Sofia Sofia

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One day after the Hari Raya holidays, Lina told me that she picked up a smiling, beaming Sofia from school one day.

“Mama, Adik dapat nombor tiga dalam kelas…”, she whispered.

“Really? That’s good, well done!”, said her Mama.

But a few days later, Lina noticed a discrepancy in her results, one of her subjects was listed down as 90 instead of 83 as in the test papers.

We recalled the instant recently where we thought she was 27th but because of fourteen marks, she was actually 10th.

Now, when she was told about that, she was adamant not to tell her teacher as she was afraid that she might slide down the ranking. Of course she would, but there’s no other way about it. It was the only thing to do. But what surprised us was that she took it badly, that she is not third after all. All the coaxing about honesty, what she does not deserved, what is not hers to keep simply would not work.

“Tak boleh Adik….., kalau nanti besok orang dapat tahu, lagi tak elok. Dah lah bukan nombor tiga, tak honest pulak….”

Nothing we said would solace her. She had to tell the teacher the next day, there are no two ways about it. There is a God after all, she was seventh instead of third, so that wasn’t so bad. And we found out why she was very reluctant to give up those seven marks – she had boasted to a classmate who, is not in the list of her favorite people, (the classmate was ninth in class) about beating her this time and was terrified should those seven marks made her placed lower than the other girl.

“Ha, jangan buat macam tu lagi. Dapat nombor satu ke, tiga ke, tujuh ke, bukan untuk lagak dengan orang”, I said.

“This time you got away with it, imagine kalau you actually fell behind her in class?”, I added.

“Budak tu selalu lagak, Adik nak kenakan dia pulak….”

“Adik, that is her problem. Don’t make it yours. In life, you will meet people like that. Lagi teruk dari tu pun ada tau? The only sensible thing to do is to try not to be like them.”

Ya, easier said than done. I see no halo above me…

“At least you deserved the nombor tujuh….”

“Nombor tujuh tak dapat hadiah.”

”Sofia, the hadiah is knowing that you are seventh and if you work a little bit harder and not be so gopoh in your work, you’ll find out that you could be third, second or even first!!!”

Do you buy that? The only reason I do is because I said it!!!

“For heaven’s sake, I’ll buy you a hadiah, I’ll buy you ten hadiahs!!”

“Ten? Ten?”

“Maybe one, OK?”

“Ten lah…”

“Kalau ten pengsan lah Papa, tauke balak pun pengsan..“

”Heh heh........., apalah Papa ni. Oklah, one hadiah, tapi yang besar tau?”

Adoi, pengsan jugak jadi bapak ni rupanya.

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