Girls Sometimes

More than 30 years ago Anna suddenly came upon a strange advertisement posted at a bus stop: "This school welcomes everyone: even if you’re overly talkative, introvert, slow, passionate or...redheaded." It sounded like the best school on Earth, and the ad announced they were enrolling. Anna submitted for the creative contest, made it through the interview phase, and passed the written exam. Her acceptance to the school seemed to be her lucky ticket - only the best of the best were accepted. While their parents struggled to make ends meet during Russia's tough and unpredictable 1990s, the students spent their days at the school. They studied subjects that didn't even exist at any other school in the area, subjects like linguistics, history of religions and arts, and semiotics. They were truly gifted students and after graduating were accepted to top Russian. The aptly named League of Schools had been their safe space, their own state, and their own universe–they even had their own constitution, which every student knew by heart. And they all wrote the word "school" with a capital "s" as well. Then twenty years later the graduates realized: they had been dragged into a horrific nightmare by teachers they trusted and looked up to. Those teachers, talented creatives without whom Anna could never imagine her formative years, are people she now simply wants to erase from her memories. Nobody raised an eyebrow at the deputy for educational work kissing female students and the principal regularly inviting students to his countryside house. And no one sounded an alarm when the principal could easily sleep in the same sleeping bag with the underaged girl. It took twenty whole years for the alumni to realize that many of them had been verbally and sexually harassed, abused, and assaulted. And that everyone at the school had been part of this system: some were victims, some were rapists, and others like Anna – blind witnesses.