The Worst and Most Troublemaking Class Ever Seen
By: Pink Buddha
Tags: Short Story, Trauma, Helping Others, Personal Story, Bullying

So, group work. Teachers love them, students despise them. Introverts even more since they must work with… well, other people. On top of it, my social phobia throws a party at the thought of presenting in front of the whole class.

My ninth-grade science teacher was known for assigning group works as an integral part of the semester evaluation. Throughout my entire school life, the task announcement was more or less like this: the teacher orders the class to assemble with their desired colleagues, the ones who are left are forced to band together. I always ended up in that last equation. Alongside 3 other outcasts, we were at the bottom of the popularity index.

No, I am not kidding.

There was such a thing as a popularity index.

Of course, people didn’t call it that way, but it worked just the same. “If you kissed that one girl your popularity would rise”, I heard once. “If you are seen taking to that weirdo your popularity will plummet”, a week couldn’t go by without getting that one. Needless to say, I was always the weirdo in the story.

As you can imagine, me and my group weren’t really liked in my class. What did we do to provoke those feelings? Well, beats me. I guess if you ask them you are probably going to hear “Dunno, they are weird”.

But I digress.

Alas, there was nothing we could do to improve our reputation.

There we were, research and slides in hand walking with our contemptible classmates towards the presentation room. After taking our seats, our teacher dashed out to the corridor based on some small thing he had to do beforehand. Dutifully as they were, the class started to plot schemes in order for everyone getting maximum grades on the presentation.

As it happens, the teacher decided to innovate that semester: all group works would be graded democratically. That is, everyone in the class would vote on the current group’s score, based on any criteria whatsoever.

Class-elected grades.

What could possibly go wrong?

Presentations began. After a mediocre group finished their piece, the teacher asked: “Who votes for F?”. No hands raised. “What about E?”. Hands still down. The same reaction followed for D and C. On B, a few hands timidly lifted. As you can expect, a sea of hands flooded the room when the teacher asked for the votes on A. A fair grade indeed.

One girl, namely the class’s queen bee, used that brief teacher absence to elaborate a plan: everyone would vote A so that all groups could get a maximum score. A few would vote B as to not raise any suspicions.

Clever, right?

Even I agreed to follow through with it.

Everything was running smoothly until the last group — my group. The presentation went as well as you could expect from a band of 4 uncharismatic but smart nerds. In retrospect, we were probably on the top 3. If everyone else got an A, we surely deserved such a grade as well. But not every story has a happy ending.

Following our group’s final words, the teacher went through the question again. “Who votes for F?”, no hands. No votes for E. Going great so far! “Who wants D?”, two hands raised. Wait… what? “Ok, who wants C?”, another nine or so hands joined.

The teacher then asked for B.

Just like a resolute general signal his soldiers to lay down their lives for their nation, the queen flung her arm upwards with an unrelenting force. Her zealots heeded the call, mimicking her move and morphing the room into a frantic football match when the home team just scored a goal. What captured my attention the most was the queen bee expression. Her eyes filled with a fiery determination. Her facial muscles so tense you could swear she was headed for war. The girl was clearly proud of what just happened.

My group looked at each other. They were clearly disappointed since they voted A for everyone else, but not surprised. It wouldn’t be the first time the class conspired against us. I recall seeing the teacher with wide eyes as someone who would be in disbelief. The class wouldn’t be benefited in any way for doing that. There was no reward, no rational reason whatsoever.

It is just the pure and unfiltered pleasure of others demise that fuels actions like these. Stone-cold and evil individuals. I actually don’t blame the other 30 students who raised their hands. They were just mindless followers.

Now, the queen bee?

You could see the wickedness leaking through her eyes, as if her body couldn’t hold any more of it and had to direct her scornful ideas to someone else. I can’t fathom how many other people she may have ill-treated to this day.

As to the group work, the teacher gave us an A since he liked our presentation and realized the plot. I guess it actually didn’t end that bad, did it?