Brave Young Soul

I remember when I was 8 I was in one of my tuition classes (yup, good old days when tuition classes after school were the bane of my little life's existence) there was a girl sitting in the row in front of me. She had this super damn awesome looking ribbon in her hair and my friend and I were transfixed. We couldn't resist - we had to touch it.

So, there we were, sneakily reaching out to touch the unsuspecting girl's hair/ribbon, totally unbeknownst to the teacher...or so we thought. Needless to say the teacher caught on to our antics thanks to our little whispers and giggles. She whipped around all of a sudden and caught my friend in the act of extending her forearm to tickle the ribbon behind the other girl's head. My poor friend was promptly given the punishment of standing on her chair for the remainder of the class.

I was in a pickle.

I debated with myself whether or not to own up to my contribution and join my friend in her unfortunate demise or to stay silent since there was only half an hour left to the class, anyway.

Now this I remember very clearly. Somehow I plucked the courage to raise my hand and say...'teacher, I did it too' or maybe something along those lines in true broken Malaysian English. If I told you the teacher applauded me for my bravery and let us both off the hook I would be the greatest romantic in the world. The teacher gave no thought at all to the amount of internal conflict I'd faced in those 2 agonizing minutes but merely told me..'okay, you can stand too' haha. But let me tell you something, the look on my friend's face was priceless. Punishment is nothing if you have a friend to face it with you. Okay I wish this was the part where I say we became best friends forever and we always look back to this start of our fast friendship, but no. We enrolled in different classes the next year and lost touch ever since.

I'm getting a little lazy here so let me just wrap it up. Well, can't be bothered reading the above? I used to be a little brave soul who would face her fears and own up to something I'd done for the sake of a friend. I hope I still have at least a morsel of that person left, but I doubt it. O how age has made me nothing but a clucking chicken. End of story.