Thief or Not~Your Thoughts ?

Gm people! It's my first time here and I hope to make my stay worthwhile.
Based on the prompts for this week, I want to talk about the most unbelievable 24hours of my life. It was really unbelievable.

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So, there is this day in my life I can never forget, it was the day I was called a thief in my secondary school where everybody was gathered. All the students from Junior Secondary School One(JSS 1) to Senior Secondary School Three (SSS 3) as well as the academic and non-academic staff, were gathered in the school's auditorium. It was a full hall with every single person who was meant to be in school being present that day.

It was the last day of the term and that academic session. We had all gathered in the auditorium after the final examination which was Mathematics and English Language precisely.

I had finished addressing the students as the Senior Prefect (SP), the Principal had also addressed everyone and the Proprietor had taken over the stage. He (the proprietor) went on to address the students and all the staff, talking about the session that was coming to a close and gave a brief view of next academic session would look like. To end his speech, he said... "A report got to me yesterday about someone who took what does not belong to him, that person who did that must be a thief. Taking what does not belong to you is stealing and therefore the person must be punished as one. If you know you're the one who took a bottle of canned malt that belonged to SSS 2 students during the carol night yesterday, come out now!"

At this statement, the whole hall was as quiet as a graveyard, you could hear the sound of the drop of a pin. Everyone was looking around to see this notorious student who had taken a bottle of canned malt that didn't belong to him.

To the shock and greatest surprise of my proprietor, the students and teachers who didn't know about what happened the previous night, I walked up to my proprietor majestically and confidently like someone stepping up to the stage to receive an award. As I made my walk to meet him at the front, he was shocked, looking at me as though I was coming to pass information to him as the SP I was.

As I approached him, he asked, "Are you the one who took the drink"? I said YES, I am the one. For some minutes he couldn't alter a word because I was the last person in the whole school he would've expected to be the culprit.

Left with no option, he began to talk and call me a thief. In his words, "You are a thief. You stole what is not yours. How will you take a bottle of canned malt that is not your own? If you are hungry for malt, why can't you buy it for yourself? Instead, you chose to embarrass yourself in front of the junior students. It's a big shame for you to have done this".

Now the pronouncement of the punishment came: "I will not flog you as I had planned to flog the culprit because I respect you as my Senior Prefect, but between now and tomorrow morning, you must buy one carton of malt and bring it to my office, and you'll go and apologize to the SSS 2 students for taking their malt ".

At this point, everyone was already feeling uneasy; the students and the teachers alike. They knew that I was not someone who could steal, so they knew something was wrong somewhere. Some came to sympathize with me for being called a thief in the presence of the whole school while some came to ask what really transpired. I was sad and I felt deeply shattered since that was the first time in my life I was called a thief; not just in the presence of two or three people, but in the presence of my junior students and classmates of whom I was the Senior Prefect. It was such a demeaning moment for me, friends rallied around me to cheer me up and to make sure I didn't allow the words of the proprietor get me into depression.

But the question is, DID I REALLY STEAL THE MALT?

Now follow me as I give you the gist of what really happened.

It was our carol night in school; the night before our school's end-of-year party. The carol night was like a night party in school. Students gather to have fun, play, dance, and all that. As the Senior Prefect of the school, I decided to walk around the school compound to know what was going on and be sure that there was no wrong activity going on anywhere. As I walked around, I entered into a class and saw that the class was arranged like it were to be used for a conference meeting, on the tables in this class we're kept canned malt drinks and one person was there to look after the drinks.

So, with the vibes going on and the music playing, I reached out for one can of malt, the person wo was sitting there told me I should keep the can of malt that it was for a group of people, but I didn't mind and said since I was the SP and those guys were males that it wasn't gonna be any problem, so I opened the can of malt drink and started drinking it. Just on my way back to the hall, I met the group of guys who the malt belonged to, as they saw me drinking the malt, they got so upset and furious, shouting and causing a scene. They would have even attacked me because of how upset they were, but they controlled themselves because I was the one.

Their anger was because the malt drinks were counted and were for a specific number of people; which meant that I had caused a shortage. I understood their anger and pleaded with them. I was able to use my influence to pacify and arrest the situation. So, everything was settled and the party continued peacefully.

Coming back to the words of my proprietor, it is obvious I didn't steal the malt, neither was I a thief as he called me, or do you have a different opinion? I would love to know in the comment section.

And yes, I didn't graduate from that school with that name, I was given an award; A CHARACTER AWARD which cancels out the bad name I was called. This award is what I plan to use anytime, any day anyone comes up with an accusation that I have a criminal record during my secondary school days.

Image is mine

So, yeah 17th July, 2010 was the most unbelievable 24hours of my life as I never believed I would be embarrassed at that level in the presence of everyone in a school as the Senior Prefect.

Thank you very much for reading.

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