Syrenne

• Vionna Wong, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2019

Syrenne, pronounced ‘Suh-renn’ with a stress on the second ‘n’. However it is mistakenly pronounced ‘Si-reen’ by the uneducated. A siren she was, for her bewitching voice was enough to cause the tsunami of my heart to flood all idle thoughts.

As I scurried across the battlefield called school, the pungent deodorant suffocating the air...the echoing of mindless chatter was booming throughout the cemented walls. Puberty was lurking like a wild beast, preying on unsuspecting tweens. I looked at the floor and saw the growing moss-like patch on the tip of my once black shoes and a complimentary bubblegum faded at the sole. From the corner of my eye I saw the gnomish girls gurgling like a draining sink.

Then I saw my Syrenne. A breath of fresh air in this mess. Her sweet chipmunk smile and her pearly teeth glistened in the dark hallway. She had a dimple only on one cheek, which bothered me. Symmetry is preferable. Her hair was like cotton candy. When she flipped her fluffy locks, the scent of honey filled my nostrils, replacing the musky deodorant. Her eyes were pure but dark. Her beauty separates the wheat from the chaff and the spillage of sunshine were subservient to her graceful existence.

Syrenne took out her water bottle and let out a sigh of frustration as she attempted to pick out the black straw, chewing it out of the lip. I realised that she chews her straw the same way I do! Her eyes were dark and sinking, filled with the unknown. Perhaps she too sees the world like me.

The school bell rang and snapped me back. I strolled into the Science lab and immediately marched to the seat behind Syrenne. I aligned my book and my stationary to the edge of the desk.
I needed a piece of her. I gently pinched her hair close to my scissors and with lightning speed I took what was mine. Syrenne turned around, her eyebrows frowned in disbelief, her lips squirmed like she was sucking a lemon. She shouted, “Did you just touch my hair??”

Everyone in the class caught us. I listened as the whispers erupted from the classmates. The stumpy girls muttered, “I definitely want him to touch my hair. Syrenne should be glad that he touched her hair”. The noises made me agitated, like a snake hissing into my ear, ‘ssssssss’, my head started to twitch.

The teacher called us out of the classroom. Syrenne over-exaggerated the situation, it was pathetic but irresistible. The teacher responded, “Is that all? It’s normal for a boy like Matthew to do that. Remember that boys will be boys and ignore him. Your hair will grow back.”
The whites of her eyes enlarged as she was cut by the teacher’s every word. From that I knew that her once dark eyes were filled with the realisation that I have a part of her...that she belongs to me now.