Written by Adele Ng Jingwen

1. Integrity
“Ring” The recess bell reverberated shrilly. “Yippee!” Everyone whooped happily except
for Alan, Vincent and Javier, the three good friends. The field was under construction and they
had no other place to play football. At that moment, Alan had an idea. He told Vincent and
Javier that they could play outside the Science laboratory as it had a wide space and there was
barely anyone there during that time. Javier and Vincent agreed.
When their form teacher released the students for their recess, hordes of students
charged out of the classroom, stampeding their way to the places they wanted to go. Corridors
were filled with the deafening roars of heavy footsteps and incessant chatter. Exuberant peals of
laughter resounded all around. Beaming from ear to ear, Alan, Vincent and Javier made a
beeline for the Science laboratory. They had a leisurely time playing football, laughing gleefully
while kicking the ball back and forth. As all of them were too engrossed in the game, they did
not realize that they were moving nearer to a fishtank with expensive goldfish inside it.
Suddenly, Alan accidentally kicked the ball too hard and it flew towards the fishtank,
“Crash!” The glass panel of the fishtank had a hole in it after being hit by the ball and water was
gushing out of the gaping hole. The expensive goldfish were flushed down to the rough cement
floor, their mouths wide open, trying to breathe. The three of them stood transfixed, too
shocked by the sudden turn of events. “I’m so sorry!” Alan cried as his foolhardy actions
resulted in the innocent fishes deaths. Besides feeling guilty, they were facing a moral dilemma,
deciding whether to sacrifice themselves for the sake of integrity or getting away with a lack of
integrity. In the end, they chose to run away.
“What are the three of you doing? Why are you running?” Mr. Ong asked. Alan replied,
“Oh, we are running back to our classroom to wait for our teacher to come.” Hearing that, Mr.
Ong turned red with rage. “You!” a voice boomed. It belonged to Mr. Ong again. However, this
time, he was wagging a threatening finger at Alan, “You were in the wrong and you still act
defiantly?” Actually, Mr. Ong had witnessed the whole incident. He was just testing their
honesty. Cold sweat trickled down their faces.
Needless to say, they got their just deserts. Not only did Alan have to clean up the mess
near the Science laboratory, the three of them also had to stay back in detention class for five
weeks! It was a really good lesson for them!