9. The Great Highlighter Tower.

"So, let me make this clear. If you chose to not concentrate in class and then you end up doing badly in the exams and so then you go home and tell your parents that you have a bad teacher. Is that how it works? When in fact you didn't concentrate in class. I'll tell you this much... at parent evening, I'm going to tell all of your parents."

We stood in the middle of the corridor and made a decision, that day, that we would get a distinction in maths and therefore whatever she told our parents about our marks and our level of concentration would be null and void. That was the plan and it was brilliant. Of course I have different feelings now.

It was a double lesson at the end of a busy Friday. The air just seemed to be exuberantly bubbly. Perfect atmosphere for chaos. Our maths teacher was busy rattling on about some long drawn out and seemingly unnecessary maths problem. Yolisa, Jeanette and I were busy giggling away at a highlighter tower we had created, which started at the floor and was now reaching our shoulders. The tower consisted off an assortment of types of highlighters, some erasers and a pen. The highlighter tower grew substantially and so did the volume of our contagious giggles. The teacher turned around to address the class. I swiftly turned forward, suppressing my evidently overflowing laughter and failing at that. It's mighty difficult to look incredibly interested when you're not. She turned back a few times. I dropped my head to the desk and let out a huge cackle. Followed by more muffled giggles. There was no logical reason for why the tower was so funny.

We had reached a substantial height, with the tower no longer being a secret to anyone else in the class anymore, except the teacher. It was brought to her attention when the great highlighter tower crashed. Bang! Bang bang! Bang! Bang! Highlighters fled in several directions. The tower was no more. The laughter at this stage reached a new crisendo. We didn't even know what we were laughing about anymore. Everything was funny. The teacher turned to the class and said "Girls!". Frantically, we began looking away seemingly absentmindedly scratching our hair and staring at our shoes. As if to say we were absolutely innocent.
She continued.
Then she eventually turned around, facing us and stopped "Listen girls, if you're going to keep making noise, one of the three of you will just have to move." This was the worst news we could have received.

There was, however, a fourth member, Cara, although she was attempting to pay close attention to this section- I'm pretty sure when she was referring to "the three of you" it was Yolisa, Jeanette and Cara because I was most definitely doing a splendid job at hiding my current jovial facade. Right?

Well, we spent the remainder of the lessons attempting to decide who the "three of you" exactly was and no maths was done. Thereafter, Yolisa and Jeanette put forth reasons why they were excluded, with Cara still trying to concentrate. 
Yolisa says that she is exempt because she does not even have a maths book. Well, at least at this stage she didn't have a maths book.Which led to another round of laughter because where was Yolisa's maths book and when will it return? But now that I think about it, she didn't have one for the rest of the year.
Jeanette is hyper-actively epic. She continued to the end of the lesson insisting that she had a headache followed by our teacher offering her the luxury of standing outside of the classroom for the remainder of the lesson and her rejecting. Typical.

I think the existence of the tower sparked some need for severe restorative justice in our maths teacher because on the morning of the next lesson, she decided to move Yolisa. She moved Yolisa further away from her which was incredibly ironic considering that Yolisa doesn't have a maths book. 
And then Cara voluntarily moved away from the gang. But continued to speak with abundance to her new friends.

Jeanette and I, alone, along with a new member, that was now seated next to me and was incredibly ill fitting in the gang, started our new and much more melancholy journey through maths. We spent our days mouthing "We miss you" to Yolisa across the classroom and drawing her very emotive letters in crayons as well as effectively stalking Cara. We landed at the conclusion that she is better off in her new gang. We returned to our constant sadness. However, a few lessons later, Yolisa moved back as we evicted the new girl. And the fun times were renewed.