It was early in the morning and my sister and I were washing our hands in the bathroom. Our mother had taught us the routine and everything appeared to make sense: rub the soap in your hands, yes, cover the wrists too, make sure all the dirt is gone and then wash with water until the hands are not slippery. Mistress teacher thought that was not enough and decided to tell us the secrets to a beautiful face, despite the fact that neither me nor my sister were interested in that kind of thing at the time. She picked up the soap and rubbed it wildly all over my face, around my mouth and my eyes, on my forehead and neck. I respectfully held my fear and anger inside, hoping it would end as brusquely as it started. She then took fistfuls of water and splashed them on my face, trying to clean off all the soap that was beginning to harden and become sticky, making my face itchy. It was far from a onetime thing and from that day on, my routine changed drastically and it wasn’t for the better.
I used to have milk with cocoa for breakfast every day and Mistress teacher kindly offered to prepare it for me before I’d get out of bed. One time, though, it wasn’t milk that she gave me. I remember that weird, threatening liquid I had to drink: it was white, clear, purple and brown at the same time; the purple and brown bits were chasing each other around in a circle, forming a tornado of unhappy cocoa. It didn’t taste as horrible as it looked, but it surely wasn’t anything nutritious. Days later I realised that what Mistress teacher had given me was water with cocoa, not poisonous, obviously, but far from my ideal breakfast.
I never complained and tried my best to please her, even in the most ridiculous of situations. Our daily schedule was made up of “teaching time” and... “relaxation time”. During relaxation time I and my sister took turns to massage our beloved teacher’s feet with a device which would fit into my tiny child hand and was powered by batteries, though we never had these. During teaching time, though, things got much more complicated. If I needed to go to the toilet (note, in my own home), I had to ask for permission and, more often than not, she reserved the right to refuse to let me go. Sometimes the pressure was so big that I afforded to go to the toilet without asking her first. She regarded that as a personal offence and made me kneel in front of her and apologise, “Mistress teacher, I apologise for going to the bathroom without telling you, please forgive me, I promise I will be better next time,” A couple of times, me and my sister did pranks on her, one of the most horrible ones being refusing to do a grammar exercise. Then we had to do a “joint kneeling procedure”, both of us would kneel in front of her and recite the little standardised poem.
Although not very tempted to visit our street, summer came eventually and strawberries were brought to our fridge against their will by our mother. Strawberries! Everyone loves strawberries. Excitedly, Mistress teacher served a bowl full of strawberries, all covered in sugar and whipped cream. We joined in the happy moment and everything was just fine, almost fun. She left in the afternoon and nothing ridiculous had happened. “Children, come here!” my mum shouted in an angry tone. “Come over here, I say,” she insisted. “Can anyone tell me what on earth this is?” she said pointing at the ceiling. My sister and I looked up, just to discover a huge strawberry smashed on the ceiling. “We didn’t do this! Why would we smash a strawberry on the wall?”, “Who was it then?” mum asked, genuinely confused. After four minutes of thinking, one answer came to light and we all shouted the well known name of “Mistress teacher!”
