Between Us, Part 11: When the Class Divides

Between Us, Part 11: When the Class Divides

The Story Begins

On Sunday evening, Nela had the class chat open only because she was looking for a photo of the schedule for Monday’s school fair. Class 8.B was meant to run a game at their stall using paper question cards they had made all week. Just that afternoon, everyone had been laughing and saying their stand would be the best of all.

Then a message from Lenka appeared in the chat.

“Great. So half the cards are wet and unusable. Maybe next time it would be enough not to leave the box by the window.”

A heart appeared beneath the message, then an eyes emoji, then three dots that appeared and vanished again. Nela gripped her phone more tightly. She knew the box had been left in the classroom after Friday’s rehearsal. She also knew several people had been sitting by the window, and nobody had said exactly who had put it there.

Kaja replied almost at once.

“And do you know exactly who left it there?”

Lenka did not answer. Instead, the words “typing…” appeared beneath her name. A moment later, they vanished.

Filip sent a picture of a soaked cat with the caption: “Me after every Monday.” Once, the class would have reacted with at least ten laughing emojis. Now only one thumbs-up appeared, and after a few seconds it disappeared, as if someone had changed their mind.

“Wow. Joke of the year,” Kaja wrote.

“I’m just trying to stop us crying over paper,” Filip replied.

Nela watched the chat, but her fingers hovered over the keyboard. She wanted to write that the cards could simply be printed again. But that was not all of it. Nobody was upset only about the cards. That one sentence held something people could easily fill in according to whoever they felt like blaming.

A few minutes later, a private message arrived from her classmate Soňa: “People say Filip left it there because he was rushing to training.”

Nela frowned. “People say? Who says?” she typed.

No answer came. Instead, another message appeared in the group chat.

“Let’s leave it,” someone wrote. “It always comes out who couldn’t be bothered.”

Right then, Nela put her phone face down. Her notebook with stickers on the cover lay beside her bed. She opened it, but for a long time she wrote nothing. From the kitchen came the clink of cups and the sound of the radio. In her room, though, the silence remained uncomfortable.

On Monday morning, Class 8.B stood in little groups along the corridor, groups that had probably always been there but now seemed more sharply defined. Lenka, Soňa, and two other girls crowded by the window. Filip stood near the noticeboard with the football boys. Kaja leaned against a radiator, saying something to Simon, but her voice was too quick for an ordinary break-time conversation.

Nela walked between them with her bag over one shoulder. Usually, someone stopped her, at least to ask about homework or a new video. This time, people mostly looked at their phones. When they looked up, their eyes often met someone else’s for only a second.

Filip spotted Nela first.

“Hey. Have you come to save the fair already?” he asked, putting on his usual smile.

“I haven’t printed the cards,” she said.

“Never mind, then. I take it back. The rescue is postponed until the next episode.”

He laughed at his own joke. Then he looked towards Lenka. The smile remained on his face, but somehow it would not stay there.

When Things Start to Change

Kaja walked past them and sharply adjusted the strap of her colourful hoodie.

“At least don’t stand here pretending nothing’s happening,” she said to Filip.

“I’m not pretending,” he replied. “I’m just standing here.”

“That’s exactly what you always do. You turn everything into a joke, and then nobody knows what you actually think.”

Filip straightened up. “And you know everything for everyone, do you?”

Nela felt her throat tighten. Kaja opened her mouth, but then the bell rang. People headed for the classroom so quickly that it was as if the bell had pulled them away from an uncomfortable place.

During the first break, Nela sat on a bench at the end of the corridor. From there, she could see the classroom door and the stairs. She took out her notebook and wrote the date. Underneath, she added a few words: Lenka only talks to Soňa. Filip jokes louder than usual. Kaja is angry, but maybe not only with Filip.

Then she stopped. She did not know what to add to the last line.

A black backpack appeared beside the bench. Adam sat at the other end without asking, but not close enough to look over her shoulder.

“You write things down?” he asked after a while.

Nela nodded. “When I can’t say something, I write it down first.”

“And does it help?”

“Sometimes. At least I know what I think. The worse part is that other people still don’t.”

Adam looked down the corridor. Lenka was showing someone her phone. Two boys leaned towards the screen, read something, and walked away without a word.

“Everyone’s acting as if that box were a state secret,” he said.

Nela looked at him. “Do you know what happened?”

“No. But I know lots of people were online in the chat last night. And today everyone’s acting as if they don’t care.”

“Maybe they don’t want to argue.”

“Maybe.” Adam ran a hand along his backpack strap. “But more likely, they don’t want to be the ones everyone gets angry with.”

The sentence stayed between them. Nela almost wrote it down, but just then Kaja’s loud laugh came from the classroom. It was not a happy laugh. It was short and sharp.

When they went back inside, more people were already standing by Filip’s desk. Someone claimed they had seen him carry the box to the window. Someone else said it had still been there after the last lesson. Everyone knew one small piece, but nobody knew the whole story.

“Then just ask him properly,” Kaja blurted out.

“We are asking,” Lenka said. “He just keeps making jokes.”

Filip stopped smiling. “I did carry the box, yeah. But only because it was by the door and we kept tripping over it. Someone else left it by the window after that.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I was already out in the corridor.”

Soňa folded her arms. “That works out well for you.”

“Sure,” Filip snapped. “Because I have a secret factory for wet cards at home.”

Kaja turned to Soňa. “And it suits you to believe every message that isn’t even signed.”

“At least I’m not quiet when someone messes something up.”

“You’re never quiet,” Kaja said too quickly.

A silence settled over the classroom. It was no longer merely uncomfortable. It felt thick, because everyone was waiting to see whether somebody would add another sentence. Nela looked at Adam. He sat at his desk with his hands resting on his notebook. At first glance he seemed calm, but his foot moved back and forth beneath the desk.

An Important Moment

Later, before the next lesson, their class teacher came in with a pile of papers under her arm. She had not even started teaching when she caught a fragment of conversation by the window.

“So now we know who’s on whose side,” someone said quietly.

But in the silent classroom, the sentence carried farther than its speaker expected.

Kaja turned around. “There are no sides. I just don’t want you making Filip the guilty one when you don’t actually know anything.”

“And I don’t want it swept under the carpet,” Lenka said.

Filip sat on top of a desk, though students were not supposed to sit on desks. “I honestly don’t care anymore what anyone wants.”

Everyone knew he did care. That was why nobody answered straight away.

Adam looked up. First he looked at Filip, then at Kaja, and finally at the group by the window. When he spoke, his voice was no louder than anyone else’s. He simply was no longer trying to sound unnoticed.

“We’re all acting as if we don’t care,” he said, “but everyone is reading the chat, watching faces, and waiting to see who gives in first.”

The teacher stopped at her desk. Her papers no longer rustled.

“That isn’t true,” Soňa said, though more quietly than she meant to.

Adam shrugged. “Maybe not entirely. But last night I got six messages asking whether I’d happened to see anything. And nobody asked me directly at school.”

Nela noticed Lenka lower her eyes to her desk. Filip stopped leaning against the wall. Kaja folded her arms, but she was no longer arguing.

The teacher set the papers on the desk. “You have five minutes before we begin. Try to use them so you don’t have to send more messages tonight that nobody properly explains.” Then she sat down and opened the class register.

Nobody clapped or said Adam was right. At first, all they could hear was the scrape of a chair. Then Lenka took two warped cards from her bag.

“I wrote that first message,” she said. “I was angry because I’d spent a long time making them. I shouldn’t have written it as if I knew who had done it.”

“I carried the box,” Filip said. “And I should have written that straight away yesterday. I just thought it would somehow get lost among the other messages.”

“So you really did put it by the window?” Kaja asked.

“By the window, yes. But I didn’t close it. I didn’t know it was going to rain, either.”

Simona spoke from the back desk. Until then, she had said nothing. “I left the window open. It was stuffy when we were leaving. I thought someone would close it.”

For a moment, everyone looked at her. Nela realised Simona had sat quietly all day, even though she clearly knew more than most of them.

“Oh,” Kaja said. There was no sharpness in her voice now, only tiredness. “So we managed to fall out because three people did three perfectly normal things, and nobody said everything.”

Filip smiled briefly. “That almost sounds like one of my jokes, but sad.”

This time, a few people laughed. It was not a big laugh, and it did not make the problem disappear. The cards still had to be printed again. Lenka still looked angry. Soňa still acted as if nothing was wrong, though her cheeks had turned red.

Even so, the conversation moved forward. Not through forwarded messages, but between the desks.

“I can print them tonight,” Adam offered.

What Comes Next

“I’ll bring card stock,” Simona added.

Filip looked at Lenka. “And I can cut them out. No secret factory for wet cards.”

Lenka did not smile at him immediately. After a moment, though, she said, “Okay. But cut them straight. Not crooked like last time.”

“That was artistic.”

“It was crooked.”

After the lesson, the class did not magically become one happy group. As they left for lunch, some people still stood apart. Kaja and Soňa did not hug or start talking about something else, but at least they no longer gave each other a wide berth.

Nela noticed other quiet faces too. Simona, who tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and joined the group by the window for the first time. The boy from the second desk, who had said nothing all day but now handed Adam a notebook with a printed draft of the questions. People who did not want to be on any side, but were afraid that if they spoke up, they would end up alone.

On her way home, Nela stopped at the bus stop. The school building behind her was already quieter than it had been that morning. She took out her notebook, rested it on her bag, and looked at the empty line for a while.

At last, she wrote: “Groups form quickly, and bridges slowly.”