I was the class clown. I was responsible for planning pranks. The whole class would laugh at the expense of our victim and I would pat myself on the shoulder. Between securing the necessary materials for the prank and making sure nobody was planning to snitch, I was a busy person; I had no time to think of consequences. Consequences were for weaklings. Ms Barbara Kiconco, our new English teacher, was a great candidate for a prank, I decided. So I got an old sweater, tore off a piece and sowed it into the shape of a mouse. Then I painted it black and placed it at the door. As soon as she walked through the door, we all screamed at once; “Rat!” She jumped in fright, but instead of getting over it like she was supposed to, she fainted. I panicked. Wells of salty fluids started making their way through my eyes and my nose. The same thing happened to most of my classmates. Some of them felt the sudden need to relieve themselves of extra energy by way of donating carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. It occurred to us to carry her to the sick bay. But nobody wanted to be singled out for questioning concerning the circumstances that had led to near-lifelessness of a new teacher. Everybody ran. We jumped through windows and scattered through the door, taking care not to tread on her. I had expected that by evening, there would be an emergency meeting in which I would be established as the ‘ring leader’ and I would be asked politely to ‘try another school.’ But teachers didn’t show up the rest of the day. None of them came to teach. I spent each passing moment catching my breath and pleading with my heart not to exit through the mouth. It didn’t help that the goody-two-shoes were telling me to confess because they didn’t want to be punished for my crime. Nobody came to teach us the next day. I assumed they had decided to punish as a group as opposed to singling out one suspect (me) to make an example out of her. And with that, my fear subsided. At lunch time, they didn’t set tables for my class. And I was back to manufacturing excess fluids and donating carbon dioxide. Each of us was given two choices; to receive six strokes at the buttocks before eating or to reject the food. Rejecting the food was synonymous to rejecting the school because every student at my school was expected to eat all the meals provided by the school.“At least they didn’t ask for names,” I sighed. In the evening, they told each one of us to write three ring leaders. They called it ‘weeding.’ That night, I barely slept a wink. Whenever I tried to sleep, I would wake up panting from a nightmare about my name being read on the assembly, pending my expulsion. Guilt is a terrible thing. In the morning, our class teacher came and announced that he had come to read the names of students who were going to be expelled. I fainted. I later found out that name hadn’t been on the list. Yes, guilt is a terrible thing.
