The Rainbow Troops

by Andrea Hirata

  He bashfully pointed at Trapani. Mister Samadikun and Bu Mus looked at Trapani.

  Trapani was puzzled.

  "Don't be shy," coaxed Mister Samadikun.

  Harun pointed at Trapani again. No one understood Harun's peculiar behavior, but I knew what was going on. One day, back when we were in first grade, Harun invited me to climb up to the top of the highest minaret of alHikmah Mosque. He wanted somewhere quiet with no one around so he could tell me what he wanted to be when he grew up. Only I was entrusted with this information. So I wouldn't spill the beans, he bribed me with three boiled caladium tubers. I placed one hand on the three snacks and raised the other high in the air to swear that I would keep his secret.

  In my mind, because Harun pointed to Trapani, he had spilled the beans himself and revealed his secret aspiration. I then considered myself free of my caladium tuber oath. When Mister Samadikun kept pushing Harun to answer, I couldn't help it and I spoke up.

  "When he grows up, Harun wants to be Trapani," I said. Everyone was taken aback. Harun smiled widely, lowered his head, and his body shook as he tried to hold back his laughter.

  We all admired Trapani; he was the most polished and handsome of us all. So Harun quietly aspired to be Trapani when he grew up. The problem, of course, was that this aspiration was rather difficult to achieve, considering the fact that Harun was much older than Trapani.

  Mister Samadikun shot Bu Mus a taunting glare. Five years of education here and Harun hadn't advanced one bit. Mister Samadikun was not yet satisfied.

  "OK, Harun, final test. What is two plus two?"

  This time he had gone too far. Mister Samadikun had intentionally chosen a ridiculously simple question that even children not yet in school could answer, all for the sake of insulting Bu Mus.

  Harun was surprised and quickly turned to face Mister Samadikun. He gave off an impression that said: Ah, that is an easy question! Two plus two? Why wouldn't I know the answer? Of course I know!

  Harun approached Mister Samadikun. He walked with authority. "Mister," he said calmly, "you are kidding, right?"

  "No, Harun, this is serious. I want to know what you have been learning all this time."

  "Ah, Mister, you've got to be kidding me! That is a simple counting question. I have already studied addition. I can do it up into the hundreds, no problem!"

  "That's great, Harun."

  Harun still thought he was kidding.

  "I'm in fifth grade, Mister. Soon I will be in junior high. Isn't there a more difficult question?"

  Upon seeing Harun's confidence, Mister Samadikun's face went stiff. He was aware that he had made a fatal error. The question was too easy! He was sorry he had asked such an easy question. He should have made it two times two.

  It was a grave situation for Mister Samadikun. If Harun could answer, then his plan would have backfired. It would mean Bu Mus has successfully educated Harun. If this were a movie, Mister Samadikun's earlier victory in cornering Bu Mus would have been the climax, and the plot would be all downhill from here. He would lose his reason for expelling Harun. We would still have ten students in our class, and as long as there were ten of us, even the Minister of Education of the Republic of Indonesia couldn't shut us down.

  Bu Mus hugged her chest. She was tense, but she believed Harun could answer. She had been intensively working with Harun on the subject of addition. We prayed to God almighty, hoping Harun would answer correctly. Sahara's and Mahar's eyes were glassy. We were hopelessly in love with our poor school; we didn't want to lose it. What would become of us without it? But never fear, for the second time, after making ten students, Harun would save us again. Such an easy question certainly wouldn't give him any trouble. For the second time, Harun would be our hero.

  "Do you still want to hear the answer, Mister?" Harun challenged while glancing proudly at his idol Trapani out the corners of his eyes. Mister Samadikun had no choice. He couldn't take back his stupid question—he was too proud to correct himself and replace it with a harder one. He responded to Harun despondently: "Yes, Harun, how much is two plus two? Do you know the answer?"

  "Of course I know," he folded his arms across his chest, "Piece of cake."

  "How much, Harun?"

  Harun's hand shot up as he confidently yelled, "Three!"

  Chapter 11

  Full Moon

  "YOU HAVE only one more chance, and if there's no improvement, you're finished!" Mister Samadikun bluntly threatened Bu Mus.

  The unexpected and embarrassing inspection was over, and Mister Samadikun began going through the motions required to complete his report. He summoned the photographer to take pictures of our school from various angles. Each time he took a shot, Harun tried to jump in the photo. When the photographer was snapping a shot of the backside of the school, Harun's head suddenly popped up above the windowsill, wearing a wide smile and displaying his long, yellow chompers. He didn't have a clue that these photos were being taken to drag him down and close our school; he was focused on his poses in the pictures. After the photos were printed and exhibited by Mister Samadikun, it was clear that the degree to which our school building leaned to one side had reached a disturbing level. It was more or less like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We knew the report and the photos would be distributed as widely as Mister Samadikun could manage.

  But Bu Mus didn't waver. She inspired us, as usual, by quoting a holy verse.

  "Just be patient," she coaxed. "After hardships, easier times will surely come."

  Every time she said that, we became more convinced that the struggle for a virtuous goal, while sometimes hard in the beginning, would prevail in the end. In just a few powerful words, without a long-winded speech, Bu Mus had inspired us with the determination to fight for our school, no matter what. That, my friend, is what they call charisma.

  Even though she was worried, Bu Mus didn't let the Mister Samadikun problem get her down. Her attention had been stolen by Lintang.

  Ever since Lintang filled out that form back in the first grade, Bu Mus had a sneaking suspicion he was gifted. Later, like a blacksmith filing the blade of a knife, Bu Mus meticulously sharpened Lintang's mind. Gradually, in Bu Mus' steady hands, the coastal boy's intelligence began to shine.

  Our entire class was enchanted with Lintang. My God, that seashell-collecting boy was sharp. His index finger incessantly pointed upward as a sign that he knew the answer. His bright eyes radiated intelligence and his forehead lit up like a light bulb. Curiosity possessed him, and compelled him to constantly ask questions. Bu Mus and Pak Harfan didn't even know what to do with him.

  He was the fastest at folding paper into geometric shapes; he was the best at reading. But his most obvious talent was math. While we still stammered through evennumber addition, he already was skilled with odd-number multiplication.

  The rest of us were barely able to dictate mathematical problems and he was already astute in dividing decimals, calculating roots and finding exponents—he could even fully explain their operational relationships in logarithmic tables. His only weakness, if it could even be called a weakness, was his chaotic chicken scratch handwriting. Maybe it was so bad because the motor skills of his fingers couldn't keep up with his racing logic, running as swift as a deer.

  "Thirteen times six, times seven, plus eighty-three, minus thirty-nine!" Bu Mus challenged from the front of the classroom.

  We hastily took the rubber bands off our handful of twigs, took out 13 of them—six times—and painstakingly added each set. The result was replicated as we arranged six more piles of twigs numbering the same as the first. Each pile was counted one by one as a result of two phases of multiplication. Then 83 twigs were added, and 39 were taken away. Our brains were much too full to hear the logical signals that would have told us to take the practical route and first subtract 39 from 83. Sidetracking from common thinking, even only slightly, would ruin the Algebra. It took us an average of seven minutes to solve a problem. It was definitely an effective method, but
not efficient. It was a lengthy and bothersome process.

  In the meantime, Lintang, who wasn't even touching a twig, didn't think like common people. He only closed his eyes for a moment, and not more than five seconds later, he yelled out, "590!"

  He wasn't even off by a digit, which broke our spirits while we were busily arranging our twigs, not yet finished with the first phase of the operation. I was irritated but amazed. That was on the first day of second grade.

  "Great, coastal boy, excellent!" praised Bu Mus. She was tempted to test the extent of Lintang's intellectual power, "18 times 14 times 23 plus 11 plus 14 times 16 times 7!"

  We became discouraged, puzzled, measly gripping our twigs. In less than seven seconds, without even writing down one digit, without hesitation or haste, without blinking, Lintang bellowed, "651,952!"

  "Full moon, Lintang! Your answer is as beautiful as a full moon! Where have you been hiding all this time?"

  Bu Mus made every effort to stifle her giddy laughter. It was out of the question for Bu Mus to laugh boisterously—her religious beliefs forbade it. Instead, she shook her head with approval as a sign of her salute, and looked at Lintang as if she had been searching her whole life for a student like him.

  We, on the other hand, were bursting with questions about how Lintang was able to do all that. This was his recipe: "First learn the odd number multiplication tables by heart—those are tricky. Leave the last digits out of two digit multiplication problems; it's easier to multiply numbers that end in zero. Do the rest later, and don't eat so much that you are too full; it clogs your ears and slows down your brain."

  His answer was innocent enough, but if you listened to it, even though he had just entered the second grade, by developing his own techniques for localizing the difficulty, analyzing it and solving it, Lintang already showed signs of highly cognitive complex. It was undeniable; there was outstanding logic behind his funny suggestion.

  As time went by, Lintang soon found that the main feature of his intellect was his spatial intelligence—he was very advanced in multidimensional geometry. He could quickly imagine the surfaces of an object from different angles. He could solve complicated modern decomposition cases and taught us the technique of calculating the area of polygons by breaking down its sides using the Euclidian Theorem. I would have to say that these are not easy matters.

  Lintang was not only bright, he was also intellectually creative. He was experimenting in formulating his own donkey bridge method for memorizing things. For instance, he designed his own configuration of the body: respiratory system, digestive system, motions and senses for humans, vertebrates and invertebrates.

  So if we asked him about how worms pee, we had to be ready to receive a precise, chronological, detailed and very clever explanation about how the microvilli work. Then, as relaxed as a monkey picking out lice, he analogized the worm's urinary system to the excretion system of protozoa through the very complicated anatomy of contractile vacuole. If no one stopped him, he would gladly carry on and explain the functions of the cortex, Bowman's capsule, medulla, and the Malpighian corpuscle in the human excretion system. Because of his own donkey bridge design, Lintang would master the whole excretion system as easily as squashing a bloated mosquito.

  Lintang was very excited whenever it was his turn to sweep Pak Harfan's office. When he was in there, he read about geometry, biology, geography, civics, history, algebra and various other subjects in books from Pak Harfan's collection. For Lintang, Pak Harfan's decrepit office was like an arsenal, and the weapon was information—it fed his neverending hunger for knowledge. Some of the books were in Dutch and English. Pak Harfan patiently guided Lintang and often let him borrow the books.

  Lintang was always obsessed with learning new things. Every piece of information was a fuse of knowledge that could blow him up at any moment.

  The following incident occurred on the same day he was saved by Bodenga, the crocodile shaman.

  "Al-Qur'an sometimes mentions names of places that must be interpreted carefully," Bu Mus explained during our history of Islam lesson, an obligatory subject in Muhammadiyah schools. Don't even dream of moving up to the next grade with a failing score in that class.

  "For instance, the nearest land conquered by the Persian army in the year ..."

  "620 AD! Persia conquered Heraclius' Empire, which was also threatened by Mesopotamian, Sicilian and Palestinian rebellions. It was also attacked by the Avars, Slavs and Armenians," Lintang eagerly interrupted. We were stunned; Bu Mus smiled. She put her ego aside, not minding her lecture being cut short. Since the beginning, she had indeed deliberately created this kind of atmosphere in our classroom. Facilitating her students' learning intellects was the most important thing for her. We learned later in life that not every teacher possesses this kind of quality.

  "That nearest land is ..."

  "Byzantium! The former name of Constantinople, the proud city of the Great Constantine. Seven years later, Byzantium took back its independence, the independence that had been written in the holy book but denied by the non-Muslim Arabs. Why is it called the nearest land, Ibunda Guru? Why was the holy book defied?"

  "Patience, my child. The answer to your question involves interpretations of Ar-Ruum—which involves at least 1,400 years of knowledge. We will study interpretations later when you are in junior high school."

  "No way, Ibunda Guru. This morning I was almost swallowed by a crocodile. I don't have time to wait. Explain it all and explain it now."

  We cheered, and for the first time we understood the meaning of adnal ardli, literally the nearest land, and interpretively the lowest land on the earth. That place was none other than Byzantium in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. We were delighted, certainly not because of adnal ardli, let alone Byzantium, but because we were amazed by Lintang's drive to challenge himself. We were lucky to witness the evolution of this child's thinking. And as it turns out, if the heart is not envious of one with knowledge, then it can be illuminated by the rays of enlightenment. Like stupidity, intelligence is contagious.

  "Come on guys, don't let this curlyhaired coastal boy be the only one to answer," urged Bu Mus.

  That was about the time when I was tempted to answer, feeling hesitant, awkward and unsure—which usually resulted in me being wrong. Lintang would correct my answers with the spirit of friendship.

  I studied hard every night, but never was I even a little close, not even a little, to surpassing Lintang. My grades were a tad better than the class average but way below his. I was always in Lintang's shadow. Since the first quarter of the first grade, I perpetually received the second rank—it would never change, just as the surface of the moon will always look to me like a mother holding her baby. My archrival, my number one enemy, was my friend and deskmate, whom I loved like a brother.

  God didn't just bless Lintang with brains. He also blessed him with a beautiful personality. When we had trouble with subjects, he helped us patiently and always encouraged us. His superiority didn't threaten those around him, his brilliance didn't cause jealousy, and his greatness didn't give off even the slightest hint of arrogance. We were proud of him and fell for him both as a humble friend and an extraordinarily intelligent student. The poor Lintang was the most precious pearl and galena of our class. He was a breath of fresh air for our school, which had been ignored for so long. Lintang and the magnetism of his mind slowly became our new life-force. He marched to the beat of his own drum. He was the mantra in our gurindam rhymes—two-lined aphorisms.

  Then came news that made our hearts race. Our school was invited to participate in an Academic Challenge in the regional capital, Tanjong Pandan. The challenge was held every year—it was very prestigious.

  It had been a very long time since we last participated in the challenge. Our experience participating in past challenges only made people further look down on our school. We always lost by a landslide. So to avoid being shamed, we just decided not to compete at all.

  Now, L
intang could probably change that. Even though our competitors from the PN and state schools were awfully intelligent and had won at the national level, Lintang gave us a sense of confidence. Would he be able to defeat them? Would his scrawny body be able to prop up our collapsing school—the school that probably wouldn't even receive any new students the following year?

  Lintang had no choice but to study diligently. Consequently, his first quarter report card in the fifth grade was truly fantastic. The number nine filled the slots from Faith Studies, Al-Qur'an, Fiqh, Islamic History, Geography, all the way to English. For Mathematics and other such subjects—Geometry and Natural Sciences—Bu Mus dared to give him a perfect score: 10.

  The lowest grade on Lintang's report card was six—for Art class. While he tried as hard as he could and mobilized all his intellectual power, he couldn't get an eight—not even a seven—because he couldn't compete with the eccentric young man with a skinny body and a handsome face sitting off in the corner. This enchanting boy was Trapani's deskmate. He constantly got an eight in Art. Always wearing a mischievous smile, Mahar was his name.

  Chapter 12

  He Betrayed Harmony

  PAPILIO BLuMEI, the captivating tropical black butterflies with blue-green stripes, visited the tips of the filicium leaves. Moments later, they were followed by other species: the pure clouded yellow butterfly and the Danube clouded yellow butterfly.

  Only experts can tell the difference between the two similarly named species. Their Latin names, respectively, are Colias crocea and Colias myrmidone. To the untrained eye, both are equally flawless in their beauty, which is implied by their elegant names.

  Unlike small birds with aggressive and exhibitionist dispositions, these mute creatures have a short lifespan and are completely unaware of their own beauty. And even though there were hundreds of them, the flutter of their wings and their sweet mouths were silent as they wandered about, creating a vision even more stunning than the Garden of Eden. Seeing them made me feel like writing poems.