“Stop crying Maria. It is good that you have realised your mistake. It is never too late,” a worried mum comforted her 15-year-old daughter, who was sobbing with guilt.

“Mum, she would be hating herself right now, all due to me,” she laid her head on her mother’s arms.

“Whose crying voice is this?” Abdullah screamed while running upstairs heading towards Maria’s room. “What happened Maria?” Abdullah asked apprehensively, his eyes were widened when he caught the sight of his sister’s eyes all red because of crying. He has never seen his bold and brave sister crying like that. “There must be a strong reason behind it, did I do something?”

Maria remembered the morning’s incidents, first day in her new grade. She and Amna were seating themselves at the front desk right in front of teacher’s desk. It was quite early and still no students had arrived.

Just then a rather healthy girl, with rough jet-black hair tied in two pigtails, entered the room. She seemed very nervous and as she pulled her rimless brown glasses, before she could realise, she toppled over the door’s raised ridge and fell. The thud grabbed Maria’s attention.

Maria gazed at her in astonishment and flinched in disgust, “Hey Amna, look at this elephant.” They both started laughing loudly.

“Looks like she has not showered in months,” Maria jabbered. Amna found it a little too rude, but she knew that if she would stop Maria from talking trash about that girl, Maria would definitely ridicule her as well for being too kind. So she remained silent and said she will be right back and went out from the room.

The girl who fell felt so embarrassed that her eyes filled with tears. Maria was careless, she thought of teasing that girl again and spilled the juice she had in her hands. The poor girl, who had managed to get up, did not realise that there was another trap laying in front of her and walked straight to the first empty desk she saw. As soon as she stepped on the spilled juice, she lost her balance and fell again, but this time her spectacles also fall and shattered into pieces.

Maria immediately ran out from the class towards the corridor so no one can know that she spilled the juice as she did not want to damage her image.

Inside the class, the poor girl was crying. She knelt down and covered her face with her hands. The juice stained her uniform. She was wailing when a teacher was passing from the corridor and heard someone crying in the classroom; she came in and saw a girl weeping, she went close and asked anxiously, “Are you alright kid?”

The girl wiped her tears and said, “I am okay, teacher.”

“You do not look so,” teacher replied worriedly. “I have always been home schooled so I am missing my mother that is why I was crying, nothing else to be worried about,” she told.

“Ok, then do not worry, you will be going home after the school, so take care of yourself. By the way, what is your name?” teacher asked.

“My name is Ayesha,” she replied.

“Very beautiful name, just like your face,” the teacher complimented. Her sentence put a smile on Ayesha’s face.

Just then the bell to the start of next period rang, and all the students moved in the classroom with haste. The teacher asked Maria to sit with Ayesha, so Ayesha could get some help. Maria was least interested, but she could not do anything and sat there quietly. Ayesha did not show any signs of rage and remained calm.

After the school was over, Maria went home and as soon as she stepped in the house, she told her mother that she was exhausted and so going straight to sleep. She hopped on her bed and fell asleep immediately.

Suddenly, someone jolted her, she opened her eyes and saw her teacher. She got up and, to her shock, she was not in her room but was in a dark room with little light. She saw her teacher holding a paper. Maria was scared. She stepped closer to her teacher and before she could ask anything, her teacher said, “Maria, look at this paper, say something mean to it.”

“You are filthy!” Maria shouted. A pencil appeared from nowhere in teacher’s hand, she drew a line on the paper.

Teacher asked again, “Say something bad again!”

“You are ugly,” Maria yelled. Teacher drew another line and the same act was repeated several times until the paper was filled with lines. Then the teacher gave Maria the paper and an eraser and directed her to erase the lines. Maria took the eraser and started erasing the lines. After the lines were erased, she gave the paper back to her teacher.

“Does it look new?” teacher asked.

“No, it is not clean and there are still some marks left, which are difficult to erase the harsh words,” Maria replied.

“Exactly, this is what happens when you bully someone. An apology can never erase the marks you leave on their self-esteem,” teacher explained to Maria.

Maria was quiet. Her teacher also disappeared.

Suddenly, her stomach and face started bloating and she transformed into a very fat girl. A crowd out of nowhere appeared and circled around her; then everyone started bullying her. They laughed, mocked and what not. Maria could not stop herself from crying.

Just when she tried to hide her face, she saw Ayesha. Ayesha lifted Maria up and wiped her tears, Maria hid her face in Ayesha’s shoulder.

And then she heard another voice, “Maria wake up! It’s been two hours since you slept!” her mother shook her up from sleep.

On realising it was all a dream, Maria could not contain herself and confessed everything to her mother.

“Oh, so that is why you are crying, no worries dear, you can always apologise and promise never to do the misdeed again!” her mother consoled her.

Maria realised how cruel she had been all this time not only to Ayesha, but to many other kids too. So she took this dream of her as a warning and vowed to herself that she would never ever hurt anyone.

The next day, before any student arrived, Maria decided to correct her mistake and went straight to Ayesha and apologised for her behaviour. After that, Amna, Ayesha and Maria became very good friends.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 12th, 2022