“WHAT in the world are we going to do now?” moaned Sonia. “This new teacher had piled us with tonnes and tonnes of homework.”

“And we don’t even know what to do. She hadn’t explained anything except that we had to do the whole exercise and submit it tomorrow!” added Ayesha while turning to me and continuing, “It’s entirely your fault, Sameera!”

I was dreading being accused but tried to act innocent and asked, “How’s it my fault?”

“You irritated her so much that she asked for a transfer,” said Hira. “Now it’s your job to make things smooth in the class or else we’ll never talk to you again.”

Giving me this ultimatum, the three girls marched off, leaving me quiet unhappy. It all started when we friends decided to have some fun by watching a movie and so we skipped our school. That day, our math teacher was supposed to revise exercises and solve them if we had any problems as the next day was a math test. But we friends took off and thus failed the test and it made us very angry. Especially me, so I thought of taking revenge and then began irritating her by various means.

Our math teacher was very nice and tolerant so she would forgive us always, but eventually she was exhausted with our mean tricks. Therefore, she asked the principal to transfer her in another branch of our school.

Oh, how happy we were! After her transfer, we had free math period for nearly a week. Then one day, during the math period, a new teacher along with our geography teacher entered the room, there was a brief introduction while the new teacher kept smiling and we took a liking to her immediately. As soon as our geography teacher went out, the new teacher closed the door behind her and stopped smiling.

There was a fierce look on her face and she said, “When I am in the class I want complete silence.” Then she wrote some questions on the board and said, “Solve these problems now and no complaints! You have to submit them tomorrow.”

“Aren’t you going to explain them to us?” I asked.

“Explain them? You have done this topic before so you can do them by yourself,” she replied.

“But we haven’t done them before. How can we do them if we don’t know?” argued Muneeb.

“Don’t answer back!” she shouted angrily.

Ayesha, who was sitting right behind him, whispered a few consoling words to him, thinking the teacher won’t hear her but just then Ayesha felt a hard slap on her face. She was utterly bewildered and put a hand on her cheek, which was tingling with pain.

“I told you not to talk, didn’t I? Let this be a lesson to you all. Now do your work silently!”

Trying to control our seething anger and knowing that we were helpless, we started working silently. That night, I regretted what I did to our old teacher who was not only loving and kind, but also a dedicated teacher. I kept thinking for the whole night and finally, I had a plan.

Next day, I went to my friends and told them what the plan was about, they all agreed. So when it was time for the math period, I slipped out and rushed to the principal’s office. I told her what I did to our old teacher and apologised. Then I told her the attitude of the new teacher. I requested the principal to come and listen in our class she agreed.

As I got near the class, I gave a signal to my friends by a slight cough then, Sonia asked the teacher, “Teacher, can you explain me this question?”

“Shut up and do your work!” was the reply.

“But these are new questions how can we do them without your explanation?” asked Ayesha.

“Have you forgotten the slap I gave you, yesterday? Do you want one more slap? If not, then do it yourself and keep silence,” She shouted.

Hearing this, the principal entered the room and asked the teacher to meet her in her office.

After two days, we were overjoyed to see our old teacher. And then I apologised to her in front of the whole class because I had learned my lesson. I vowed never to play tricks on my teachers again.