It was 4:30 p.m. WIB, thirty minutes before the gates were locked. I said goodbye to both my parents and my two younger brothers. Their names were Leon, who was nine, and Gibson, who was seven.
"Study hard, okay? I'll send your spending money once a month," Dad said.
"Yes, Dad."
"Bye—"
I quickly went back inside the dorm.
When I got there, all kinds of crying could be heard.
Some were crying silently.
Some were crying while hugging each other.
But the one who caught my attention the most was a child who was wailing and begging to go back home.
"Waaaah—Mom! I don't want to be left here! I want to go home with you!" The child tugged hard on his mother's clothes. Tears streamed down his face.
"Sweetie, this is for your own good," his mother replied quickly.
In an instant, I imagined that child doing something bad and being sent to boarding school here as punishment.
"No—I don't want to!"
I looked around again. Everyone was crying. Yet about an hour earlier, they had all still been laughing happily.
"If everyone keeps crying like this, I'm going to look like the only abnormal kid here because I'm not crying. Should I pretend to cry, too? But that feels embarrassing. Or am I actually abnormal?" My thoughts were getting wilder and wilder.
"Hey, you're all alone here. Have you made any friends yet?" someone suddenly came up to me.
"...Not yet."
"Let's be friends! My name's Tyssa, and I'm from City T." Tyssa held out her right hand to me.
I shook her outstretched hand. "I'm Siofra."
There was no follow-up conversation.
It was so awkward.
My small-talk skills were at zero percent!
"Uh—haha... So—where's City T?" I felt like hitting myself in the mouth.
"Oh, it's pretty close to here. It only takes two hours to get home. Where are you from?"
"I'm from City P."
"Wow, that's pretty far. But did you know? There's a kid from Papua in the dorm next to ours!"
"Really? Papua's really far away."
"Yeah, they flew here. That's so amazing, right? I've never even been on a plane." She sounded full of awe.
Hearing that, I became incredibly curious about this child. Where I came from, lots of people said that the people of Papua were 'very different.' I wanted to see for myself.
The washing area and the bathrooms were in the same room. There were five faucets outside and five bathrooms, shared by the residents of my dorm and the one next door. It was located by the back door of my dorm. So the kids in the neighboring dorm had to walk through ours to reach that back door. Pretty inconvenient, right?
There were twenty-six kids in my dorm and another twenty-six in the one next door, for a total of fifty-two kids. We all had to share five bathrooms. I couldn't even imagine it. But soon, that would become part of our daily routine.
Bunk beds and mattresses had already been provided. The beds were made of iron and came in various designs. For now, I had the bottom bunk.
I put a sea-blue sheet on my mattress, making sure it was neatly tucked in on every side. I arranged my soft pillow and bolster with perfect precision.
When everything was ready and I was satisfied with the result, someone casually sat down on my neatly made bed.
"Wow! It's so neat. I couldn't resist sitting right here." They said this as they rubbed my mattress for a moment.
I furrowed my brow. I was too annoyed to get a single word out.