Subject: "Why, it's a hamster."
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Posted on: 2018-02-01 15:15:00 UTC

"Ewwww!!!"

Maisarah is reeling in disgust as she sees the animal perching on top of Clarissa's head.

"Neh, a hamster! I trained my little chubby bubby puppy to hide in my hairs." Truly, Clarissa's hair fashion is... traditional. It looks like the beehive hairstyle, but most of the hair are shaped to a large bun. A small hamster is lazily strutting to and fro on top of Clarissa's head.

Aziz wiggles his index finger at the fluffyball, which the animal responds by sniffing at the digit. "Don't you feel uncomfortable having things running on your head?"

Clarissa massages her neck, tired from keeping her head straight. "A little. My neck's hurt though." She slumps her back and rests on a pile of books on the desk. The hamster hides itself snugly between the hairs. A few other classmates watch in awe at the animal clutching at its master's hair and dozing off, until the bell rings to signal the start of class.

The class begins with a Math class. Teacher Zahirah have just returned from her maternity leave, and looks unusually giddy than the usual.

Aziz and Shamsul is slumped on their chairs at the back, trying to make sense of her diagrams. Aziz begins to snore softly when Shamsul jabs his finger at Aziz's ribs, jolting him awake.

The frizzle-haired Aziz rubs his eyes. Shamsul begins his whining. "Why are we learning about circles and angles and letters?"

"That's a good question. We aren't Greeks trying to make circles and being stabbed for it."

"Oh, you remembered Teacher Chong's story yesterday!"

The both of them snickered when they remembered how their History teacher expanded a few paragraphs of their history textbook about some mathematician into half an hour of rambling about being a genius in a mediocre world.

Teacher Zahirah is about to turn and inquire about why the backsitters find circles to be funny when she sees Clarissa's hairstyle. Well, the teacher does not care for the hairstyle, it is not exactly against the rules. But there is a creature she can see lurking behind the large bun on her student's head.

She half-heartedly draws and explains how a triangle, whose base forms the diameter of the circle, will always be a right-angled triangle should the third point touches any point on the cirlce's line. But her drawing turns to an organic creature, a mix between a mite and a hamster.

The class laughs at the resultant figure. Teacher Zahirah slams the duster on the blackboard and wipes the offending imagery from her board, and with it, imagining it gone from her mind. She wipes her chalked hands on her baju kurung, claps her hands, and with the most motherly of smiles, leans to the star pupil with the retro hairstyle.

"Clarissa Wong Mei Li, may I examine your hair?"

Clarissa thought it over for a few seconds. She is sure to have let her hamster back into the cage before the class begins.

"Sure, teacher. Just dont ruin the hairstyle. It's hard to repair."

Teacher Zahirah carefully runs her fingers to her pupil's head, trying to find the offending object.

The hamster, being disturbed from its slumber by a pink earthworm, chomps on the new meal with a decisive bite.

Teacher Zahirah pulls her finger back in pain, to discover a rodent dangling, looking at her with innocent eyes. It squeakes.

"Opocot a mite has feather hairs! Eh, it has hairs! Swinging like a pendulum, always maintaining it's swinging time no matter the size of the swing! Eh, Hamster dangling on my fingers!"

Teacher Zahirah keeps her latah even as she darts back to the teacher's office. In the ensuing chaos, many teachers begin to latah along, even breaking to a gamelan and zapin dance. Other teachers try to calm them down or call the ambulance as some latahing teachers and students decide to jump from the higher floors. The entire school populace unafflicted by the latah just stares in wonder.

Shamsul could muster no reaction on his face, seeing the adult populace of the school turning an institution of learning to a traditional Malay moshpit. "I wonder, do you think Teacher Chong know anything about the history of latah disease in our town?"

Aziz gently rubs his forehead. "I wonder if we will be cursed with latah if we reached a certain age."


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