The case of the useless ball

Ball left in the car for a few days

Two Fridays ago, my son suddenly wanted to buy a ball. He is a cunning boy - he asked his mother instead of me. My wife bought the ball from the bookshop, pasted a sticker with his name on it, told him about the sticker, and then reminded him to be careful with the ball. The ball is not very expensive but we hope to inculcate ownership and care of his belongings.

The case of the useless ball happened when I picked him up next Monday. Unlike most other Mondays, my wife happened to be on leave and we went to school together to pick him up. When we saw him, we could sense that something had happened. He told us that his ball was missing - some boy from the next class took the ball and it was gone. He looked quite flustered. We went to the General Office to try our luck in the lost-and-found. There was no sign of the ball and the office clerk told us to go the cages containing the school-owned balls to look for it. I was rather sceptical that it would be there, so I slowed down my steps while my son eagerly hurried over. Without me knowing, the misguided instructions from the office helped us to piece the case together.

As we walked down the staircase towards the cages, a boy approached me, and pointing at my son, said that my son pinched the cheeks of a friend of his. I nodded my head and smiled at him. It was completely random and I thought no more about it, but I also thought that I will ask about this later. So I just put it aside and continued the search. On hindsight, I should have stopped him and asked more.

After some time, it was obvious that we could not find the ball. It was late and we decided to head to United Square so that he could attend his maths class. During the trip there, we asked him more questions. From him, we discovered that he had complained about the missing ball to his form teacher, Mrs Vijay. But apparently she waved him off. Even though I knew that it was difficult for her to do anything, I was not very impressed by her nonchalance over the matter.

Suddenly, I made a connection - an intuitive one, to be frank. I asked him if he had pinched the cheeks of a boy and if, this had anything to do with the ball being lost. When he replied hesitantly, "not really", I knew that was the missing link.

From there, we managed to piece the information together. The boy had taken the ball and my son pinched his cheeks in an attempt to stop the 'robbery'. Obviously that did not stop him. At that point, he also volunteered that he knew the boy - a classmate of his in Berries! Even though we were not completely certain this was the exact tale, we felt that we have enough information to go to the teachers. Of course, at the back of my mind, this question popped into my mind - what if the stealing of the ball was an act of revenge for my son pinching his cheeks? Nevertheless, we told him that he must apologise for pinching the cheeks, regardless of who started it.

That night, we discussed further and we finally agreed that maybe we should not do anything first. However, we decided to go to school together with him, just to have a look-see at the situation. That night, my wife prayed hard to God. I am not sure if it was God's will, but it turned out very well.

He woke up exceptionally early that morning and we reached school easily twenty minutes earlier than our usual timing. Because of the earlier timing, the three of us went to the canteen to eat.  As a result, my son spotted the boy who took the ball and his dad! What a coincidence! My wife went up to the father and explained the entire situation. She also made my son apologise for the pinching. From the look of the father, it was clear that the boy did not tell his father about the pinching incident at all. When the father questioned the boy, the boy said that he thought it was his friend's ball. The father asked the boy to apologise and to look for the ball. He squirmed and did not apologise but we left it at that. Needless to say, the boy probably did not bother to look actively for the ball.

The ball never came back to us. On the same day, he used his money to buy a ball. Subsequently, the ball was taken away one more time, but this time by an upper primary boy who obviously checked the ball and saw my son's name. That boy went to my son's class to return the ball. But after that, my son became paranoid about the ball. He started to play the ball on his own rather than with his friends in the parade square, probably because he is afraid of getting the ball taken away again. I told him that it was pointless to take the ball to school and keep it to himself. He will probably be labelled as selfish for not allowing others to play the ball. The ball is now in the car in the back seat. And I think it will be there for time to come.

I think it will be some time before he ever brings a ball to school. Hopefully, as he grows older, he will be more assertive and show more confidence in himself. For now, he will not be taking the ball to school.

"No P5 kic the ball" - he wrote this himself