One by one, my classmates left. By 4 p.m., I was standing at the school gate, all by myself, waiting for my mother to pick me up. I had expected to see her as soon as I reached the school gate for my remediation class ended ten minutes late today.
“What’s taking her so long? Could she have forgotten about me?” I muttered to myself, pacing up and down anxiously outside my school.
Minutes and seconds ticked by. My anxiety escalated to a point which was close to panic. “If I do not see her in five minutes, I will not wait for her anymore,” I decided.
Just then, from a distance, my constricted heart loosened in relief when I saw a familiar figure approaching me. My mother had finally appeared! As she sauntered closer, uneasiness set in. Why was she not rushing when she was so late? This was not typical of her at all.
I could see quite clearly from about ten metres away her new hairdo. I gathered quickly in my mind what could have caused her to keep me waiting for so long. I waved wildly in the air. She waved back.
“Hey! Wait a minute! That’s not my mother!” I told myself. Now that she was nearer, I realized that her resemblance to my mother only stopped at her medium-sized frame and her rotund body shape. This lady was much younger. I retracted my waving hand. By then, she was only less than two metres away from me, near enough to see how flustered I was from embarrassment. Feeling sheepish, I smiled a silly smile and looked away from her to mask my awkwardness.
“Dear, so sorry to have kept you waiting,” the lady apologized.
I looked at her, completely baffled. What the lady did next was even more unexpected. She took a step forward and held my hand. I gasped and almost coughed my heart out but was too shocked to pull my hand from her grasp.
“Don’t be angry, Karen. I am sorry that I have made you wait,” she apologised, bent forward and looked directly into my eyes. I reeled back but could not break away from her vice-like grip. Her face was so close to mine that I could count the number of sweat pores. And, the stench emitting from her breath was so foul that I could almost faint.
“But I don’t know who you are. I waved to you just now because I thought you were my mother,” I mustered my courage to explain politely, fighting against my will not to cup my free hand over my nose.
Much to my horror, the lady flew into hysteria. She pulled me towards her and started sobbing. I struggled to release myself from her embrace but it only got tighter.
“Don’t go, Karen. Please don’t leave me again. I promised I won’t be late again,” she pleaded in between sobs.
“I am not Karen! I don’t know you!” I tried to push her away in vain.
Just then, like music to my ears, a man’s hoarse voice thundered, ”Let her go!”
The voice belonged to Mr Ali, our school security guard. He marched forward and separated me from the lady’s grip. Like a prisoner set free, I took refuge behind my saviour. But at this moment, the lady turned violent and started hurling a flurry of expletives at us.
I was scared out of my soul. Never in my life had I seen anyone who had lost all the sanity. Mr Ali caught hold of her arms for fear that she might hurt me. He radioed for help. Soon, his colleague, Mr Samy, came running to the gate to assist him. In their haste to drag the lady into the school, they left me behind. I was all alone again but I did not mind at all.
My mother showed up eventually. I was so eager to tell her all about my encounter with the insane lady that I forgot to blame her for being late.
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