1 #2
As classroom president, Yun was expected to help Mido, the new student from Australia, assimilate.
On the first day of school, it was Yun who told Mido where to put her lunch box, where and when to change into her sports uniform, and what clubs she could join, as well as where all the meeting rooms were located.
Mido did as instructed, not bothering Yun with any unnecessary questions, and as usual, she kept to herself.
Ever an attentive child, Mido was able to pick up from observation whatever she needed to know.
To make up for her silence around the other girls, Mido smiled often, her eyes curving along her round, pink cheeks.
Most adults liked her sweet face, but her classmates would not have considered her as pretty as Yun, whose symmetrical features were often commented upon with great admiration.
Mido’s lack of distinguishing physical charms did not bother her; if anything, she was relieved not to be noticed.
On the third day of school, shortly before lunch recess, Mr. Na called on Bora Kang to solve a math problem. On the bulletin board by the front door, the teachers posted weekly exam scores, and more often than not, Bora’s name was at the top of the lists.
Bora, a serious girl who wore a different-colored headband each day, marched to the board, solved the problem neatly, wiped the chalk dust from her right hand, and returned to her seat in the last row by the window.
She tucked her navy pleated skirt beneath her bottom before sitting, then smoothed the front of her skirt to cover the tops of her thighs.
Mido checked Bora’s answer on the chalkboard against her worksheet. There was an error. Mido should not have multiplied the numerator. She rubbed the worn-down ear of her blue-and-white puppy eraser against the pencil markings and started again.
Mr. Na called out, “Koh Mido,” and she looked up from her paper and smiled at her teacher.
“Number three,” he said, pointing to the board.
Mido swallowed and approached the chalkboard gingerly, bringing her worksheet with her. She copied her answer on the board with great care.
“Incorrect,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment. Out of consideration for her recent arrival in the country, he had assigned her a relatively simple problem.
Mido bit the inside of her lip, then checked her solution against the way Bora had solved the previous question.
She had made the same computation error as before by multiplying the numerator.
Using quick strokes of the chalkboard eraser, Mido wiped off her wrong answer, smudging the edge of her blue sweater sleeve, to begin again.
“Who told you that you could do that?”
Startled by Mr. Na’s stern tone, Mido froze.
“How can you learn if you do not recognize, admit, and explain your mistake? It does no one any good if you do not point out your error. You erased the error, so now no one can learn from what you did wrong. Erasing it is like covering a weakness. It’s lying. It’s cowardice and selfish.”
Mr. Na had been a college basketball player and became a sports radio announcer in Daegu after graduation.
When he couldn’t support his family by working at a local radio station doing a job he adored, he had labored hard to become a middle school mathematics teacher for his second career, eventually landing in the capital city with his wife and two children.
Female teachers and administrators admired the handsome former athlete, and the male teachers looked up to him for his discipline and dunking skills.
“Koh Mido,” Mr. Na said in his rich tenor voice. “Did you hear my question? How can you learn if you do not admit and then explain your error?”
Perplexed, Mido glanced at him, then lowered her gaze just as quickly, having no idea what he wanted her to do now. Was she supposed to write back in her mistake? Tears filled her eyes.
Crying never moved Mr. Na. It only made things worse.
If girls were to succeed in the world, he believed, they had to be more stoic.
As a father, he was as tough on his daughter as he was on his son.
Life was full of terrible disappointment and cruelty, and he didn’t see the pedagogical purpose of coddling these middle-class girls, who had no idea how easy they had it compared to his generation and the ones before it.
The teacher crossed his arms and frowned.
He didn’t like her face—the features were too soft and little, and her head was not yet in proportion to her small body.
Mr. Na preferred girls to be bright like a new coin, visually engaging as the loveliest of flowers and with the vitality of youth in their movements.
No doubt this girl was an unmotivated, overindulged child from a rich family that had lived overseas.
He ascribed her puny size to her being a picky eater.
“Go stand by my desk.”
Mido approached the teacher’s large wooden desk near the windowed door. Across the hall, uniformed boys and girls lined up in size order against the tile-bordered wall. She wished she could bolt through the classroom door and hide in a bathroom stall until her heart stopped pounding so fiercely.
“Hold out your hands,” Mr. Na said.
Incomprehension clouded her shining eyes.
“Like this.” Mr. Na held out his large, strong ballplayer’s hands, pale palms facing upward.
Mido crinkled her brow and imitated him. Her palms were three colors, more white and pink in the center and bluish around the thumbs and fingers. She had never given much thought to her body, least of all her own tiny hands.
From his pencil cup, Mr. Na withdrew his brass ruler, one of the classroom supplies he’d bought with his first paycheck as a teacher.
He raised his right hand and struck her open palms with the heavy ruler.
“One,” he said quietly.
Mido grimaced, stunned by the sharp pain.
The class pitied Mido. She’d had no warning. No one had told her that this was something that happened. The only way to avoid this shame was by getting the answer right, or if the teacher had an understanding with your mother. Things could be different if your father was an important person.
As a class leader, Yun felt especially guilty for not having mentioned Mr. Na’s golden ruler, which left red welts across a child’s soft palms.
Tears flowed down Mido’s cheeks, and she regulated her breath the way Dr. Ryan had taught her to whenever she was afraid.
Everyone was watching her get punished, but she had to keep breathing.
The gentle, gray-haired doctor from Sydney had told her that when she felt fear or worry, Mido had to keep inhaling and exhaling. It will be fine, he’d said. Breathe.
“Two,” Mr. Na said calmly, then raised the metric ruler with a flourish and swung down.
“Three.”
The class heard the final smack of the metal hitting skin, and the girl stood in her place without a murmur. The children knew this was the last time.
Three strikes for the third problem.
Mido wiped her cheeks with the back of her left hand. Only after Mr. Na tilted his chin toward her desk did she bow to the teacher and return to her seat.
“Students, lunchtime,” Mr. Na said, his voice elegant and reasonable. He left the room.
Yun retrieved her lunch box and Mido’s from the shelves next to where the textbooks were stored. She placed them both on her desk. The other students opened their sacks and fabric-tied parcels, transforming their homeroom into a noisy dining hall.
“Follow me,” Yun said.
The girls walked down the long hallway, and Yun pulled Mido into the washroom.
“I hate him,” Yun whispered. “A real son of a bitch,” she said, savoring the forbidden salt of the insult, and smiled at Mido, revealing her matching dimples.
Mido blinked back tears. She had gotten the problem wrong, so she was at fault. But no one had ever hit her before. Not at home or school.
Yun opened the water faucet.
“You’ll feel better after you wash your face. Go ahead,” Yun said, and Mido obeyed. From her pocket, Yun retrieved a clean white handkerchief.
“Dry your face. You can’t pay attention to that fool.”