“Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black, and rainbow!”
They were fancy sharp pencils that couldn’t be normally see in stationery store in front of our
school. I watched my classmate secretly but in awe. He was lining those sharp pencils every way he
could try. I looked in my pencil case and there was some wooden pencils and an eraser..
One, two, three, four, five...
Now he started to count them. I couldn’t look away from him. Those colorful pencils looked so
fancy.
I watched him counting and lining his sharp pencils quite a few days. He did it in every recess
time and even during class. He was lining them up in every way possible, in rainbow, in cold and
warm color, in dark to bright. Whenever he took out his pencils and started counting, I looked
inside of my pencil case, trying to find something.
So one day, without thinking, I bravely went to him and asked,
“Can I have one of those?” I asked.
I felt like I could count the seconds: one, two, three, four, five.
“Sure.” I could hardly believe my ears. And he handed me the yellow one.
There it was, in my hand, the yellow sharp pencil that I had been admired for days. I didn’t know
how to use the sharp pencil but I gently put it in my pencil case. Now, my pencil case was filled
with joy. Whenever I had to take a note, I used my wooden pencil, looking at that fancy yellow
sharp pencil. It was the yellow joy I could feel.
That night, I could not get to sleep easily so I woke up and checked if my yellow pencil was still
where it is supposed to be. The yellow was the color of sunshine in my life.
I took extra care for that pencil. I rarely used it but I always brought it everywhere. I did not show
it to my friends since I was too afraid if they want it. One time I saw my brother touching my pencil
case. I gave him one of my wooden pencils and took away my precious yellow pencil. Yes, that
yellow pencil was everything to me. It shined my life into bright yellow.
The boy still named and counted his pencils in recess time.
“Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black”
He got the yellow again from somewhere and was doing the same thing again; lining and counting.
At first when I saw him counting, I felt happy since I had one of those. It is just one but enough
one to make me happy. However as time goes on, the sound of him counting those pencils irritated
me. I could see all the other colors he had and they were so beautiful.
‘What if I could have just one more?’ This one small idea knocked my head.
‘What if I had just one more, I might be much happier’ This small idea came into my head.
At night, I could not easily get to sleep due to that small idea. I dreamed of rainbow sharp pencils
dancing, becoming friends of my yellow pencil. I was desiring to have one more.
Now my yellow pencil did not look as fancy and as bright as it used to.
I really needed more pencils the same one but in different color and that small idea started to
bring other ideas.
‘I want more’ Now it was not even “what if” as I was sure I needed more.
‘You can take it’ something whispered me inside of me.
Yes, the boy never brought his pencils back to his home. He always kept them inside of the drawer
under his desk. I could take that when every one is not watching me.
‘But that is a bad thing’
Yes, that was a bad thing. But, the boy will think he just lost the pencil, he never paids attention
to his stuffs.
After a small argument in my head, we ended up making a plan to get a new pencil.
So I waited for the right timing. It was right before we go back to our home. The classroom was
crowded, everyone mining their own business. I closely but secretly observed the boy. He put his
pencils deep inside of the drawer and went to the bathroom. I quietly but quickly went to his desk,
and checked people around me first. I put my hand into the deep dark drawer, and took away one
pencil I could touch. My heart was pounding fast. I did not check the color but just put it deep
inside of my bag. All I could think was I have to get back to home as quickly as I can.
So that day, I ran to my home, ignoring my friends calling me, to check the color.
When I finally arrived at my room, I sat down on my bad and took a deep breath, slowly opening
my bag. There it was, my pencil, my new white pencil. The white sun shine my bed.
The next morning, the boy sat down and brought out all the pencils. Right after he started to
count, he noticed something was missing. He bend to look inside of his drawer, put his hands to
find something. He pulled out everything inside and looked through one by one. That day, He
pulled things out of his drawer and looked through every stuff instead of counting.
I could feel my dad looking at me and his voice sounded neither mad nor happy. My eyes were
lost in this empty, dark and quite room like a sweatbox with just me and my dad. They pretended
to be calm but looking for one spot to focus, running away from dad.
“Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Black and White”
I could hear the sound of boy in my head. Here, in front of me, there were two sharp pencils,
white and yellow one. In front of it, there were my father’s two big reliable feet which always headed
to university to teach students early in the morning. Next to it, there were my father’s two big
hands responsible hands which always carry thick books days and nights, weekdays and weekends.
Those hands always gave me a hug after his work, drove me to amazing places and something I
wanted to hold on and follow. But that hand did not seem to be happy.
I forgot what his question was but that did not matter since it was too obvious.
White and yellow pencils were in my sight very clearly, but it slowly became blurry and at one
point I could not see them anymore. I could still hear my classmate counting his sharp pencils, how
much I admired them and two of those pretty pencils ended up in my pencil case.
And there they were, in front of my dad. The silence of my dad was suffocating me. After one big
drop of tear wet my knee, all the tears rushed out of my eyes. At that point, not only my face but
all of my body was wet due to sweat from nervousness.
“I stole this white one but my class mate just gave this yellow one.” I said in trembling voice,
without looking my dad.
Everything stopped for a few minutes and my dad said in very calm voice,
“OK. So you can give this one back to your class mate, and you can have the other one.”
When I heard my dad’s voice, I felt so relaxed. I could finally see my dad in his eyes. My body was
covered with unknown water; my tears and sweat due to the tension of him not talking. If he shout
at me and scolded me, it would have been much easier for me to just defend myself. However all
those silence was just too hard thing for me to bear.
I was just too afraid to let my dad down.
That night I planned the things I have to do next morning. Getting up early, putting back the white
pencil where it suppose to be and that was it.
Next morning, just like I planned I woke up early and arrived earlier than any other students. I
opened the classroom and put the white pencil where I secretly took away. I went back to my desk
and pretend reading. One by one, my class mates came to school. The boy came to his seat too
and when he found out that he had his white pencil again he seemed to be happy.
Also, I instinctively knew that I would never ever steal again.