August
The Day Before School
I was on a free ferry ride to school.
It disembarked from the Bridgetown port at 4 p.m., with an estimated arrival time of 5 p.m. Despite this, I wondered if we could really make it in an hour—the ship seemed to be moving at a pace slower than a snail.
Ferries were foreign to me. I had never been on one. In fact, I had never really been on any kind of moving sea vessel. But from the videos I'd watched online, they seemed to move a lot faster than this.
I began to imagine how much more convenient it would be if I had my own helicopter. It could take me directly to Culper Island instead of relying on this slow ferry. I thought about this because I wasn't much of a fan of the ferry ride anymore.
The ship was calm when it left the port, but the further it got from the coast, the more noticeable the rocking became. Weren't these ships supposed to be stable? I wondered as I sat in the seating area.
Inside, the place was quiet but packed. Students and a few older people filled most of the seats; their suitcases and bags crowded the aisles. Despite the cramped environment, people seldom talked.
Sometimes, lone students would get up to go outside for whatever reason, and the occasional friend group would head out for food or to relax on the deck. But other than that, it was a peaceful boat ride.
Also, one row ahead of me, there was a table with all kinds of snacks on it. Hanging off the edge of the table was a sign that read, "Take one."
However, students would occasionally come up and take as much as they pleased, ignoring the rule. Even when a staff member saw them, they didn't do anything.
I noticed all of these things as I sat in the seating area, but they quickly became mundane. I wanted to be entertained, so I escaped into a book I had brought with me.
With my head buried in the book, I blocked out everything around me—but my entertainment would be short-lived.
"You seriously didn't see the sign?"
The voice wasn't familiar, and I didn't know anyone on the ferry, so surely they weren't talking to me.
I raised my head. Turns out I wasn't the one being questioned.
The short-haired, short girl who sat in the row ahead of me stood staring at another girl. She was tall and had two snacks in her hand.
"What sign?" the tall girl asked.
"The one down there."
The girl with the snacks noticed the sign.
"Oh, I didn't even see that," she replied.
It seemed like a simple misunderstanding—apparently she hadn't seen the sign. So, if they wanted things to move smoothly, the girl would just return one of the snacks—
"It's okay. I don't expect people like you to follow the rules anyway."
Huh? What? Did she just single out the taller girl?
"People like me?" the tall girl replied.
"Yes, people like you. Why would I expect students that cheat to be capable of following rules?"
She might have been delusional, sarcastic, or maybe just upset that she had to attend the ISC. But for whatever reason, she seemed to believe that students attending this school were incapable of following rules.
The taller girl laughed and shook her head.
"Did it ever occur to you that people break rules as simple as these every day?"
"Yes, it did. But that's not my point. Many of you came and took snacks and completely ignored the rule. It's a reflection of where you set your morals."
The girl spoke with certainty and authority. And she wasn't wrong—the students didn't bother to follow the rule. But the rule was so simple. Isn't it possible that anyone could have broken it willingly?
We're often influenced by what others are doing. Maybe they saw others taking more than one and decided it was okay.
"That wasn't my point. But anyway, aren't you a student at this school?"
"You won't give up, will you? What does me being a student have to do with it?"
"That makes you one of us, doesn't it? Or are you somehow in a different class that breaks rules only when necessary?"
I wondered the same thing. Wasn't she also a student? Honestly, being labeled as an avid rule-breaker wasn't a good look for me, since I wasn't one. Maybe I could fit into her class.
"No, I attend this school not because I was labeled a cheater, but for my own reasons. Unlike you."
Damn it—so she's what they call a proper, honest student. I don't think I can fit into her class, but this explains her attitude.
"So you're like me, then?"
"Like you?"
"Yes. I attend this school because I feel like it. I could have gone to a university if I wanted to."
This was an interesting development. I never imagined someone choosing to attend the ISC. Were there other people like this? Legal Cheaters often set their own prices, but it wasn't a sought-after job for obvious reasons. Only students who got caught cheating on CXC exams attended this school.
"So you resort to lying."
"No, I'm being honest. But I guess you find it hard to believe because your whole agenda rests on me being a cheater."
"This changes nothing. You're just a random variable. Other students like me would never break this rule."
"And yet, a student like me did break the rule. Technically, I was a student like you up until you found out that one piece of information. Now, all of a sudden, I'm in another category. You know what your problem is? You've never interacted with anyone beneath you. Am I right to say that not a single person at your former school was flagged for cheating? And what's more—you're the only one who ended up at the ISC. For whatever reason, you ended up here, and it disgusts you, doesn't it? So you invest yourself in proving that you're somehow superior to everyone else at this school. This is your way of coping, and it's granted you this foolish way of thinking."
The taller girl spoke with pure logic. Looking back on how she had spoken so far, it was clear she chose her words carefully.
The girl she was arguing with had nothing to say and could only ponder what she had just heard.
"You see, I'm the kind of person who doesn't think without reasoning and logic. I wish everyone could do the same, but people struggle to think logically. And from what you've told me, you're clearly projecting your prejudiced views on the students of this school. Really, the world is more complicated than you think. A simple rule like this cannot determine where these students sit morally—and anyone who thinks that's the case needs to reassess their perspective of the world as soon as possible."
I fully agreed with the tall girl. Even though she had a big ego, she wasn't wrong.
The shorter girl who started the argument clearly had underlying biases that fueled her flawed belief. Just because I'm accustomed to breaking rules in an exam doesn't mean I'm open to breaking every rule I see.
Such thinking is unhealthy, and, in my opinion, only naive people think that way. A Lot of people judge us as students learning to cheat for deceitful reasons but that isn't the case. I attend the ISC to learn how to catch cheaters—kind of like how police are taught to catch criminals.
The more I thought about it the better I felt about my future profession.
As for the argument the two girls had long gone their separate ways, and the seating area returned to its quite unengaged Atmosphere for the rest of the trip.