Chapter 1 — Late Table Lady

Bus No. 7 suddenly braked in front of the gate of Tran Hung Dao High School, causing Le Khanh An to slide out of his seat and hug the stainless steel pole as if hugging a life preserver. A boy wearing a dinosaur backpack looked at her, then at the brand new white shoes stuck to the strap of his bag.

“Sister, if you're going to get down, don't pull my backpack too.”

An let go and apologized three times in the same breath. She'd prepared for her first day with a twelve-page presentation on how to fit in, but there wasn't a line on how to get off the bus without knocking over someone else's milk carton. The driver looked at her in the mirror, smiled gently and said: "School is here, little girl. Get off quickly so people behind you will think the car is parked to take pictures."

An walked down the sidewalk. The school's gate is painted faded green, and above is a nameplate whose corner has been blurred by the sun. From the yard came the sound of bouncing basketballs, the crackling sound of loudspeakers, and the smell of egg bread mixed with the smell of damp almond leaves. There was no red carpet, no assistant holding an umbrella, and no one standing ready to open the car door. Everything was so normal that An felt a bit emotional.

Her father called it “a year of learning how to live like a normal person.” An calls it a "survival project". Before getting off the bus, he confiscated her black card, turned off her payment account and gave her a cloth wallet containing three hundred thousand dong. He also signed a commitment that if An voluntarily revealed her identity or dropped out of school due to inconvenience, she would have to return to the boarding academy in Singapore.

“I just need to study,” An protested.

“No,” he replied. “You need to learn how to take responsibility for an ink-stained uniform, a wrongly bought meal, and an apology said at the right time.”

An didn't understand why those lessons were necessary to the point of cutting off her bank card. Until she stood in front of the class board and realized her name did not have the word "Le" in front. The school transfer records read "Khanh An", his hometown was changed to a ward more than thirty kilometers from his real home, and his guardian was his aunt who worked as an accountant. Her father had prepared a whole fake life, just missing teaching her to pretend not to know the price of a loaf of bread.

“What class are you looking for?” A male voice rang out from behind.

An returned. The boy is tall, thin, with short hair, holding a stack of notebooks in his hand. His uniform has been washed many times but is still clean. On the wrist there is a stain of machine oil that cannot be completely removed.

“11A4,” An said.

"Second floor, stairs on the left. If you go right, you will get lost in the laboratory and be forced to weigh the chemicals by the lady in charge."

“Have you ever been arrested?”

“I was the first one to get weighed.” He was so serious that An wasn't sure he was joking. "I'm Pham Minh Khang, class vice president. You just transferred in?"

"Yes. Khanh An."

Khang looked at her white shoes, the thin watch on her hand, and then at the canvas wallet she held tightly as if keeping a secret. His eyes stopped for exactly half a second, long enough to make An feel uncomfortable.

“Do you need me to show you the cafeteria?”

“I found it myself.”

"Good. Because I still don't remember where the cafeteria is after the roof was repaired."

An walked next to him across the yard. The school's bulletin board is covered with club posters. There was a flyer recruiting members for the radio team, a flyer recruiting people to repair stage props, and a flyer written in marker: "Whoever took the wrong braised fish lunch box, return it to class 10B2." An stopped reading for a long time.

“What do you find attractive?” Khang asked.

"Fish warehouse."

“I feel like the person who got it by mistake is likely living a very stressful life.”

Class 11A4 is located at the end of the hallway, where the sea breeze blows in and makes the curtains billow like sails. A short-haired girl was standing on a chair pasting a photo on the corner of the board. She turned down and squinted at An.

“Are you new? I'm Truc Mai. This place is full of tables, only the last table remains.”

“Is there a problem with the last table?” An asked.

“No. It's just that there's no one in front for you to ask questions about, no one in the back for you to blame, and it's near the window so every time it rains, a paper shark will swim in."

Gia Huy, a friend sitting across the teacher's desk, immediately raised his hand: "I confirm. Last year a paper shark ate my Physics exam.”

Teacher Hoang walked in just as Huy was about to continue talking. The teacher put the notebook on the table, looked at the class and then looked at An. “You just moved in?”

An stood up and briefly introduced himself. She tried not to say she had studied at an international school with an indoor swimming pool, because that wouldn't have helped her find a seat. Teacher Hoang just nodded and told her to sit next to Truc Mai at the last table, close to the window.

The desk had a star-shaped engraving and the drawers were stuck. An tried pulling, the whole table shook, Truc Mai's pen rolled to the ground. Mai bent down to pick it up and whispered: "Don't pull too hard. It only opens when convinced.”

An try again. The drawer doesn't budge.

“We could use lube,” she said.

Mai looked at her as if she had just heard a student suggest calling the rescue team because she lost her eraser. “Or use a ruler. Here everything is opened with a ruler.”

Khang turned down from the table and gave An a plastic ruler. “Slide into the slot on the left, lift slightly and pull. Don't try to win it. This table has already won three student courses.”

An followed. The drawer opened, inside were a mint candy, two pieces of chalk and a folded piece of paper. She opened it and saw the scrawled words: "If you sit here, remember not to trust the person at the head table."

An looked up. The person at the head of the table was Quynh Nhu, the class president, looking down at her with an overly polite smile.

The first class period passed by a list of rules, a duty schedule, and a debate about who lost the class scissors. An took careful notes. She wanted to prove that she was serious, wanted to become such a normal student that no one would suspect her. But when Mr. Hoang asked, "Who knows how to make a cost spreadsheet for a class project?", her hand rose before she could stop him.

The whole class was silent.

Huy cupped his chin: "You just seem normal in a very suspicious way."

An lowered his hand. “I just… did a few spreadsheets.”

“Pencil buying spreadsheet or airplane buying spreadsheet?” Mai leaned in to ask.

Before An could answer, the sound of the drum signaling the opening to play rang out. The hallway was immediately filled with the sound of slippers dragging and calls to each other. Khang stood up and reminded the class to line up for the cafeteria. An looked at the crowd of people jostling each other, his heart suddenly tightened. At the old school, lunches were pre-ordered and brought to the table. Here, a long line is moving towards the steaming pots of rice.

Mai pulled her hand. “Let's go, little… ah, An.”

An raised his eyebrows because the word "pee" was interrupted. Mai pretended to cough.

At the end of the yard, an old wooden table has a sign "Last table". Huy pointed at it: “The class's unwritten rules. Whoever sits at the last table must eat together on the first day."

“Who made this law?” An asked.

“Me. I was also the only one who complied.”

Khang put down the rice tray and said: “Huy put it down because No one wants to sit with him.”

An burst out laughing. That was the first time that day she laughed without considering whether the volume was appropriate for a young lady or not. She sat down on a plastic chair, looking at a tray of rice with fried eggs, spinach and a bowl of squash soup. The taste was nothing like any lunch she had ever eaten, but Mai and Huy's laughter made it suddenly taste better.

An did not know that by the end of the year, the last table would hold her biggest secrets. All she knew was that the first day had begun with a sudden brake, a nasty drawer, and a guy with motor oil stains on his wrist. For a survival project, that's enough to score points.

After lunch, Mr. Hoang assigned the class to divide into groups for daily duty. An took on the task of cleaning the board because he thought it was the simplest job. She took a towel and sprayed too much glass cleaner, making the board surface shiny but so slippery that the chalk didn't stick. Huy tried writing a letter, the letter "A" slid down into a long white streak.

“You just invented the touch panel,” Huy said.

Mai gave An a dry towel. “Squeeze out the water. At school everything has to be just right.”

An wiped the board again, this time more slowly. Khang stood next to check the edge of the board, showing her where chalk dust often stuck. When the board was clean, Mr. Hoang wrote the schedule on it. An looked at the neat lines of writing and saw that even a small thing could affect the whole class if done lightly.

At the end of the class, she mistakenly went to the old classroom. The hallway is empty, there is a piano covered with a towel and dry potted plants. Khang found her, holding the key to the tool shed in her hand.

“Are you sightseeing?”

“I'm looking for the bathroom.”

“The bathroom is in the opposite direction.”

“I know. I just want to check out the architecture.”

Khang looked at the piano. “The school used to have a music club. Haven't used it in a few years.”

"Why?"

“There is no one in charge, the strings are broken, the room leaks.”

An touched the edge of the coverlet. She remembers that the rooms in her father's hotel were always fixed before guests could see them. Here, broken things can sit for years because no one has the budget or time.

“Does anyone want to use it again?” she asked.

“Maybe. But wanting is not enough.”

“So what do you need?”

“One person starts.”

Khang gave her the key, then changed his mind and opened the warehouse door himself. The two examined old boards for the project. An realizes that every corner of the school has an untold story, and if she wants to live like a normal student, she must learn to listen before suggesting.

On the bus home, An texted her father that she had gone to class and had not done anything serious. Father replied: “Have you had lunch yet?” An sent a photo of the rice tray, then added: "A box was taken by mistake but was found again." Her father asked her if she needed the driver to stop by to buy something else. An looked at the message, typed "no", deleted it, then typed again: "No need. I can eat it.”

The car stopped at the stop, An got off by mistake again. She had to go back, but this time she didn't panic. A student accompanying her showed her a shortcut through the trees. An thanked him, then wrote down the station's name in the book. The first day ended with small errors that could be fixed. She began to believe she could make it a year, as long as she didn't try to do everything in one day.