One day, my friends and I left the school premises during break time. We had earlier planned to visit one of us who was on the sick bed in the hospital.
The hospital is not very far from our school. We were about five in number who went to see our dear friend, Grace. She was glad to see us and her mother as well. We prayed with her and spent a little time with her too before the break was over.
On our way back, we decided to take the short route to school, which was through the bush. As we were about to step onto the path, we saw a group of smokers asking us to come.
Fear gripped us, and we fled. All of us ran because it seemed they were behind us. We had no choice but to take the long route, and by the time we got to school, the break was over, and the disciplinary teacher was already waiting for latecomers.
"Where have you been?" he asked, raising his two-sided cane, ready to flog us. I raised my hand to speak, sir. We went to greet one of us; she's been in the hospital since Monday, so we decided to go visit her this morning during break time, I explained boldly.
Mr. Solomon was not ready to give in. 'Who did you inform before going?' he asked, but none of us had the answer to that. We admitted that we were wrong.
We had to take the blame for not taking permission from anyone before leaving school. What if something bad had happened to us? Nevertheless, Grace is one of us, a dear friend and a loving one too, so we don't mind taking five strokes of cane each for disobeying the school rules for our sick friend.