The lies we tell.

*All of the following is a figment of my imagination. Resemblance to any incidents, persons or events are purely coincidental.

You see, I never lied when I was younger. In fact, if honesty were a person, it would be me. I never tried to hide anything. I was the equivalent of an open book.

Do you want to know my biggest fear? The person I like the most? Who I’d choose between my mother and father? Sure, I’d tell you without hesitation.

But one day, my classmate and I got into trouble. I still remember it vividly, strange for I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast today.

Anyway, it was winter so I wore a vest inside a shirt inside a sweater inside a jumper inside a long coat (I’m sensitive to the cold). But somehow, I managed to look very put together for an eight-year-old.

It wasn’t the first day of school, nor was it the last, it was one of those days that you presume to be insignificant and boring. Oh boy, it was anything but that.

Well, until lunch break, it was rather uneventful. However, my deskmate looked impatient, jittery. Kind of like a rat injected with some kind of energy booster.

It was quite amusing, watching her squirm and shake, and at the same time worrying.

You see, when eight-year-olds look like that, it means one of two things; they need to use the toilet and feel anxious, or they’re up to trouble and cannot contain their excitement. In this case, it was the latter.

My deskmate grabbed me by the wrist and pulled my ear close enough for me to hear her whisper. “Can you help me out?” she inquired while her eyes frantically darted around the classroom.

“Of course I can,” I stated with utmost confidence in myself, pushing my chest out in both pride and reassurance.

She shot me a satisfied grin as she dragged me out of the classroom and into the teachers’ lounge (which, thankfully, was empty) and started to tell me “the plan.”

She wanted to place slime in all of the teachers’ laptops, just for fun. It sounded like something only bad kids would do, yet she looked at me with such eagerness and I had already promised her, so I agreed.

So we got to work and once we had completed our mission, we dashed back to class. It was exhilarating and the adrenaline that rushed through my veins every time I heard footsteps was addicting.

I wrote the day off as a day to be remembered, I really didn’t know what was coming.

An hour after lunch, a teaching assistant scurried into our classroom and relayed a message to our teacher in a hushed manner. I watched as his face went from curious to questioning to furious, similar to the way traffic lights change colors.

As his face flushed a deep red, he bellowed, “Which one of you rascals destroyed our laptops?” in the scariest voice I had heard in my eight years of living.

I was terrified. I did something wrong and I knew it. I had to fess up. So, I raised my hand and waited for him to call on me to talk so I could confess.

However, my desk mate was one step ahead. Just as the teacher said my name and motioned for me to talk, she shot out of her seat shrieked, “It was the boy with the blue cap! I saw him, I saw him!”

I froze in disbelief as my mouth jammed shut. She shot me a look and pulled on my shoulder as she mouthed, ‘You promised.’

And so, I joined her in placing the blame on the poor boy in the blue cap as he wailed and cried for his mother.

What a hypocrite I happen to be.