“Students, I have an assignment for you,” Mr Chua said cheerfully. My teacher had assigned us a project during the recent school holidays.
“Haha! You don’t even have a pen’’ I laughed, teasing my classmate, Tom. Embarrassed, Tom fled the classroom.
“Give my pen back to me now!” I barked at my younger sister, snatching the blue pen she was using to complete her homework.
As I buried myself under my blanket, the day’s events flashed across my mind intermittently like a broken tape recorder.
“What a wonderful day of school!” I exclaimed as my eyes glistened with joy. Holding on to the straps of my school bag, I skipped out of the school gate with a wide smile stretched across my face. It was one of the best days of my life!
“Hey, what shall we do for John’s birthday?” I asked my close group of friends during recess. My best friend, John, was turning 11 next weekend and my close friends and I had decided to organise a special birthday party for him.
The teacher droned on for the last thirty minutes of class. When we were finally dismissed, the horde of students streamed out of the classrooms. It was another boring day after school. I dragged my feet home as I sighed.
“Tom! Clean your room!” Tom’s mother exclaimed and let out an exasperated sigh. It was the fifth reminder she had given in the past three hours. It was the school holidays and cleaning his room was the last thing Tom wanted to do.
Jason hesitated to walk into the elevator that his friends were taking to get to the top floor of the school building. Feeling frustrated, his friends urged him to get on the elevator with them and Jason gingerly stepped inside. While the elevator was moving up, Jason was so overwhelmed with anxiety that he wanted to let his tears flow freely from his eyes. However, he decided to hold his tears back and he recalled the events of the fateful day when he had been stuck in an elevator and learnt a valuable lesson.
"Tom! Clean your room at this instant, young man!" My mother screeched, forcing me to turn off the television. I muttered something incoherently about free will under my breath as I unwillingly trudged into my room, that had clothes strewn all over the floor, toys in every nook and cranny and a musty, dusty smell that hung in the air. I took a few toy cars and haphazardly stuffed them into the shelf.