Snakes and scorpions

Today, as we were holding our daily @-the-back-club chattering, talking about us in general like we always do, we hit on a subject of Andrea.

And Andrea who was sitting a chair's length away, talking to Emily suddenly turned over at the mention of her name and said the word she says every day:

"Say! What did you say?"

Maxine: How did you hear what I was saying? You were talking over there!

Abigail: *logically* She has two ears.

*moment of silence as Maxine forgets that everybody has two ears*

Maxine: OH! TRUE!

Anyway, after the snake in classroom drama not very long ago, today there was yet another drama involving yet another dangerous animal.

And our reactions were about the same as before.

Once upon a time, when Andrea screamed "Snake!", people reacted like this:

Maxine: True or not?

Olivia: You joking hia?

Maryann: *lying asleep on table*

Abigail: *reading book peacefully*

Emily: *stares*

And then when Andrea did not burst out laughing, everybody stared some more.

And then they saw the snake move.

And THEN (finally)...

"SNAKE!"

*sounds of people shifting to safer spot*

And today,

Twas the period right after recess in the Music Room.

I was there to finish off the cupcake I bought after having been taken on a guilt trip.

And those lucky robotics people who get to go to Bintulu on Wednesday were practising peacefully inside.

Then I told Alicia her Bible Quiz marks and she was so overjoyed at her marks that she started skipping across the Music Room.

When she stopped to fascinate at a scorpion and asked, "What's that?"

So our reactions were:

Me: Is it real?

Clarissa: It's dead?

Alicia: It's fake.

Amy: Step it.

For awhile, we stared at it in awe. Then we started to scrutinise it to confirm whether it's a toy.

Me: It's not moving.

Alicia: There're cobwebs over it.

Amy: STEP IT!

Alicia: It must be either fake or dead.

Me: *nudges it to one side*

And we stared some more....

Amy: It's not moving.

Alicia: It's fake.

Me: It's dead.

And THEN (finally)...

It moved.

Us in unison: *monotonously* Ah.. ahh..

Alicia: *runs to open the door*

Me: *steps away from the scorpion*

Amy: *looking amused*

And Clarissa, the winning reaction:

She went and grabbed the plastic from the Robotics mat and tried to capture the scorpion because she wanted to preserve it for science.

Whatever happened to the good old catching of grasshoppers?

So anyway, after much fussing, they got the scorpion safely caught in a plastic cup given by Gurprit.

I think that maybe we are just a little too urban that snakes and scorpions are completely not related to our lives. Add that to the pranks people like to play with fake toys in the market. So when we do come across one, we just go "Really meh?"

Coz it'll be rather silly to freak out over a toy snake.

I think.