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It had been days since the last English teacher couldn't take the pressure of the job anymore and abruptly quit without formal warning. The symptoms on that gaijin had been obvious to us students and money had traded hands because of it. Whilst the school hurriedly tried to get a replacement, English lessons turned into study periods. Even more boring than normal lessons because a teacher was still present. A teacher who did not have to divide his attention between teaching and keeping an eye on us. No chance of sleeping through a period under those conditions. Many of us had to painfully adapt to not rely on those lessons as napping periods - the gaijin's words had been so easy to fall asleep to.
Then one morning, during a school assembly, the Headmaster proudly announced that they had gotten a hold of an English teacher. Some were hopeful that they could revert back to their 'standard' sleeping patterns again. Others were doubtful. More bets were made between the more confident ones - some with promises of doing homework or dating instead of putting money on the line.
The day before the new gaijin would have to stand before us and teach, in what was supposed to be the last of those dreaded 'supervised study periods', instead of the teacher coming in, we were suprised that the Headmaster walked in, followed by a gaijin. Those counting down the days were pleasantly surprised, except that one boy who wasn't going to get his monthly allowance he bet with until tonight - if he lost his bet and couldn't pay his money on time...
The Headmaster introduced this gaijin as our new English teacher: Largo-sensei. His choice of clothing certainly was... not what you'd expect for a teacher. In our hushed silence, he grabbed a piece of chalk and examined it briefly. Then with an unexpected burst of speed, he started writing big, English letters on the board. In the room filled with only the 'tic', 'tac' of the chalk hitting the blackboard, we exchanged glances and silently worded our surprised confusion.
When the sounds had stopped, with a flourish Largo-sensei took off and threw away his shades, the piece of chalk falling out of his hand afterwards. Had we been looking at the shades, we would have been amused that the Headmaster had to duck quickly to avoid catching them with his face. But Largo-sensei had all our attention at that moment. We noticed that he English he used in his intro speech was... 'different' from anything we'd heard from in our classes before. This guy seemed like a fanatic - the Headmaster clearly thought so as he was cowering away from him, backing a step when he suddenly flung his arms out in a wide gesture. Like in a trance, we all tried to repeat his words: 'Knowledge is Power'. All except that creepy girl who just sat staring out of the window. Figures.
We couldn't reproduce his words exactly but he didn't scream at us about that. He seemed quite satisfied in fact. His smile disappeared when a new girl walked into our class... We'd never seen her before, or her taste of... 'ear rings'? Whoever she was, Great Teacher Largo seemed afraid of her. He started babbling something we couldn't quite make out, looked around with the wide, frightened eyes of prey, then jumped out of the window! Even though this wasn't the ground floor!
We rushed to the window to see him clutching his leg with an expression of pain on his face. He must have broken a bone there when he landed... Yet somehow, he found the strength to valiantly stand up and stagger away. We cheered him on. Everyone agreed afterwards that they were in for an experience of their lifetimes...
~*~The last lessons had ended. Some of those without extra-curricular activities hung around whilst their friends finished doing their cleaning chores. The creepy girl had already left with the new girl. Good riddance...
When all the cleaning was finally over, we went off to hang out around town for a while before we would have to face our pile of homework. As we passed the arcade, one of us noticed a small crowd growing inside the 1-Yen Arcade. When we investigated, we found out that some sort of challenge was being duked out on the Mosh Mosh Revolution machine. We had memories of that game... Not a choice for wimps who can't take the punishment, heh.
Once we got closer, we recognised who the duellists were. None other than Great Teacher Largo and that new girl! Awesome! The gaijin was skilled with the game, not having missed a single move. But so was the new girl... As the pressure grew the further they danced through the level, the crowd was starting to bulge out of the arcade. No other game was being played as they kept up their 100% rate. Someone shouted out another bet. Then someone remembered GTL broke his leg this morning...
Something strange happened. It's not clear but I think the girl passed out from the exhaustion and pressure. Not too surprising but I could have sworn I heard a faint 'crack' too. I guess that must have been GTL's leg as he went head-first into the MMR machine... Ouch. We later heard that it caused the local transformer to fail leading to a blackout. In that darkness, pandemonium spread instantaneously. We managed to push and be pushed out of that darkness all in one piece. Having recovered from the shock outside, we decided that we couldn't be sure who had won and that the bets were off. English lessons certainly were going to be a whole lot different from now on...
~*~We would not accept this! How dare the school toy with us like this? Apparently there had been a mistake and the real English teacher was going to start teaching as scheduled. And what a loser he was! Worse than the last one according to the unfortunate class who had to be his first (and last) English students! How could the school think of giving him the job in the first place, let alone after they had encountered our best English teacher yesterday?!? Word had spread like fire from our class about yesterday's events and everyone was charged up with mixed expectations and a few with varying degrees of skepticism. And in another class, this loser appears and is introduced as the real English teacher...
The riot started in that new gaijin's class. Bombarding him with everything they could get their hands on wasn't enough. The poor students started to rush out of their classrooms shouting out the enraging news. It spread like an epidemic. And of course, that loser couldn't do a thing.
Soon the entire school had heard it. Many came rushing back to that classroom to check with their own eyes. Confirmations swept across all floors. Someone came up with the idea of spelling out our demand in the courtyard with the lunchroom tables. We were all psyched up. We didn't need any further words to make it a reality. Slowly the students rushed into the lunchrooms to help with the task. Some came of their own will, genuinely desiring to do this. Some to participate in the radical event. Others because their friends went, then there were those who didn't want to be left behind. Teacher's words and threats were ignored, only delaying the more geeky ones amongst us.
We shouted our lungs out, making our one demand: to bring back GTL for good instead of the Canadian. After we started to grow a little tired, the schools' speakers announced that they would carry out our demand and that we were to return to our classes, with various threats being thrown in afterwards. We were skeptical at first, but a handful of us spread the word that they'd actually hired a ninja to find GTL. Slowly we were persuaded and started moving the tables back. Things started to return to normal before lunchtime. And all that time the weird girl had been looking out of the window, with a rather contemptuously amused expression on her face...
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