Save By The Bell

During my Primary School Days, I would steal just about anything of my classmates’ that catches my eye. Cute, glitzy stationeries such as erasers, little notepads, nice pens and pencils; any small items which would fit nicely into my pocket and are somewhat less noticeable. Seriously, I don’t know what prompts me to become a kleptomaniac at such a tender age; after all, my parents have been pretty generous with showering me with many gifts; yet the thrill of stealing and possessing the forbidden is sure an irresistible temptation. Each and every time getting away uncaught made me bolder until one fateful day which made me finally put a stop to my stealing days.

The date was 12.12.1981. The date I would forever remembered as clearly as though it was just yesterday. Our class teacher was on MC, therefore the whole day seems to be play day for us. We slowly dispersed and gradually several scattered small cliques were formed in the classroom. I have always been in the ‘in-group’ , the popular crowd. One of our ‘groupies’, her name is Tessie showed us a nice storybook she just bought. It was one of those 3-D book with musical tunes. “How lovely, I must have that!”, I thought enviously. “It sure would be a nice addition to my growing collection of stolen possessions at home, which is now slowly piling up since I started my stealing spree 2 years ago. While they are drowned in their conversations, I started scheming in my head how I was going to steal the book. “Tong! Tong”, the sound of the bell brought me down to earth. “Oh, breaktime already?! So soon?!” Everyone began rushing out of the classroom, growling tummies cannot wait to be fed. I looked around, “Wow! How everyone sped off at the sound of the bell!”. I was the only one left in the classroom. Now is my chance! In a flash of a lightning, I opened Tessie’s bag, took the storybook and put it into my bag. I hid it underneath my stack of text books. With a smirk of contentment, I slipped out and joined my friends in the canteen.”How clever of me!” I thought smugly, feeling pleased with myself. “Tong! Tong!”, there goes the bell again. Break time is over! Everyone scurried back to classroom.

Drawn back to our little cliques again, chit-chatting and gossiping. A couple of hours passed by and suddenly another of our ‘groupies’, Tracy said, “Hi Tessie! Can you please lend me your new storybook?”, to which Tessie replied, “Sure thing.”. She turned and rummaged through her bag, and slowly a look of panic spread to her face, and in a shaking loud voice she said, ‘I cant find my book! I.. I.. I remembered specifically I put it in my bag, right here,” she pointed. “But now, its gone! “ Someone has stolen my book!” She looked like she was about to cry. Everyone began to look concern and worried, including me, I had to fake a ‘shocking’ and a ‘genuinely concerned friend’ look. It wasn’t hard to do as I was quite a drama queen.

Soon all my classmates helped in the search, bombarding many questions like, “How big is the book?, Whats the title?, What color is it?, Whats the coverpage like?, etc… to which Tessie provided the answers swiftly, “Its pink, Entitled The Missing Cat, its white in color and it has a picture of a black cat in front.” By then everyone in our class searched high and low but failed to locate her book. A teacher from another class soon got involved at this point, after an hour of fruitless search by us. She warned, “No one is going home until Tessie’s storybook is found. Class Monitors, I want you to search everyone’s bags”. Upon hearing this, my heart started thumping hard and my body turned icy cold. What have I gotten myself into ?! Why was I so foolish to steal for fun? Suddenly, various scenes of ‘what was to become of me if I got caught’ starts flashing across my mind, such as, being hand-cuffed by police, going behind bars, seeing the look of shock and disbelief on my teacher’s and classmates’ face; and their look of disgusted, pity, sneers, cruel taunts, hatred, etc..I will be the talk of the town! I will surely be ostracized by everyone. My life is over! My future is gone! How could I come back to this school and face everyone again?! My parents are going to ground me for life or maybe cane me to dead! oh! How I wish I could turn back the clock and leave the book alone! All that is too late now, I shuddered.

The class monitors and teacher are keeping a close eyes on everyone. No one is even allowed to go to the rest room, I was shaking so much I almost pee-ed in my pants. The search begin from the front row. I sat on the last row, but that doesn’t really make it any better. I was suddenly rendered brain dead. I was sweating and my knees weakened. There was a window just next to where I sat, and I was thinking of throwing the book (or even myself, yea that was how petrified I was by then) out of the window. But nope, I cant do any of that. The room was in total silent. Even a pin drop or any movement made at that moment can be clearly heard and get heads turning. The class monitors, teacher and everyone else in the class was on alert mode and looking over at each other like a hawk…And then, finally, all I heard was ‘Open up your bag’.. It was my turn. Already?! “I ..i..i didn’t steal Tessie’s book. I stuttered. “Here.. look”, I opened up my bag and hold it up to show the monitor.” “Just leave your bag on your desk, and I will look through it myself”, the Monitor said sternly. I thought I would just breakdown and confessed on the spot as her hand in a slow motion form was about to shove aside my textbooks, exposing the stolen book.

Oh, how I prayed! And then, as though someone up there has heard my prayers, my desperate pleads for help, my begging for forgiveness and my vow of never laying my hands on things which does not belong to me anymore. Oh! How I have repent in an instant, and regretted my actions truly. God must have felt the sincerity in my prayers, and miraculously at that very moment when the ugly truth about me was about to the revealed to everyone of my classmates in just "a flick of her finger"; .... the school bell rang, ‘TONG! TONG! TONG!’.. The teacher looked at her watch and the faces of all my impatient classmates, all anxiously waiting to be dismissed. The Teacher said, ‘well, I guess it looks like its not someone from this class who stole the book. Next time, be more careful with all your personal belongings, don’t simply lay it around carelessly.’

You have no idea what a HUGE relief I felt at that moment. The feeling is like waking up from a nightmare! Since then, I kept my word. Whenever the temptation to steal arises, a little resounding voice is my head would sternly reminded me of the Narrow Escape I had, and all the emotions I felt at that time would come rushing through my body. That beyond description paralysis feeling of extreme fear, I do not wish to ever experienced again. (Shudder, shudder)