When I was 16

 

 

I was called to the bilik guru and I can’t remember if I was told to sit or I just remained standing the whole time; the elderly teacher gazed at me and spoke to me almost whispering, asking me for something I wasn’t really anticipating—her line of questioning was unexpected.

I was still in a daze as to why I was called to the, “bilik guru”, in the first place—she wasn’t even my teacher or taught us any subjects.

The were only a couple of other teachers and they were minding their own business and now that I think about it, luckily no one saw me coming into the ‘bilik guru’ or noticed me whilst I was in there. I also forgot about the prefect who summoned me there. It was just me and her, I think having a dialogue, it was mostly her talking though.  

I was the guy who befriended almost everyone and especially the naughty kids, only difference is I don’t smoke, drink, take pills or do drugs while my so-called friends at that time did. Since we were all placed at the bottom classes, thanks to the education system almost condemning us to weak grades, bad influence and even worse character building.

I was bullied a lot before, from primary all the way to secondary, for years! And when I turned 15, I fought back for the first time and realized/discovered to bully is not to be bullied…and I was finally accepted and respected and that is how I started my reign in the secondary school for close to two years…only to realize later that I had more ppl hate me and only pretended to befriend me… but that is another story.

Well, it wasn’t easy keeping up with the character and despite the insecurities I tried to enjoy the shallow fame it brought. I had a gang and could walk with arrogance and it would appear normal.

I wasn’t brave or anything, it was all pretense.

Just last year I was still getting bullied and now I am almost the number one guy at school. Let’s go back a few months, the school itself were filled with so called gangsters from all three races and all of them were affiliated to gangs.

Though I myself created my own with just kids from my school, not even realizing how that happened.

Back to the bilik guru, the teacher started with an introduction and then with some advises etc, all I can remember was I was asked to list down names of students who took drugs/subtances. I am not sure if I told her or wrote her a list but there were more than twenty names. My intention wasn’t malice as I recalled, I guess my 16-year-old mind bought into her persuasion, “if you really care about your friends and their future you will do what is best…”

And just like that after a couple of weeks or so we had an impromptu urine check and all the names that were listed were called into a dedicated washroom.

As luck would prove itself, on that day, the discipline teacher who disliked me and identified me as a gangster came into our class, pointed at me and a friend of mine and personally directed us to do the urine test, though unexpected but reaffirming my status as one of the bad kids and most importantly removed me as a suspect.

Maybe twenty or thirty of us were put to the test and those tested positive were immediately thrown out of school and despite some of them got lucky…the ones who expelled were the real “naughty” ones, you know the ones with gangs.

Immediately after that, they knew there was a snitch because the names called were too detailed/precise, the teacher wasn’t smart enough to include more names to make it seem like the names were picked randomly.

Thanks to the discipline teacher and how he called me out in front of the class, I didn’t seem suspicious and I too went on with the act on who could be the snitch.

The school, however seemed more peaceful now that a huge number of naughty kids were expelled as there were lesser gang related fights.

On another note, I had to see these friends or what’s left of them every day during school and after school while carrying a heavy secret, knowing that I was the one who snitched on them and at that time stabbing was quite rampant amongst the subang boys.

This went on till we were in uni and the naughty guys were even naughtier but luckily, I didn’t have to see them every day.

To date, only my best friend from high school knows about this and that too I only told him when were in uni. Here I am writing about it still not knowing how to feel about this. I suppose, I should consider myself lucky.