A Very Quiet Friend


My name is Anhar, a grade 2 junior high school student in somewhere in Kolaka, Southeast Sulawesi. Life here is still very beautiful because most of it is still rural and of course there are lots of trees and nice sceneries. You can imagine how happy the students are, who like to gain knowledge, studying in the middle of a beautiful village with very cool air.

I’m very happy here. My friends are also cheerful people. We often joke around and make a little fuss so it is not uncommon for the teachers to tell us to be quiet before they start their lessons.

But among the students in my class, there is one person who is very quiet. He was always aloof, never wanting to join us. When we all laughed because a teacher who taught with a little humor, he was silent, at least never a little smile shaped from his lips as a result of his reaction. Even after the sport subjects was over, he never came with us to play soccer or anything.

I saw a little mysterious things about him. It may be natural for him to be a girl, but I have never seen a boy who is so introverted like him. Even my friends didn’t want to tease him or even think of him as non-existent because they might be reluctant. Occasionally I once offered a little lunch to him, his reaction was really cold. He just nodded slightly at me and smiled a little without any other expression until finally I didn’t offer my lunch to him.

Rumors were heard that he may have experienced acts of violence in his home, or that his parents often fought until he broke home. Unfortunately he was too introverted to tell what happened to class that his expression was almost flat like that every day.

But I was getting more and more annoyed when I saw that he didn’t want to participate in school events like study tours, camping, swimming, and such. Until finally my friends and I just simply ignore him. The teachers were also a little surprised by his behavior, it was not uncommon for him to be alone with several teachers at different times to talk about what the problem was. But it was all in vain until the teachers left him and no one wanted to invite him to vent again.

Sometimes on the one hand, he seems like a very smart kid. I think he’s so studious that every time the teacher tests him he always answers perfectly. I actually wanted to study with him occasionally, but that was, yes, you already know the answer.

Until one day, something unusual happened. At that time as usual we were very noisy waiting for the first lesson to start. Usually the teacher we had been waiting for entered the classroom and told us to be quiet before the lesson started. But today that didn’t happen. The teacher didn’t tell us to be quiet and immediately sat down on his chair. This time it was very different. We became silent on our own out of astonishment.

After teacher ignored us completely and this is really unusual, then what my teacher did was stare at my quiet friend. Honestly, my friend and I are somehow quite a bit afraid of things that never happened before.

“Laode!” My teacher called out his name, the name of the quiet boy.

The boy slowly raised his head and said softly, “Yes, sir…”

My teacher was silent for a moment, we were all stunned, then continued, “Yesterday you didn’t go to the camping with your friends. Hopefully you can come with us today to sow flowers at place of a bus accident of a group of your friends who yesterday fall from a cliff on the way. Because yesterday you didn’t come, only you survived.”


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