Growing Up Part IX

Let see what else did we do while in the UK.

The family went to an outing to London. It was sometime in autumn where the weather was cool enough for us to need our overcoats. Bah was in a good holiday mood. He bought us a matchbox car each. I chose a Ferrari, red colour of course. I can’t remember what my brother chose. Anyway, very excited and happy with it, that I refused mum to put it together in her shopping bag. I wanted to carry it myself and put in my overcoat pocket.

From time to time I took off my coat whenever I felt warm. When not wearing it, I carried it across my arm. Whilst following mum with her shopping, I would find a place to sit and wait for her. A while later, after going passed a number of outlets, mum asked me where my overcoat was? I looked around hoping that either my brother or Bah was carrying it. Unfortunately neither of them was. So we had to back track to search for it. You can guess that it was gone and truly lost. Mum was grumbling saying how careless I was and how expensive it was. We still have the coming winter to contend with and she did not want to waste money unnecessarily to buy me a new one.

All this while, I felt very guilty and quite sad because of my carelessness. While having tea at a restaurant before heading home, Dad said to me not to worry about it anymore. Perhaps we could ask Mr. Badar to hand us down his son’s coat before they leave home for Malaysia in a month’s time. Well it didn’t actually cheer me up because I did like that coat as it kept me warm and dry during winter, especially walking to and from school. I guessed my sad facial expression showed. Mum looked at me and commented that I was not sad because of losing the coat, but because I had lost the matchbox car! It wasn’t true but that was not the time to argue with her. I could feel her dying to clip my ears or something, but she can’t, being in a public area. So going home was a drag as I was expecting her to let herself loose on me. Such a wonderful start to the day’s outing spoilt by my own carelessness!!

What happened when we reached home? Nothing because I pretended to sleep all the way until we reached home. Smart you may thing, but you do not want to be at the wrong end of mum’s wrath. Must be the Dutch blood in her. Anyway, to make up, I was very attentive to her that whole week and was at my best behaviour, most of the time.

A tragedy happened at the college one night. One of the student girls' hostel caught fire. I remembered that 3 girls died that night. The reason I brought this up was to remind you of Bah. He took the lead in almost everything. He had to identify the girls at the morgue, he telegrammed their parents, and he made all the necessary arrangement to prepare the bodies to be flown home. Bah had this natural leadership quality which he seldom showed, but it usually goes into overdrive in events of adversity. It was a sad tragedy for us all at the college and it took quite a while to get over it. The girls that escaped the fire came over to our house frequently. I didn’t understand why then, but now I would guess that they were there as a form of therapy from Bah to get them to over the trauma they went through. Don’t forget that Bah being an educationist is also quite a psychologist. I can tell you later of cases where I succumbed to his psychology.

Each morning in school, all students and teachers had to assemble in the hall for morning prayers. This was done before lessons began. I was exempted and usually spent the time alone in the class. My teacher was quite strict. He confiscates anything that did not belong in class, like marbles, toys, comics etc. He would take from you and put in his desk drawer. I never saw him returning anything that he confiscated.

One day during my time alone in class, curiosity got the better of me. I went over to his desk and opened the drawer where he kept the items. It was full of so many things that belonged to my classmates. I saw a Dandy comic that belonged to Andrew, confiscated the week before. I took it out of the drawer and hid it in my coat. When school ended, as we were walking home, I called out to Andrew, and looked behind my shoulders to check that no one was looking, I handed the comic book to him. He looked surprised, but before he could say anything, I walked away as fast as I could towards home. I wasn’t sure whether he appreciated it. If he didn't, then I would know the next day in school.

I felt rather guilty about what I did and dreaded going to school the next morning. Since I couldn’t find any good excuse not to go, I started off with my brother, although he kept calling to me to catch up with him. I was really dragging myself. At the school gate, Andrew was waiting for me with Paul, another of my classmate. He pulled me aside and with a smile he said thank you. The comic actually belonged to his elder brother and he couldn’t afford to buy a new one to replace it. So he said I had saved him from a good beating from his brother.

He asked me how I did it and I told him. Paul suddenly grabbed my arm pulling me towards him. Excitedly he asked me whether I could try to get back a whistle which the teacher took away from him the month before. I asked him for some detailed description of it. He said it was silver with the letters TG engraved. He said it was given to him by his grandfather before he died. His grandfather was a referee in the English football league. Actually, I didn’t want to do it anymore, but I said I would, but only just this once for him. I felt sorry for him losing something to remind him of his grandfather. I didn’t have anything from my late grandfather except for the memories.

Keeping it short, I passed the whistle back to Paul when school ended. I didn’t want to give it to him during school lest he took it out and the teacher would notice it, then I would definitely be in trouble if he found out that it was me who took it out from his desk. Paul appreciated the help from me. After that Andrew and Paul became my closest friends.

I didn’t look into the teacher’s drawer after returning Paul’s whistle, afraid that I might be caught. Anyway on the last day of school before the summer holidays, the teacher took all the stuffs he had confiscated during the year and laid it out on his desk. He told us to take back what was ours. I could have kicked myself then. I realised that the teacher didn’t know to whom the stuffs belonged to, nor could he remember what he had taken! I was kicking myself for losing the opportunity to be the most popular guy in class!!! If Andrew and Paul were that appreciative, I wondered how the girls would have reacted if I helped return to them their stuffs. Janet in particular, the farmer’s daughter whom I had a crush the whole year but dared not even speak to her!!!