Short Story School with Moral – Breaking the Ice
Short Story with Moral – Breaking the Ice
Photo credit: Annika from morguefile.com
In a corner of the school campus, there was a boy, 15 or 16 of age, in school’s sportswear who kept practising basketball shooting. He was in an outdoor basketball court. Although the weather had turned cold, he was only wearing short-sleeved sports shirt and shorts. Due to the incessant physical exercises of basketball shooting for some time, sweats were profusely tickling down from his forehead to his cheeks. He was a famous “problematic student” in our school. His problem was not causing trouble, but being a loner, unsociable and hard to get along with other classmates. This is the reason why he was eye-catching in my class. He is my classmate. His name is Philip Ko. My classmates liked to call him “Ko”.
At that moment, I saw the school genitor Mr. Chan coming by and had a few words with Ko. He nodded and then waved Mr. Chan goodbye. Actually it was hard to believe that Ko could get along well with others. My sight pulled away from the view outside the window back to my homework. For I lived on the fourth floor in a building just opposite of our school, I could have a clear view of it. This was an incidental discovery that he had been staying after school practising basketball alone everyday for a month.
Because of this discovery of his practice, I always paid attention to him, hoping to find out how skilled he was. I couldn’t help but think of the first day of school two months ago.
On that day, I arrived at school early since it was just less-than-a-five-minute walk away from my home. Usually I was the first one to arrive at the classroom. However, on that morning when I stepped into the classroom, a boy was already sitting on a seat at the back row near a window. He was tall and quite robust, having short straight hair. With thick and dark eyebrows and big rounded eyes on his weasel-faced look, he was wintry especially his stares on the other’s faces. I was unfamiliar with this stranger, but greeted him with a smile,
“Hey! Good morning! Which class were you previously in?”
He replied coldly “I was from another school.”
I would like to continue our conversation, but obviously he didn’t, instead drew his sight outside the window. Feeling disappointed, I took a seat on the front row, my usual place of sitting.
My classmates didn’t bother him much inasmuch as his lukewarm attitude. He was always alone, so we didn’t ask him to join in when we played basketball.
Since my discovery of his quite good skills, I wondered if I, being the captain of my school’s basketball team, should ask him to join us. I looked out of the window, and saw him already leaving the school. Not far ahead of him, there were a mother and her child. The child was about 5 to 6 years old, holding a small ball in his hands. The ball slipped off his hands, and he hurriedly chased after it. The ball rolled out to the road. The child was so focused at retrieving the ball that he didn’t realize danger, nor hearing his mother’s call. Out of the corner of the road, I saw a car drove by.
As the sky was dark and the child was so small and in dark clothes, the driver seemed not to note the child’s actions. The child’s mother was frightened with mouth agape, flouncing about what to do. Seeing a misfortune was about to happen, suddenly I saw Ko dashed out of the road. The driver, seeing a figure coming out to the road, stepped down immediately. Even so, the car dragged forward more than ten feet.
When I saw the scene, I was so nervous that it seemed that I had stopped breathing. I felt the world stopped, and everything seemed to stay still. The child’s mother and the driver quickly went to the two boys who rolled to the side of the road. Then I heard the crying of the frightened child. Ko was using his body to protect the child tightly. Ten minutes later, an ambulance approached, and took Ko and the child with his mother to the hospital nearby.
Next day at school, I met Ko in the classroom as usual. His arms and legs seemed to be scathed, luckily it seemed not serious. He was still with his usual behaviour, showing his indifference. Be that as it may, my view towards Ko had changed drastically. Ko, in my eye, though behaving coldly, had a kind heart inside.
I talked to him “Today there is basketball training after school. Do you wish to join us?”
I guessed he would not accept based on his unconcern towards everything. I continued to say “I know you may yet to adapt to this school, thinking your classmates don’t get along with you. But have you thought that your attitude makes us hard to befriend with you? Since we all love playing basketball, join our team and let’s practice together!”
He showed hesitation, then nodded. I was overwhelmed with joy, padding his shoulder and said
“That’s great! Let’s go to the training court together after school!”
I thought it was a good beginning. I would endeavour to help him accustom to our school life.
__END__
