SOKSEK The Warden

I know I somehow have a love-hate relationship with the warden.

I thought they could play the role better, but then when one of them asked me to get into another pant and hand her the black jeans I was wearing, I don't like that either.

A dormmate with lotsa gut broke into the warden office to seize back her confiscated stuff and ended up with my black jeans instead.

Saved me the trouble. Thanks!!!!

♫ ♪♫ ♪♫ ♪ Theme song for the post : Trouble Is A Friend ♫ ♪♫ ♪♫ ♪

Anyway, in the first 2 years, I always stay back when we were given permission to spend the weekend at home.

I told you I hate the journey home and back to school.

Anyway, there's this one particular evening.

I was maybe in form 1 or form 2 and I was having great time with Ili in my dorm, until the news broke that the warden is on her way up and is gonna punish us for not having prep.

I mean, are you kidding me?

Not spending the weekend at home is pathetic enough.

And do we still have to attend prep, on Friday night?

But, there was no time to rebuke about that.

Ili darted down to study room sans sandals and I fled with Kak Yana to another dorm that's empty and hide at the corner of the dorm.

Bunk beds are good in a way that they shield you from the torchlight shone by the warden, problem is you have to put up in such a small space for quite sometime.

It was ecstatic, we were both holding our breath and when the warden said "I know you are there" and some threatening words, we had tough time to not break into laughters.

And so it happened, I was in the cross country team, so we would occassionally had training outside school.

One day, after an ardous workout in Mengkuang area, me and Che'ah, a fellow runner syahid after shower.

To show how much we were drained off from the workout, we slept with legs dangling from the bed and with all the lamp lit - a sign that we FALL asleep. not GO to sleep.

However, I was slapped back into land of consciousness.

That warden slapped me and Che'ah.

Imagine the horror to be awaken from a deep serene sleep by a stroke of hand on your cheek.

Now, I want to bite that hand.

I mean, logically and scientifically and sunnatullahi, doing that is really dangerous.

I may be dead and she might be dead as well.

Anyway, since we were still in blurry mode we just got into our kurung and got down to study room and it was an hour later that I regained full consciousness and really realized the nightmare that has just passed.

Now those are what happened in lower secondary, getting into higher secondary means more rebellion and action.

Spidey is someone who got into the school one fine morning from nowhere and commanded all of us to call him abah.

What the ikan jacket mak cik DM right?

He pushed his rules upon us and being me, I didn't really bother to comply with ridiculous rules (well, any school rule was ridiculous to me back then)

Bumping into him, means just nodding, curtly.

There's no way for me to greet someone who looks at the student with such make believe authority that he created himself.

I believed that I am entitled to at least polite response by anyone who's eligible to cast their vote.

Well, if you want a comparison, I think Severus Snape is better than Spidey.

Anyway, one fine afternoon when in form3, in my baggy tracksuit(unlike others, I didn't have the privilege to have everything fit to me. second hand tracksuit is a bless already), black long tee and bright orange sneakers, I made my way down for afternoon prep and there he was right in front of the bilik gerakan pengawas, ready to punish.

Itulah seluar tangan kedua dan kasut oren yang kena soal dgn Spidey

I walked as if nothing happens.

Hey boy, it's 7 minutes to 3pm and prep start at 3pm.

And with his make believe authority, he reached for the loud-hailer and commanded everyone who's still in hostel to be at Dataran Kecemerlangan.

I was the first one to go since I was the only one there and then many others joined me, and among others, his treasured prefects.

All looking perplexed as to why we have to be there.

Well people, your beloved daddy said it's prep time, according to his sun watch, I think.

Because my watch worked real well ~ I never bother to switch it to earlier or later minutes.

Remember, don't play with time!Hahaha

Anyway, some of the prefect told him it's not even time yet.

But he won't give in just like that you see and he found fault with my attire.

*slap hand on forehead*

man, it's not like I'm wearing body hugging long sleeve and yeah my tracksuit is secondhand, but it's not jeans.

And I was not wearing my stinky uniform from the school that I had earlier that day.

Smells of gado-gado and kari ikan nyok2 (saya penghafal menu dewan makan di suatu ketika dahulu)

All in all, I felt triumph that afternoon.

Don't trouble the trouble!

I was not guilty, at least not that afternoon.

Since we rose later and later with every passing year, less we had breakfast at dining hall.

One day, I decided to be generous to myself and bought fried rice with sunny side up egg and a glass of yummeh teh ais.

It was 10 minutes to half past 7 in the morning. means another ten minutes before the assembly starts.

2 spoon of fried rice into the mouth and the hell presented itself uninvited.

I sucked as much teh ais as I can and scurry to assembly.

The sunny side egg was left uneaten with the other.

My fault, it was and spidey was right.

So that's about Spidey, now we move on to our PK HEM.

On a fine weekend evening at about 6 pm, my party of 5 people decided to visit the night market, which turned out to be a dissappointment.

Whoever put sausage in pasembur?I never remember having something like that,and such a dissapointment the night market was that we were back at the gate 20 minutes after.

That guard, he surely doesn't understand Malay.

We told him we are going out for night market and would leave our names as extra precaution.

And you know what happened afterwards?

As my parents got a shock of their life receiving love letter from school saying their daughter fled from hostel, I was asked to key in my demerit into the system.

Honestly, why are something like these happened when you are being honest?

And the most memorable one would be the encounter with the big boss himself, the principal.

I was avoiding morning assembly in hostel when I bumped into the principal himself on my way to class.

This time, honesty is not the policy anymore and I got away cleanly.

And so it happened, all our data regarding yearly school magazine publication was destroyed by an army of ant.

Stomp those tiny, irritating things. Stomp!stomp!stomp!

We had to stayed back in school with the final year students so that they would have a momento of their senior year and what did they do to us?

Very much!

Apart from verbally accusing us af stealing their portion of meals, they left quite a generous amount of things after they were done with SPM once and for all.

There's no way we would stay in an empty hostel, so we met for overnight work at our big operation room.

The boys heaved in packets of Milo, brand new socks, backpack and many other things left by those already school leavers.

Picture mice with the things they dig out-now you get the clear picture of the boys.

To kill the time, we did our work, read comic, and me playing artist with Microsoft paint.

The guard was on his round and we shouted to him that we were in doing works, and as we thought he came back later, but now with the principal clad in teluk belanga and kain pelikat and another guard!!

That night, we were escorted by all three men.

All of them holding the big torchlight.

Anybody who would be there would think that we have been caught *fill in the blank*

At that time, I thought nothing is wrong with staying up overnight in a brightly lit large space to finish all those editorial works, but now, I beg to differ, never try this people.

I and Aidilla went to sleep in sickbay that night, with Aidilla styling the priciple from pengetua to penyu tua.

Not that poor old man fault at all.

We were young and thoughtless.

And the next morning, all four of us found ourselves squeezed at the back of the principal's Mercedez, with him and his wife.

He took us to breakfast - roti canai.

I couldn't believe something like that would happened to me.

I was having breakfast at warung with my own principal with his wife.

Honestly saying, I tried and managed to excel in academic, participate in anything that I can, with the hope that I can be a prefect.

Prefect set aside, I was not even librarian, honestly teling you I felt like I was not noticed at all and I believe that I had all the rights to be made at least a librarian.

Anyway, with bits of luck and sponsors, and the great teamwork, the PUNCAK publication when I was the editor came out glossy and with my batch memorial elegant as wanted.

I don't know about the fellow schoolmates, but it was a personal victory for me.

Kami hanya budak biasa. Oh, yg baju merah tu luar biasa sikit, dia otai.

And alhamdulillah, my status as a student wearing the ordinary turqoise sarong and white kurung and scarf still lead me to many wonderful opportunities.

For those who were there with me during those 5 years and the most memorable final 2 years.

Thank you for everything.

For every good and bad thing, for the joy and tears and cheeky days.

It has been a wonderful journey!

Gambar dicilok dari koleksi Soksekians.