Queen of the Clueless #2 of 3 (COMPLETE)

Chapter 2

I wanted to like Ms. Sanchez, because she was my General Psychology teacher, and I was a psych major. Call it wanting to root for the home team and all, especially because we had non-psych majors in our class. But when she pulled out the getting-to-know stuff in class in the first week of my second semester as a sophomore, she lost points with me.

Ford River College was a fancy, exclusive school, located just outside of Metro Manila. I went there because I got a scholarship (no way would we have been able to afford the steep tuition otherwise) and because my mother wanted me to, very badly. She fell in love with the charming, brick buildings and view of hills on her first visit there. I grew up in the middle of a noisy, dirty, crowded city and thought at first that the move out to the hills would lead to culture shock. But I adjusted pretty easily. Fresh air, clean bathrooms, good cafeteria food, facilities that seemed new every year. Why would I hate any of that?

So this probably seems like such a shallow complaint, but the one thing I did hate about Ford River was that they made their teachers "get to know the students as people." It was meant to make sure we were treated as mature individuals and not children, but the mandate led to some cringeworthy assignments.

On our first week, Ms. Sanchez asked us to stand up, introduce ourselves, and make the sound of the animal we were most like. And explain why.

Some people may be into that, but not me. I rolled my eyes and said I was a bird. Because I liked to hover and fly away from uncomfortable situations. Chirp.

This week she was talking about hypnosis. She cast a glance around the classroom, and caught my eye.

"Hannah, would you mind joining me here in front please?"

Not that I could have refused. I took the seat she had set dead center in the front of the room.

"Have you ever been hypnotized, Hannah?"

"No," I said, and now that I felt the eyes of all my classmates on me, I started to wish I were somewhere else.

"To become hypnotized," Ms. Sanchez said, to the entire class, "you'd have to begin by being induced into a trancelike state. This usually involves emptying your mind of thought—which is going to be really easy for some of you here."

That was funny. Half the room got the joke.

"Everyone, please, some silence. Hannah, I'd like you to close your eyes."

I tossed a skeptical look at Sol, over at the third row. She sort of blinked at me in a weird way, and I could tell she was reminding me about the thing she wanted to talk about. I nodded and closed my eyes.

Ms. Sanchez had a slightly tinny voice. As she encouraged me to empty my mind, saying things like "You are in an empty, white room" in a lazy and drawling tone, I realized that her voice was so annoying. It grated. I wasn't being lulled into a relaxed state at all. I could totally see myself in that empty, white room, but I could also see her in it, and her voice was bouncing off the walls and growing louder and more metallic with each word.

I didn't get enough sleep last night, didn't get to have caffeine this morning. It took some effort to tune her out, but eventually I think I did. I must have. Because I started goddess-dreaming.

* * *

Better get out of the way.

I don't just think that; I actually say it aloud. I take a tentative step to the right, and my bare feet feel the slight crunch of fallen leaves. I am looking up at coconut trees, all around me, their overlapping leaves blotting out the bright sun in places.