Chapter 2 — The Thirteenth Desk Drawer

The next morning, the person standing near the window was Mr. Phuc, vice principal in charge of facilities. The teacher came to class 11A7 with a stack of inventory forms and a polite smile. Behind the teacher is a girl wearing a white shirt, shoulder-length hair, introducing herself as Tuong Vy, representative of the project consulting unit for block C. She did not look at the students but at the walls, as if the classroom was priced into each square meter.

“The school only did a preliminary survey,” Mr. Phuc said. “You guys just keep studying normally.”

An Khe looked at Khoi. He was using a pencil to tap on the tabletop in a short rhythm. Three hours, break, two hours. She realized it was the tapping rhythm of someone trying not to say anything. Last night's piece of paper was in her purse, the sentence "the first person to lie" made her unable to stop looking at Mr. Phuc.

Tuong Vy asked the homeroom teacher: "Have all the old desks in the warehouse been liquidated?"

"Already."

That was the first lie. It was said very lightly, to the point that if he didn't know that table number 13 was still behind the tarpaulin, An Khe probably would have missed it. She looked at Khoi. He didn't look up, but the pencil tip stopped.

After second period, Khoi pulled her to the bathroom at the end of the hallway. "I'll remove the wood at noon. You guard the door."

“If caught?”

“Tell me I'm fixing the table.”

“Are you good at lying?”

“No. So you said.”

An Khe didn't know whether to laugh or be angry. She had just transferred schools less than two days before she was dragged into an illegal desk removal case. But the thought of the table being taken away bothered her more than the risk of being fined. At noon, Hao and two other friends went down to the cafeteria. She pretended to stay behind to complete her duty, while Khoi took the toolbox into the warehouse.

The classroom was empty, only the sound of fans and paper knives scraping against wood. An Khe stood at the door, looking through the hallway. Teacher Phuc just passed by with Tuong Vy. She vaguely heard: "Must be cleared by Friday. The buyer doesn't want to see the old property."

“Old property” is what adults call the room that once contained hundreds of classes, hundreds of tests and the names of students who have graduated. An Khe returned. Khoi was kneeling in front of the table, carefully cutting the extra layer of wood. He did it very slowly, each piece falling like fish scales.

“There are screws inside,” Khoi said. "It's not a temporary closure. The person who did it intentionally locked the compartment."

“What do you think Mai has hidden?”

“Maybe it's money.”

“What if it's money?”

“So everything people say about her could be wrong.”

A crash sounded in the hallway. An Khe signaled. Khoi immediately crawled under the table, while she stood blocking the warehouse door, pretending to bend to tie her shoe laces. Tuong Vy appeared, holding the phone.

“What did you find here?”

“I dropped my pen.”

“My pen is in my hand.”

An Khe looked down. It is true that she is holding a pen. Tuong Vy looked at her for a few seconds, then looked into the dark warehouse. “You just transferred schools?”

"Yes."

“So you should know that some things are none of your business.”

"I think so too. But if the adults have already done the inventory, why do you have to go into the warehouse yourself?"

Tuong Vy squinted her eyes slightly. She did not answer. The phone vibrated, she turned to answer it. Meanwhile, Khoi quietly pulled An Khe inside and closed the door. The two of them hid behind the chair rack. An Khe clearly heard Tuong Vy's voice in the hallway: "No, but the new student has noticed. Table number 13 is still there."

Khoi looked at her. This time, he didn't need to say it out loud that they had been seen.

Tuong Vy left after a few minutes. Khoi continued to disassemble. Finally, the layer of wood peeled off to reveal a thin cavity only as wide as a hand. There was no money or documents inside, only a silver tape recorder, a copper key and a yellowed piece of paper.

The piece of paper reads: **The real book is in a place where no one wants to read it. The person who holds the key is not the person who holds the door.**

Khoi holds the recorder. The battery is dead, but the back cover is intact. He removed the battery, wiped the contacts with an eraser, then tried installing a spare battery. The machine lights up. The small screen shows a single file named “07-13”.

An Khe held her breath when the screeching sound rang out. Then came a young girl's voice: "If anyone can hear, it means the table is still there. I didn't take the money. I'm just looking for the book to prove that it wasn't me who took the money. But the teacher said if I say anything again, my mother will lose her job."

The voice stopped for a few seconds. The sound of a chair being dragged echoed into the recording. The girl continued: "I hid the copy in a place where everyone passes by, but no one wants to open it. Desk drawer number 13 is not a secret place. It is a reminder that adults can be afraid too."

The recording ends with a question: "If one day the school sells block C, who will tell me?"

An Khe felt her palm cold. Khoi removed the memory card from the phone and put it in his pocket.

“Don't keep just one copy,” she said.

“I know.”

“Must back up.”

"I'll do it on my grandmother's computer. The school computer may be inspected."

Khoi put the recorder back in the right place, but kept the copper key in his hand. On the body of the key is engraved a symbol shaped like an open book.

That afternoon, the homeroom teacher called An Khe to the teacher's room. On the table was a piece of cream-colored paper that she thought was still in her wallet. The teacher asked her where she got it. An Khe said she found it in a book. The teacher said not to spread baseless stories. "Mai left school a long time ago. No one wants her to be dragged out again."

“If no one wants to mention it, why do you know the piece of paper?”

The teacher did not respond. An Khe saw in her hand a small key with an open book symbol. The teacher quickly pulled her sleeve to cover it.

“Go back to class.”

On the way home, An Khe sent a text message to Khoi: **The person holding the key is standing right in front of me.**

Khoi answered after a minute: **Don't ask the teacher. Look where no one wants to read.**

An Khe looked towards the library on the first floor. Since the day she transferred schools, she has not entered there. The library door had a sign saying "Temporarily closed for arrangements", but underneath there was a thin slit of light. A figure was sitting in the room, flipping through the pages of an old book.

When An Khe approached, the figure stood up. That's teacher Phuc. In the teacher's hand was not a book, but a notebook with a blue cover identical to the color of the yellowed piece of paper.

The teacher looked at her through the glass door, then raised a finger to his lips.

“You haven't seen anything,” the teacher said.

An Khe did not open the door. She turned away, but before going down the stairs, she saw Mr. Phuc stuff the notebook into a carton labeled **DAMAGED BOOK - DESTROYED**.

That evening, An Khe opened her notebook and wrote two lines: "Desk number 13 has a tape recorder. Teacher Phuc has a green notebook." She was about to write Khoi's name next to it, then stopped. You said you don't want others to decide the truth for you. She also didn't want to make him a name on the suspect list.

At that moment, the phone reported a new message from an unknown number.

**Tomorrow, the first person to cry will not be the one who has been wronged.**

An Khe looked at the screen for a long time. Outside the window, the sound of rain began to fall. At the end of the hallway, table number 13 is no longer in the warehouse. A metal wheel rolled across the tile floor, slowly moving towards class 11A7.

The next morning, An Khe went to school earlier than usual. The classroom door hadn't opened yet, but the desk was already there. Khoi squatted next to him and removed the misaligned wheel. He has a small toolbox in which each screwdriver is labeled with colored tape.

“When did you move it out of storage?”

"Last night. Ms. Hanh said that if left there, rainwater would damage the table legs."

“The text message from yesterday was from you?”

Khoi looked up. “What message?”

An Khe did not give her the phone. She only told about the piece of paper. After hearing this, Khoi did not laugh. He raised his hand and tapped lightly on the table. A hollow sound rang out to the left.

“This table has two layers of wood,” he said. "I discovered it during the repair earlier this summer. There was a small compartment below, but it was nailed shut."

“Have you opened it yet?”

"No. They said the things in there don't belong to me."

An Khe found that statement strange. People often open things that make them curious, then think about ownership. Khoi seems to have had to learn to stop in front of the door, even though he really wants to know what's behind.

Two people used flashlights to shine along the edge of the wood. There is a thin seam that runs under the table top. Not enough to slip a finger through, but enough to realize it had been removed. An Khe looked for a ruler, Khoi looked for wood glue. Neither of them opened the compartment. They just took a photo of the location, recorded the date and reported it to Ms. Hanh.

During the activity, Ms. Hanh asked the class if anyone knew the history of block C. One friend said it was an old classroom, once used as a remedial class. Tuong Vy mentioned a rumor about a student who was expelled for stealing scholarship money. The whole class stirred, then fell silent when Ms. Hanh looked up.

“Rumors are not records,” she said. “But a rumor repeated too long often obscures a real question.”

An Khe wrote that sentence in the notebook. Khoi, sitting at the next table, used a pen to underline the word "file". After class, he told her she could borrow the club's tool book to check where the table used to be. The list spans many years, with signatures constantly changing. In the September 2010 line, there is a name smeared with blue ink.

“Someone tried to delete it,” An Khe said.

“Or it's just that the signer made a mistake and then corrected it.”

“Do you always find reasons for things to be normal?”

Khoi put away his pen. “I find reasons not to accuse anyone before I have evidence.”

In the afternoon, An Khe discovered that on the bottom of the drawer there was a small engraving: "Mai - 11A7". She doesn't know who Mai is. Khoi knew, but he didn't say. He just closed the drawer, as if the name might break if called too loudly.