Zahid is a stubborn boy. He always watches football matches late at night. Although his mother always tells him to sleep early, he does not listen to her. One night, Zahid watched a match at 3 in the morning. He was so sleepy that he forgot to set his alarm clock.
The next morning, Zahid yawned and sat up rubbing his eyes. He walked towards the window to look at the beautiful scenery in front of his house. Thinking it was a Sunday, he stared outside the window pane , watching some butterflies flutter around the morning glories in his garden.
He then spotted his neighbour, Haziq in a school uniform. Haziq looked up and saw him in his pyjamas . He smiled and waved at Haziq who started pointing to his watch but Zahid just stood there smiling. He thought how silly of Haziq to go to school on a Sunday morning. He slowly walked to the round faced alarm clock on his desk. Its long hand pointed at twelve and short hand pointed at seven. It almost took him a minute to realise the time. He then looked at his calendar. It was a Wednesday. He panicked and realised that he was late for school. Without thinking , he rushed to the bathroom as quick as possible.
He accidentally stepped on a bar of soap which was on the floor. He slipped and fell on his back. He recalled why the bar of soap was on the floor. He was so sleepy the night before that when he went to the bathroom to wash his hands, it slipped off and he did not bother to pick it up. His back was so painful. Luckily , he was not badly hurt. He stood up, slowly limped over to the sink , splashed some water on his face and limped out the toilet forgetting to brush his teeth. He then quickly slipped on his uniform, ran downstairs , right through the door without breakfast.
He ran as fast as his legs could take him, forgetting the pain. When he was about to reach the bus-stop , he saw the school bus leaving. He tried to catch it but it was too fast. He had no choice but to run.
When he reached the school, the hall was empty. All the students had already gone back to class . Looking at his watch which showed 8:30 in the morning , he realised he missed one of his lessons. He ran up the stairs , through the corridor and slammed open the classroom door. Gasping for air, he found forty pairs of eyes and an angry teacher staring at him. He knew he was terribily late. His teacher punished him to stand outside the class for the whole day. He apologised to his teacher and promised himself that he will never ever sleep late again. He decided to turn over a new leaf and become a good boy.
written by Sarah Chey edited by Pn. Ng