Boom! Bam! Noises reverberated in the school canteen and disrupted the silence. The hall was dotted with students revising for the-end-of-the-year examinations. I perked my head up for a quick scan. There right before me was a boy studying and yelling sporadically. His crew cut head was buried in his textbook.
Anger burnt inside me. How could I study with all these noises? Infuriated by the noise, I marched towards him and asked in the friendliest tone, “Could you please revise quietly?”
The boy whipped his head up. He had a small face and a thick pair of glasses rested on his button nose. He gave a smile and suddenly made the “Boom! Bam!” sound again!
By this time, I was livid with rage. “You are so disruptive! Can’t you just stop!” My eyes were glinting with hostility and my face was flushed beetroot red.
“Boom! Bam!” The words just escaped from his lips. I stared at him in utter disbelief. Immediately, I approached the head prefect who was passing by. His name was Ker Hang. If anyone could solve a problem, he could!
Upon seeing him, he whispered, “This boy is new here. Let me talk to him.” He approached him and spoke solemnly, “Boy, could you please be quiet? The rest need to study.”
The boy flashed a guilty smile. But before he could actually answer, expletives just cascaded out of his lips. His hands just cupped over his mind but the verbal torrents continued.
By this time, everyone was stunned speechless. I could literally see steam blowing out of Ker Hang’s ears and he had daggers in his eyes. “Come with me to the principal’s office NOW!” he hollered, pulling his stick-line hands.
“No, No!” the midget screamed, screeching in tears. By this time, the other students were attracted to the ruckus. All eyes were fixated on them.
“Yes, you must!” a vicious quarrel soon ensued between Ker Hang and the boy.
Just then, the principal, drawn to the commotion, thundered, “Three of you, follow me to the office NOW!” All of us just followed him, like ducklings behind the mother duck.
In the office, the boy cried bitterly with indignant tears. The principal comforted him, saying, “Yipeng, it’s okay! It’s alright.”
We were flabbergasted! He was the guilty one and he was comforted by the principal? I could hardly believe our eyes.
The principal, Mr Lee, then turned to us and explained, “This boy is suffering from Tourette Syndrome. It is a hereditary brain disorder and the words and the sounds he made were out of his control.”
Realization hit us like a bullet. We hung our heads in embarrassment and our hearts were filled with remorse. “We are sorry, Yipeng. Could you please forgive us?” I asked.
Yipeng hesitated for a long while. Finally, he nodded and flashed a brilliant smile. “Boom! Bam!” escaped from his lips again. This time, we all laughed.
To err is human. Since then, Yipeng, Ker Hang and I have become good chums. We have accepted him for who he is and now, he sometimes places a pencil between his lips to have better control of what he says.
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