When I was a Form 6 (which is equivalent to twelfth grade) student, I was selected as a committee member of the Mathematics Club. At that time other committee members and I had to throw an orientation party so as to attract those seventh, eighth and ninth grade students to join the club. I still remember what a mess we made in that so-called orientation party.
Since the selection of committee members and the orientation party were held on the same day, we had only two hours to prepare for the party after the selection was completed.
K. L., who was one of my classmates, was appointed as the chairman of the club. We then held a meeting immediately and K. L. asked for suggestions to decide what stuff we were going to buy for this orientation party.
Two of the committee members had a brief debate of what kind of beverages and food we should provide. After K. L. made the final call, some of us went to buy the stuff and the others went to a classroom to set the tables and chairs for the party. We put eight tables together in four rows and eight chairs between each of the two rows.
Moments minutes later, the orientation party began.
Many students came in, and started talking to each other. As more and more students came in, the "volume" of their conversations was gradually turned up... It seemed like there were about forty students in the classroom at that time.
"Attention, everyone!" We knocked on the table to get their attention.
"Let's play a game, shall we?" K. L. said.
We then distributed sheets of paper to the students. Each of them had one sheet listed five math problems and one blank paper to write down the answers.
"Please write your name and the answers on the blank sheet," K. L. told the students. "An hour later we'll collect the answer sheets and find out who can get all correct answers."
"If there's more than one person who can get all questions answered correctly, we'll try to select the champion by random-drawing," he added.
As the game began, one of the students asked and complained, "Do math problems? It's boring."
About one hour later, after we collected all the answer sheets and chose the winner, an announcement was about to make.
"The winner is ..." K. L. tried to speak in a slower tone, "... Ricky Siu!"
Immediately a large number of students yelled and booed. They cried, "It's unfair!"
"Why do you all say this?" K. L. asked.
Some of the students shouted, "Ricky was cheating!"
We all knew that Ricky would never do that because he was one of the top ten students in the ninth grade. Moreover, as we looked at Ricky, he didn't appear to be afraid of what those students just said about him. We guessed those kids might try to disturb our party by making an excuse to act like helping choose the champion, so K. L. could decide to let the students eat and drink early.
K. L. tried to keep everything under control, but he underestimated those students.
"How come the taste is so bad?" a boy wearing a red baseball cab shouted as he stared at a hot dog after he took one big bite of it.
I looked at the boy as he was talking. Besides wearing a red baseball cap, he wore a pair of dark sun-glasses. I could not see his face very clearly, but I found that he had a few broken teeth when I saw him laugh at somebody.
This boy stood on his table and said impolitely, "Go get some Big Macs for us!"
"Sorry," K. L. responded, "we can't do that."
"Ha ha. Look, he said he can't do that," the boy said as he used his finger to point at K. L.
A skinny boy who wore a black rain coat stood behind him and asked him, "What do we do now?"
The boy chucked the paper cup on his hand to the ground.
Those naughty kids threw many paper cups at us. We all enjoyed the "juice and soft drink" shower bath! They stepped on those snacks and threw them at us. A kid ran to the doorway and opened the door. Some of the kids threw all the tables and chairs to the outside of the classroom. We couldn't find any place to hid to protect ourselves because there were not enough tables and chairs in the classroom any more! All we could do was to tell them, "Stop it! Stop it!" They then poured soft drinks and juice all over the floor!
About fifteen minutes later, the kids were getting bored when they had no more paper cups or snacks to throw at us.
"It's not funny any more," the boy with a red baseball cap said, "Let's get outta here. The principal may stop by any time soon!" He and all the kids left the classroom.
A short while later, the principal showed up and saw the tables and chairs piled up outside the classroom as he was walking in the corridor.
"Oh, what a mess you guys have made!" The principal said with astonishment as he came to the doorway of the classroom.
"I'm very sorry, Mr. Principal," K. L. said, "I apologize for all these."
"Is that enough?" The principal asked rudely, "All of you have to pay for all the damages."
"Yes,... Sir," we said all together.
"Give me a detailed report to me tomorrow," the principal demanded, "I'd like to know why you guys can create a big mess like this!"
"What should we do now?" I asked K. L. as I saw the principal left the doorway.
"Have a WATER shower bath right now!" he laughed.
We all laughed.
