バイバイベッキ！　Bye Bye, Becki!

The classroom is cluttered and messy. Complicated kanji written in yellow chalk line the back of the classroom. The students’ shiny plastic school bags sit haphazardly on the slightly dingy floor, zippers untidily left open showing a slew of crumpled papers, bento boxes and smelly gym clothes shoved roughly inside. The boys emit a happy, slightly juvenile cheer of “YAAAAAAAAAAY” the moment I walk in, stand and clap, causing me, naturally, to smile.

“Everyone, today is Nikki-san’s last day here at our school.”

A groan and a started “EH? WHAT?!” runs through the class.

For some reason the boys light up and give me the best possible last lesson I can ask for. No one sleeps. No one ignores me. No one gives me lip. No one makes obscene comments. Their bright brown eyes meet mine, they glow back at me and answer every single question.

I wonder briefly at the power of the temptation of candy. But dismiss it.

Every activity I throw at them they obediently listen and attempt to understand without asking me about my underwear. I’m slightly flabbergasted.

I put up a series of sentences jumbled around the room. Their goal is to simply gather all the sentences, figure out the right order and subsequently translate into Japanese.

When I ask them if they understand they shoot back a hearty “YES!” instead of just shrugging and burying their heads into their folded arms on their desks.

The boys fly around the room gathering sentences, calling me over to help with questions and grinning back at me happily.

After a few tries every single group manages to get the story correct:

There was a girl from New York.

She will miss Niihama.

“This is a good story. But a very sad story,” says my teacher looking at me wistfully. I nod in agreement.

The boys send me off with a mumbled, shy “I love you, Nikki” and a louder, more robust, uniform, commanding, respectful, “arigatougozaimassss” accompanied by a deep bow.

It’s pretty much set in stone. Henceforth, whenever a school boy breezes past me on a bike in a blue shirt messily tucked into dark plaid slacks falling halfway-down their ass, hair messily spiked up with a slight twinge of orange (but not enough to get in trouble for), with gleaming brown eyes and a general distaste for English, I will get a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat.

As I leave the class the boys lean out the corridor windows causing their blue button down shirts to become completely untucked: “SEE YOUU BECKI!!!” they grin.