I arrived at the school at the normal time in the morning. I then usually enter the staff room, greet the other teachers and enjoy drinking green tea until my lesson starts five minutes later.
This week my routine was altered when I realised the staff room door was locked. I walked through the empty school and called out "Kernichiwa."
No one responded.
The school was deserted.
I sat on a small bench near the opened entrance, staring at the surrounding mountains, ruminating why there was no-one in the building. It could have been a school holiday, but why were the doors opened?
It could have been a fire-drill, but I couldn’t hear an alarm.
Maybe alien abductions?
“Ah to hell with it,” I said aloud, and headed to the car to go home.
"Hello Sam," called a quiet voice behind me.
I spun around and saw one of the Japanese teachers waving at me. I waved back and asked where everyone was.
"We are all outside. Will you come and join us?"
I agreed and assumed everyone was outside due to the stifling temperature inside the school.
I strolled out into the playground and saw all my students crouched down in a line and picking at all the weeds sprouting through the cracks on the floor. The bandanna wearing teachers were standing in what looked like designated positions surveying the work of the kids. It looked like a happy version of a chain-gang.
I waved to the kids who bellowed my name upon seeing me. I asked why they were weeding when we were about to do an English lesson in a few minutes.
"Aaahahahah," came a warbling laugh to my side. I turned to see the Headmaster of the school, who was wearing a Donald Duck baseball cap.
“We are here because a plane is going to fly over us,” he said, and pointed to the sky. I followed the direction of his point. “The children are making the playground look presentable,” he said pointing at the children. He then pointed at me. “You will help.” And he jabbed his pointy finger at my chest.
I absorbed all this information, but one vital piece of information was missing. Why?
“Ah! An inquisitive mind,” he said, and poked his finger to the top of my head. “The plane is taking a photo to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the school.”
When said this, he felt it fitting to point to my ear, which in no way held any connection to what he had just said.
He told me that we all had to stand in a particular position in the playground so that we would all form a human Kanji symbol which would become clear from a photo taken by the plane. He told me the Kanji word would be: Seneiji Elementary School.
“So no political messages sticking it to the man like, ‘Reduce Oil Prices!’ or ‘We Don't Need No Education’” I joked.
The Headmaster pulled an expression that looked like someone was giving him colonic irrigation. “No,” he said and pointed to my nose before wandering off.
Another teacher nearby gave me a red bandanna to wear and showed me to my designated spot for the Kanji symbol. Once in my position, I did as the kids did and started to clear the weeds from little my area until the Headmaster screeched that the plane was expected imminently. The kids snapped to attention and stood in a solemn stance with their hands akimbo and legs spread apart. It was like they were preparing for an imminent battle. No-one in the playground uttered a word. You could hear the wind whistling around the surrounding mountains. It was faintly eerie. Eventually, we would hear the low rumble of an engine sound far off. The plane slowly soared towards us, getting bigger and bigger by the second.
"Get ready!" screamed the Headmaster, and he would continue saying this more volubly every five seconds as the plane grew more visible and louder.
When the plane was moments away from hovering above us the Headmaster screeched "Prepare children!" with such belligerent force that when he finally said "GO!" I expected the kids to whip out bazookas and fire on the small plane. But they just waved with big smiles on their faces. The plane circled a number of times, flashing with a bight light as it took numerous pictures, before it flew off towards the glaring sun.
The kids were delirious with excitement after the plane had flown away and started to mimic a plane and glided about the playground. I couldn't help thinking that if my lesson didn't have an airplane theme to it then they wouldn’t give a toss what I taught.
Back in the classroom I had to forcibly shout for the kids to be quiet amongst the din of countless kids going "brrrrrrrrooommmm" around the room with their arms stretched out like wings.
I asked them to do a Pictionary game based on animals and transport. At the mention of the word "animals" a dozen students scampered over to various glass containers at the side of the room and dug their hands in them. They then slowly lifted their hand up with the other hand clasped tightly on top. It didn't take a genius to surmise they had some sort of critter in their grasp. The kids lined up in front of me and each student opened their hands to reveal their animal of choice. The first child had a very nice butterfly in her hand, as did the second and third kid. Then the animals started to get more ugly and malevolent as I went down the line. One little girl had an obese toad weighing heavily on her hands. It croaked a loud wheeze and wobbled a bit. The last few kids had a proclivity for big, bloody beetles, which was more evil looking than a grumpy toad. Once revealed in all their horrific glory, these ugly beetles had antlers to size of fingers. I hate beetles and the terror in my eyes spurred the students holding the behemoths to move closer to me whilst ghoulishly dangling the beetles in my face. I went a bit bonkers with fear at this point because I just legged it out of the room, which was a big mistake because the beetle holders ran after me. Before I realised what was going on, I found myself darting through the vast school whilst being chased by a bunch of giggling kids holding giant beetles. We were stopped in our tracks by the Headmaster, still wearing his ridiculous Donald Duck cap, who blocked off our route and asked what was going on.
"They're chasing me with beetles, sir," I said pathetically, trying to catch my breath.
The headmaster gave the kids a stern look, and pointed to the beetle, then at the children then back to the beetle.
“No more beetle chasing!” he said with scorn, and swung his cap back to front and grabbed two of the students by the ear and dragged them back to the classroom.
The shenanigans earlier with the plane photo-shoot chewed up much of my lesson, so thankfully this anarchic lesson was a short one. This enabled me to end the lesson earlier than usual. As I was preparing to say goodbye to the students, a Japanese teacher walked into the room and asked me to play a game with the children before lunch
“What game?” I asked.
"Jungle Jim," the teacher said.
"What's that?" I queried.
"Ahh, you will find out,” he said and sprinted away.
The kids then huddled around me, clasped onto my hands, and led me away to the playground outside.
Once assembled by a climbing frame, one kid acted as the Jungle Jim spokesman and tried to tell me the rules of the game. Through an intricate array of mimes and facial expressions I was able to deduce that the rules involved one person being Jungle Jim and they were required to chase the others who hanged on the climbing frames. As soon as Jungle Jim tagged one person, that person would be the new Jim and they would have to go hunting for the others.
"OK, got it. Who's going to be Jim?" I asked.
"YOU!" the kids yelled back.
Once mounted on top of the climbing frame I kicked started the game by thumping my chest repeatedly and hollering like a lunatic Tarzan. I don't think the kids ever saw or knew about Tarzan because they looked at me with expressions that read: "What the hell is he doing?"
I then began my perilous hunt. It was quite easy because a portly kid next to me couldn't scramble away fast enough. I thought I might give him the benefit of the doubt and let him off the hook. But then I thought Jungle Jim is meant to be a callous warrior of the jungle and moments of compassion would be wasted on him. It was survival of the fittest in the jungle, surely. So I just stuck out my arm and tapped him on top of the head. He wailed in disappointed and violently thrashed his arms at me, trying to tag me back. I was nearly knocked off the goddam climbing frame by his wild movement.
He lunged for me in what looked like an act of revenge for me tagging him in the first place. I ducked out the way and made my escape down the climbing frame. The rest of the kids were hovering near the bottom, out of reach of the new Jungle Jim at the top, but not for long because he was slowly descending. I joined the kids who gave me a dignified nod of the head. We all looked up and saw the new Jungle Jim coming down towards us but what was unnerving was that he focused his feral glare on me.
The kids were clever because they saw that this Jungle Jim only wanted to attack me, so they all moved far away from me. I felt like I had the sodding plague. Inevitably, the chubby kid pinned me in the corner and tagged me. Yet he was so bloody slow trying to get away again that I tagged him back. He frothed with anger and repeated his lunging movements as I scrambled away. And this tiresome set-piece was repeated throughout the game.
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