The Rainbow Troops Read Online Free PDF Page A

listening to classical music, maybe Mozart's Haffner No. 35 in D Major . And no one put their elbows on the table.
    On this serene night, the atmosphere of the Estate was very still. There was almost utter silence. There was some playful noise coming from the corner over there, but wait, it was just a poodle messing around with a few angora cats. A housemaid, after being snapped at by her boss, broke up the cute animals, and it was quiet once again. Not much later, the sound of tinkling piano keys escaped faintly from one of the tall-pillared Victorian homes. A small tomboy, Floriana, or Flo for short, was having a piano lesson. Unfortunately, she was a bit drowsy. Her chin rested on both of her hands, and she yawned over and over again. She was like a cat that had had too much sleep.
    Her father, a Mollen Bas, head of all the dredges, sat beside her. He was infuriated by the behavior of the tomboy and embarrassed in front of the private piano teacher, a middleaged, wellmannered Javanese woman.
    Flo's father was capable of managing the shifts of thousands of workers, competent in solving the most difficult of technical problems, successful in overseeing million-dollar assets, but when faced with this small girl, his youngest, he just about gave up. The louder Flo's father scolded her, the wider her yawns became.
    The private teacher meekly started with the notations do, mi, so, ti, moving across four octaves, and showing the finger position for each notation, a basic hand-positioning exercise. Flo yawned again.
    The PN School The PN School was in the Estate compound, and it was a center of excellence, a place for the best. Hundreds of qualified students competed at the highest standard at this school, and one of them was Flo.
    The difference between this school and ours was like the difference between land and sky. The PN School classrooms were adorned with educational cartoons, basic math tables, the periodic table, world maps, thermometers, photos of the President and VicePresident, and the heroic national symbol—which included that strange bird with an eight-feathered tail. There also were anatomy sculptures, big globes and models of the solar system. They didn't use chalk, but smelly markers, because their chalkboard was white.
    "They have a lot of teachers," Bang Amran Isnaini, who once attended school there, informed me the night before my first day at Muhammadiyah Elementary. I became lost in thought.
    "Each subject has its own separate teacher, even when you are in first grade."
    I couldn't sleep that night, I was dizzy trying to count how many teachers the PN School had—and also of course because I was so excited about starting school the next day.
    The first day of enrollment at the PN School was a joyous celebration. Not nervewracking like at our school. Dozens of fancy cars lined up in front of the school. Hundreds of wealthy children enrolled. That day, the new students were measured for three different uniforms.
    The uniform for Mondays was a blue shirt with a beautiful floral print. Every morning, the PN School students were picked up by a school bus which also was blue. Whenever that vehicle passed us, we stopped, stared in amazement from the side of the road, and admired it. Seeing the PN School students getting off of the school bus reminded me of a picture of a group of small, cute, white and winged children getting off of a cloud, like in the Christian calendars.
    The principal of the PN School was named Ibu Frischa, highly educated and very concerned with prestige. She managed her gestures in a way that accentuated her social class. Up close, anyone would feel intimidated. It was clear by the way she wore her makeup that she was fighting her age; it also was clear that it was a battle she had already lost.
    Ibu Frischa was very proud of her school. If one had a chance to speak with her, she was only interested in talking about three things: the PN School's fancy facilities, the extravagant