. For the time being, Project Phoenix and I Can Read will be separate. The merger of both will be further studied in Term Three-” Darren said and was interrupted.

“We haven’t decided who will mentor the P5s and 6s!” Elise pointed out.

“And what’s the final time slot for the P3s and 4s?” Jia Jie asked.

“Calm down guys, my father is thinking of recruiting volunteers from the public for Phoenix and our camp. He is looking at those aged 16 to 25, probably those on pre-tertiary and tertiary vacation,” Daniel said.

“Who does your father think he is?” I questioned. “I understand he wants to help us but he can’t illegally find members from the public to volunteer!”

Daniel laughed. “That’s part of his job bro! He works in the Ministry of Community and Entertainment. He’s involved in overseeing volunteering events and providing training to volunteers so we have to trust him.”

“His father is quite a nice person. He won’t get the wrong volunteers for sure,” Jerome added.

“Yup. He roams around the nation a lot and is quite experienced in his work,” Daniel said.

“Anyway, I think we have to decide on how the mentoring should go. How many mentors do we need for each level? When should we do a particular subject and a particular topic?” I said.

“Look at this.” Darren showed us the contents on his computer. “I sort of told the teachers to give a short summary of the problems faced by each student, and some of them gave me quite detailed ones. I will share the spreadsheet with Elise and Jordan. Both of you can take a look when you’re free, but expect more names to come in.”

“That’s good! Do you know when the full list of students will be up?” Jerome asked.

“Mrs Edgeworth is trying to get the teachers to submit all names by Monday, so meanwhile we have to brainstorm on what happens on our side,” Darren replied.

“Maybe we need a schedule for each subject to know what to cover on which days,” Nazreen suggested.

“Definitely. Wait, who’s the Phoenix leader?” Darren asked.

“You!” Jia Jie replied.

“Am I?” Darren was puzzled.

“Yes! You contributed so much to it!” Willis said.

“So he should take a break!” Daniel said. “Don’t forget he’s covering Kok Keong too!”

“I’ll be the leader then!” Vivian said.

“Do we actually need a leader for this? Why can’t we all contribute equally?” I said.

“Jordan has a point. It is good to have roles, but don’t fuss over it. We can start the programme for the P1s and 2s first. Is everyone agreeable on appointing upper primary students as mentors?” Daniel asked.

We all agreed.

“The next issue is whether the mentoring will be one-to-one, one-to-two and so on. What we can do is get a list of students who are interested and currently not involved in morning duties. Then, we can strike out the younger ones if there are too many mentors,” Vivian suggested.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? The additional manpower can help throw a party every day! Kidding. The same applies - create a Google Form, include a question on the candidate’s motivation to be a mentor, accept them based on their response to this question. Let’s set it as a one-to-one mentoring first,” Daniel said.

“Alright sure, I’ll create the form today,” Darren said.

“You don’t need a break?” Jia Jie asked.

“It’s fine! I still have time to play Xbox every day!” Darren explained.

“You actually play that much? And you don’t need to study?” Xuanyu asked.

“I study and play, because I get the extra time from the supplementary classes I don’t attend, and Mother Tongue lessons are free periods for me,” Darren replied.

To our relief, the teachers urged us to suspend meetings until the middle of May, as they were afraid the projects would cause us to neglect our preparation for the mid-year examinations. They told us to focus on the camp right after the examinations and Project Phoenix could commence in the third term.

The next week, I could finally join my group of friends for lunches again. Graham would not attend the Monday supplementary lessons, as his Mother Tongue was Hindi and had to travel to a language centre for his lessons.

“Guys! I’m going to have a birthday party! Do you wanna come?” Joey asked.

“On your actual birthday?” Clarice asked.

“Yes, third May, it’s a Saturday,” Joey replied.

“Who is coming?” I asked.

“The four of us, Graham. I asked my brother to invite his friends. I hardly talk to you! You’re always with your prefect friends during recess and lunch!” Joey said with a calm, then irritated tone.

“I have things to settle with them!” I replied. “Is it just these people going?”

“Do you want more to go? I don’t mind asking some more classmates,” Joey replied.

“Oh I know what you’re trying to ask,” Vera told me, trying to hold back her laughter.

I sighed. “Right. I want to ask. Are you thinking of inviting Daniel Lim?”

“I’m not even friends with him! If you want you can ask him to come!” Joey replied.

“No! He shouldn’t be at the party!” I said.

“What a chicken,” Joey said, rolling her eyes. “You are doing a project with him and you are still scared of him.”

“Nan fan zan yu ga, yan min do him ja,” I sang the two lines.

“That song sounds familiar,” Joey remarked.

“Lol is it some grandfather song?” Clarice asked.

“The 70s is no grandfather era. The two lines mean it’s hard to differentiate real from fake, for faces are deceiving. Don’t you agree?” I replied.

“Let me ask you, is Vera fake?” Joey questioned.

“No,” I replied.

“Am I fake?”

“No”

“Is Clarice fake?”

“No”

“How about the prefect you like to talk to at the aquarium? Clarissa?”

“No”

“The problem is with you!”

“Clarissa and Daniel are two different stories. Anyway, can we invite my cousin, Leo?” I asked.

“Oh! That guy was from my P2 class. He likes to draw on worksheets. Yup! Invite him for me,” Joey replied.

“We can actually invite Vivian too,” Clarice said. “He does talk to us quite a bit.”

“Okay, anyone else?” Joey asked.

“Sonia, Li Xuan, Sylvia. We shouldn’t invite Huayi, because we’ll probably argue,” I replied.

“Not so many…” Vera gasped.

“Don’t invite Sylvia!” Joey said firmly. “I’m okay with Sonia and Li Xuan. I didn’t talk to Li Xuan much but I’m fine with her at my party.”

In a flash, the third of May came. Li Xuan was unable to make it for the party. Sonia was keen to attend because it was held at the condominium of Joey’s relative at Beachfront, which was near where she stayed. Leo, Vivian and Graham were able to attend too. I did invite my siblings too, but Rebecca had her examinations ongoing, and Elijah wanted to keep her company at home. Parents were present at the party too, as they wanted to ensure everyone was safe.

The party started with us relaxing in the pool. Leo, my friends and I were chatting at one corner whereas Joey’s brother was at the water playground with his friends.

“Yo Graham! You look kind of sad! Anything wrong?” Vivian asked.

“Nothing!” Graham replied. “I’m just thinking about my piano exam at the end of this month.”

“You do music too? What grade?” Leo asked.

“I am retaking my Grade Four exam. I’m stuck in music,” Graham grumbled.

“You were forced to learn music?” Leo asked.

“If I’m not forced, what else can it be? You can ask my parents why they want me to learn music! See! They’re not there! They obviously want to avoid being asked that question!” Graham replied.

“Stupid parents!” Joey remarked.

“Hey, that’s rude!” I said. “Parents may have their expectations of us, but they are still the most important caregivers.”

Clarice and Vera applauded.

“They expect me to do well in studies too! Because of Band and piano lessons, I get so tired that I can’t study! And my parents still blame me for not doing well!” Graham complained.

“You’re repeating the same thing!” Vera pointed out.

“Look at this!” one of the younger boys came, tugging at Vivian’s swimsuit.

“Yes? What’s wrong with it?” Vivian asked.

“Look at the purple dots!” the boy remarked.

Vivian was actually wearing a light blue rash guard with purple polka dots.

“What a moron!” Joey snapped. “It’s just dots! Guys, bear with him, he’s like that!”

The boy went on to feel Vera’s green bodyskin and related it to the Green Lantern.

“I wish I can be the Green Lantern for today,” Vera laughed, while being oblivious to Joey’s frowns.

The boy then did the same for Sonia’s and Clarice’s one-piece swimsuits.

“Oh yeah! You’re tall, dark and muscular!” he told Clarice. “You swim a lot?”

“Yes, a lot, really. I kayak and play water polo a lot. Why are you so interested in my swimsuit? I can buy one for you!” Clarice said.

“Yours is too big! I’ll take hers!” the boy said, grabbing Sonia's one-piece. “You do sports too right?”

“Smart, I’m in the Badminton team,” she replied.

“Let’s make a deal! If Clarice buys you a swimsuit, you have to buy me a bikini for my next birthday!” she told the boy, who gladly agreed.

When the boy came to Joey, she dunked his head into the pool.

“I saw what you were doing! Respect us!” Joey yelled. “And the rest of you are just standing around? You didn’t realise he was trying to touch you?”

“Hey! No foul play please!” Vivian chided and pulled Joey’s hand away.

“He’s just a kid. He’s just curious. When he’s older it will be harder for him to do what he did,” Leo said.

“I guess so, but he shouldn’t just touch girls like that without permission,” Joey said.

“Reminds me of someone I hate,” Graham muttered.

“Who?” Vera asked.

“Oh! I think I know,” I replied.

“Erm...this is a party so we shouldn’t have any of those Daniel Lim arguments,” Vivian pointed out.

“I didn’t say I want to argue about him. If I wanted to I would have invited Huayi,” I replied.

“Huayi is saying bad things about you and the Phoenix or whatever you call it,” Sonia said.

“Project Phoenix?” Vivian asked. “Why would he say bad things about it?”

“I forgot what he said about Phoenix, but I remember him saying that Jordan is being a spy with plans to attack Daniel,” Sonia replied.

“Ignore him! He’s making up stories about me! I don’t trust him! I’m not being a spy. I took part in the project because I want to contribute to the school, and at the same time prove to myself that Daniel is not bad like what everyone says,” I explained.

“He isn’t bad! Suspecting him all the time won’t help!” Joey said.

I sang the two lines again, “Nan fan zan yu ga, yan min do him ja.”

“You’ve sung that for the thousandth time,” Vera said.

“Exactly. My point is - in real life, can you tell whether Daniel Lim is real or fake by looking at him? Of course not! I don’t want to argue with anyone…” I said.

“What’s that song?” Sonia asked.

“Drifter’s Song by Sam Hui,” Leo replied. “It’s in Cantonese and was quite a big hit in the 70s.”

“Oh yes I remember you like 70s songs. In P2 you liked to sing the ra ra ra-” Joey said.

“Ra ra Rasputin, Russia’s greatest love machine,” Leo sang. “I don’t listen to it much now. I listen to a lot of songs. I don’t even have a favourite song. I play drums. I love art. I love Rainbow Loom.”

“Rainbow Loom? I play with that sometimes!” Clarice remarked.

“Mine’s just on my table and I haven’t touched it,” Sonia added.

“Why does everyone like music? I don’t get it! There are so many people in performing arts! They haunt me, especially those in my class last year! Because of everything I got 46th in level!” Graham grumbled.

“Hmm...Daniel is in Band, Jia Jie is in CO, Raju and Alicia are in Choir,” I said.

“There are a lot more. I forgot to say the person I hate is a big pervert like that guy. Not because he did stuff to me, but because he forces me to listen to songs,” Graham explained.

“There are such things? Alicia told me 4A was quite united,” I said.

“Yes I observed that too,” Vivian added.

“Alicia Tan? Don’t trust her! Another one of those brainless people,” Graham said.

“Can you not?” I asked. “Alicia is my trusted friend, and a good girlfriend.”

“She’s honestly quite dumb. Who told you she is a good girlfriend?” Graham questioned.

“Elise Wong,” I replied. “She’s my trusted friend too.”

“Her future will be ruined if she continues to date that person,” Graham said.

“Ace?” I asked.

“Yes. He’s the weirdest person I’ve ever met. His behaviour is so weird that I can’t describe him,” Graham continued.

“Okay, what’s so weird about him?” Clarice asked.

“When the teacher reminds us that there’s a test, he overreacts. Sometimes he will scream and bite a blue towel he always brings to school. The best one was during the P3 mid-year exams. He tore up his script for the first paper and crushed the second one. He disappeared the next day and took his exams with extra time in a separate room from then on. During class tests, he has to squeeze a soft toy. I don’t know why. Alicia has to pat him at different parts of the test. Both of them have to sit together all the time, not even the teachers can do anything to separate them,” Graham rattled.

“How can you say he is weird? He has special needs!” I voiced up.

“Instead of insulting him you should be nice to him!” Vivian added, then turned to Joey, “Why are you laughing?”

“Jerome is another one!” Graham continued. “He defends Ace by telling everyone he is autistic and that it shouldn’t stop him from moving on in life. It’s really dumb to see how Jerome can use such a way to defend Ace.”

“Maybe he’s really autistic,” Sonia said.

“You can be right. Not all autistic people can be easily identified, especially those who are only slightly autistic. I work with Jerome. I know he won’t tell such a lie to defend someone else,” I said.

“Looks like the best way to get the answer is to ask him directly,” Vivian smirked at Graham.

“Maybe instead of watching out for Daniel we should watch out for you! Because the way you talk is very dangerous!” Leo said to Graham.

The party was enjoyable on the whole. Leo could interact with my classmates quite well and Sonia opened up to Vera and Joey. However, it set me thinking. Graham expressed his frustration about the students from 4A of 2013, with nasty comments about Ace, Alicia and Jerome. I felt I needed to debunk Graham’s words and stop him from being so cynical. The weird thing was that he did not talk bad about Daniel, which I would expect him to. Anyway, life is unpredictable. We can never fully understand a person via our daily experiences with him.

2014: It’s Hard to Differentiate Real from Fake, for Faces are Deceiving

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