She suddenly spoke of her classmate who bled. Blood was all over his shirt, she said, and there was a hole on his forehead. How come, I asked. Rico stabbed him with a ballpoint pen. And another boy wondered how come he wasn't dead already, because his white shirt was red of blood.

Luki, she said, Luki even has a knife in his bag every day. Does your teacher know about it? No, said she. Then you have to tell your teacher, I said, but she already had another topic about a woman living close to her house who smells like flowers without wearing perfumes and she said it was spooky and I said, hey, we're here to learn music, so let's do.

I wasn't sure that she was 9 years old so I asked her again. She said yes. Then I asked the other girl, is it like that too in your school? No, said she. What a relieve. Maybe the world is not that bad yet.

***