The next class was Tamil and it took place on open ground under a tree. Mrs. Lakshmi must have had prior experience with the law of stink, she didn't even bother to teach us, she just let us sit as far away from her as possible.

Two hours of Tamil class was fun. I must add it was at my expense. Girls asked me to write various letters in Tamil which were 247 in total. And I knew about 12 letters. The script looks like this "அ ஆ இ ஈ உ ஊ எ ஏ ஐ ஒ ஓ க" What I wrote looked like shapes formed from badly spilled noodles, the actual script looks like spilled noodles too but that's a moot point.

I made three new friends Tamil, P.Saranya, and Ramya. Wondering about my new friends' names? South Indian people love their language; profound enough to name their kids 'Tamil'. I wonder why no one in England is called 'English'. Saranya is the most popular name here, there were 3 Saranyas in my class, so everyone calls her P.Saranya.

My new friends wasted no time mentoring me on how to navigate the school. Our class can be generally divided into 3 categories.

1. Padipali: Nerd or person who studies hard to become a nerd. Senthil is in this category. He is quite literally boring. I say, remove your shirt and be as boring as you want.

2. Rowdy: Yes! The Bad boy! But there was no custom leather jacket! No black bro dress code! No tattoos! No sunglasses! No gym body muscles! And importantly no queen bees! An only distinct characteristic of a bad boy is they refuse to button the "first" button on their uniform. Believe me, this is considered rebellious!

3. The Rest: This is a wide variety combined together. I am good-looking so people usually forget that I am a "Padipali" too.

Tip 1: Don't teach the difference between a country and continent

The next class was the physics lab. We were to find the value of gravitational force using a spring gauge. If you don't know what it is, just imagine a spring, you have to add weights to it and pull it down, timing each jump, do some complex math calculation and find the value of gravitational force. All you have to do is make sure the answer is always 9.8 m/s2. Because some scientist has already found it.

Since I was the latest admission to the school, I was given the last roll number. So I paired with 3 boys whose names started with T or more precisely Thiru - Thiruselvam, Thirupati, and Thirumalai. All three thiru had their first button undone. Senthil was paired with 3 Saranyas in an adjacent table.

"Me name Thirupati, How you?" asked Thirupati in broken English.

"Hi, I am Ananya Srivatsav. I am fine," I said in perfect Tamil, he looked at me as if I were an Alien.

"You know Tamil, but you got a zero and you are from USA."

"We speak Tamil at home and I come from Canada."

"That is USA correct."

"No USA and Canada are different countries."

"Everyone said you come from America?"

"Yes, I come from North America."

He looked at me as though I was mad, "North America, USA what's the difference?"

I completely gave up. There was no point in explaining the difference between a continent and a country to him. "Yes my bad, I come from USA."

Tip 2: Don't give vague instructions

Senthil was monitoring our exchange with narrowed eyes, how do I know he is watching me? You won't believe me if I say I have a sixteenth sense that lets me know when a hot guy is watching me without even looking. I set up the apparatus, making the spring gauge and stopwatch ready.

"What should I do?" asked Thiruselvam.

"Add 1 kg weight and pull it. I will measure the time."

I wasn't clear with my instruction and he did. Instead of pulling it downwards as it should be, he pulled it like a catapult and set the weight flying directly to Thirupati's head. Thirupati howled, clutching his head.

I shrieked and ran near him, "Oh my god! Let me see."

When he pulled his hand down there was a reddish mark on his forehead.

Tip 3: Don't start a Cult war

Thiruselvam laughed, clutching his stomach.

"It's not funny," roared Thirupati.

Suddenly there was movement around me. I was standing in the middle of two groups, who gave murderous glances at each other.

"You did that to make yourself look good," thundered Thirupati.

"She sided with us, it was her idea," roared Thiruselvam.

"I spoke to her first, she is our game."

"But she has chosen our side."

I didn't listen to the rest of the argument as P.Saranya pulled me out of the class, just as the bell rang. Apparently, I was mistaken in thinking that there was just one gang and now they were fighting over me. Shame! There was not even a single guy who got my eyes. It would have been an epic romance story. Who am I kidding, maybe just a normal romance story with decent readers.

Tip 4: Don't keep eyeing the nerd

The rest of the day was uneventful, Mohan Sir cornered me during the break to inform me, we had volleyball practice that evening. I sighed heavily, I was already giving a heavy odour, how much I would stink when I got home is anyone's guess.

I went to the volleyball field after school. To my surprise, Senthil was standing in line with some juniors and "button" boys, the name I gave my school's bad boys. Why I was surprised I don't know, maybe I expected Senthil to just read all day. I never saw him speak to anyone, he was always busy working or studying.

I played middle blocker. We were split into two teams, each team had 3 good players and 3 'undecided's. No, I was not picked as a good player. Senthil was in my opposite team and yes he was picked as a good player.

Don't sigh "is there anything he wasn't good at!" He is socially awkward if you ask me. Any decent guy will so much as look at me for all the looks I was giving him.

We stood in a line facing the opponent team. Senthil's hands clenched, the reason for it came clear in a few seconds. Thirumala, who I thought was a silent one, leaned closer to me and whispered, "you are eyeing the wrong guy if you want to have real fun come to me."

Before I could retort, Mohan Sir gave a blast in his whistle signaling us to our position. To my disgust, Thirumala was the setter in our team, which placed him right behind me.

The match started and it was quite interesting. Undecided clearly didn't mean bad, it's just that these guys needed some practice.

Tip 5: (The only useful tip) Break the jerks nose

I felt someone bump into me, it was Thirumala. He wasn't just a jerk but a pervert too. I controlled my anger, maybe I am just being biased because of his comment earlier. The game continued and no one noticed him.

"Anu" called Thirumala as he soft touched the ball to me, I jumped and hit the ball, placing it perfectly and yes we scored. And he scored too in my moments of distraction. When I jumped he moved forward in my way, which made me stumble. He caught me by my hip before I could fall saying, "Careful there." And as before, he moved back before I could respond in kind.

No one noticed, except Senthil. He was almost ready to come to our side, his hands were clenched and he was shaking with anger. Our eyes met, I shook my head. He got my message and stayed on his side.

The game resumed, I was ready for Thirumala if he pulled any more similar stunts. You picked the wrong girl, boy. I was raised by Devika Aunty, who not only gave lectures about chastity but also tools and training to maintain it.

When I jumped to block the ball, Thirumala used similar tactics. I stumbled and at the right level, I brought my elbows back smashing his nose. I felt a satisfying crunch as his nose broke.

"Oh my god! Did I break your nose?" I couldn't keep the smirk off my face.

Too much blood spurted from his nose, I must have hit harder than expected. Well! you can't really hit in defence training, you just mimic the action. When I looked up Senthil was looking at me and only me, I smiled at him and he smiled back.

I know I was blushing, my cheeks were so warm I could feel the heat radiating from them, making me wish I had 5 tips to bang a nerd.