“Name?” he interrupts, now taking out some kind of expensive-looking tablet to record my details. Ever since our school decided to go completely paper-free a few years back, there’s been no end to the amount of unnecessary technology they’ve brought in. Even the menus at our cafeteria are all digital now.
“Chinese name is Sun Yan. English name is Alice Sun.”
“Year level?”
“Year Twelve.”
“Student ID?” He must catch the look on my face, because his frown deepens. “Xiao pengyou, if you don’t have your student ID—”
“N-no, no, it’s not that—okay, look, I’m getting it,” I grumble, fishing my card out and holding it up for him to see. We took our student ID photos during exam season last year, and as a result, I look like something that just crawled out of a gutter in mine: my usually sleek black ponytail is an oily mess from a week of skipping hair washing to revise, my face is covered with stress blemishes, and there are giant dark circles sagging under my eyes.
I swear I see the security guard raise his eyebrows slightly at my photo, but at least the gates heave open a few moments later, creaking to a stop beside the two guardian stone lions facing the streets. Scooping up the last of my dignity, I thank him and hurry inside.
Whoever designed the Airington school campus clearly intended to create an artistic blend of Eastern and Western, old and modern architectural elements. It’s why the main entrance is paved with flat, wide tiles like those in the Forbidden City, and farther down are artificial Chinese gardens with koi ponds and tiered pagodas with slanting vermillion roofs, but the actual school buildings are built with polished floor-to-ceiling windows and glass bridges stretching over slices of green lawn.
If I’m being honest though, it looks more like someone started filming one of those ancient Chinese costume dramas here and forgot to clean up the set.
It doesn’t help that everything is so spread out. It takes me almost ten minutes to run across the courtyard, around the science building, and into the auditorium, and by then, the vast, brightly lit space is already packed with students.
Excited voices bounce off the walls like waves off a shore. The volume is even louder than usual as people launch into monologues on everything they did over the summer. I don’t even need to listen to know the details; it was all over Instagram, from Rainie Lam’s bikini pics at some villa the Kardashians once stayed in, to Chanel Cao’s many filtered selfies on her parents’ new yacht.
As the noise reaches a crescendo, I scan the auditorium for a place to sit—or, to be more accurate, people I can sit beside. I’m friendly enough with everybody, but the social divisions are still there, shaped by everything from your first language (English and Mandarin are most common, followed by Korean, Japanese, and Canto) to how many times you’ve achieved something impressive enough to be featured in the school’s monthly newsletter. I guess it’s the closest thing to a meritocracy you could expect to get in a place like this, except Henry Li’s been featured fifteen times in his four years here.