‘PSST!’ The persistent hissing was coming from somewhere behind me. It might have been meant for me, but I wasn’t sure. So feigning deafness, I continued to scribble away on my exam answer sheet, trying to explain what genetic mutation involves.

Thwack! Something hit me on the back of my head. Oh, well, so the hushed noises were for me after all. Sighing internally, I turned to see my friend, Ainee, gesturing wildly at my chair. I looked down and saw a ball of paper. I didn’t have to read it to tell that she was stuck at some question.

I sneaked a furtive look around the exam hall. Most students were busy solving the paper. The few exceptions were people like Ainee who were signalling to their friends to help them out. But as far as I could tell, only Ainee had succeeded in her attempt. The invigilator was sitting at the front of the room, hooked to the phone in her hand, giving us a quick look now and then.

I unfolded the piece of paper. ‘What’s the answer to Q8?’ she had written.

I glanced at the clock. Only 30 minutes were left for the paper to end and I had one whole essay question to do. The question Ainee needed help with was equally long. In addition to it, I remembered the many lectures on cheating my mom had delivered to me. But then Ainee was my friend and I valued our friendship. I’ll do her a favour just this once, I thought, forgetting that I had done so on several occasions in the past, always convincing myself with the same lie.

Ignoring the twinge of guilt, I started writing the answer at double my usual writing speed, eager to get it over with quickly so I could get back to my own work. It took me almost 10 minutes to finish jotting down everything I could recall about the process of X-ray crystallography.

Seriously freaked now, I rolled up the paper into a ball again and, without checking to see where the invigilator was, I turned around and threw it back at Ainee who was sitting a few seats back and slightly to the left. I didn’t see her panicked expression or where the paper landed because, right at that very moment, I heard the invigilator asking someone to stand up.

My head whipped around, and sure enough, there she was — the invigilator, standing a few seats behind Ainee. I saw her nodding to the student she was talking to and coming towards me. She didn’t even give me a chance to speak. Reaching out, she took my exam paper from me and motioned for me to leave the room.

I was in complete shock. Numb and dumb, I just sat there motionless, staring at the invigilator with my mouth hanging open.

The invigilator frowned. “I think I asked you to leave the room,” she said.

My voice returned abruptly. “But, miss, I wasn’t cheating! I was only ...”

She cut me off mid-sentence. “I’m not interested in what you were doing. All I saw was you passing this,” to my horror, she waved the paper-ball around, “to someone. That is cheating. Now leave the room, please.”

I turned around, expecting Ainee to fess up and admit to having asked me the answer in the first place, but I was in for another shock. She wasn’t even looking at me! Head bowed, gaze averted, she appeared focused on her exam as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

I stood there for a few seconds silently, gazing at my friend. The invigilator was still there, waiting for me to pack up my stationary and leave the examination hall. Breathing deeply, I gathered my stuff and walked the length of the room, biting my lip in shame, super aware of people’s raised eyebrows. I even heard a few titters from the crowd of students.

It was only when I came out that I let the dam of tears break loose. More so than the impending U (unsatisfactory) on my report card, I was hurt by my friend’s selfish attitude. But then I couldn’t blame her entirely. Why would she have wanted to get into unnecessary trouble? In her position, I guess I’d have done the same.

Truth is, I had a choice. You always do. You can say “Yes” or you can give the other person a blunt “No”. No one can force you into doing something. At the end of the day, the choice is yours. If you’re wise, you know straight off what the right one for you is. I learnt the hard way, but I have mastered it now — the art of saying “No” where it’s required.