Mrs.Elizabeth Anthony was the new English teacher of St.Peter’s Primary school. She was tall, pretty and highly qualified. She had a great teaching style. Everything was nice about her except her temper. She was very strict and punished the students even for smallest wrong thing.
Arunima and Jyoti studied in class 5 and were taught by Mrs. Anthony. Arunima was going through a rough time. Her mother had fractured her arm, grandmother had a cataract surgery, grandfather was down with fever and father was out of the city on a business trip. So she was giving timely medicine to her grandpa, eye drops to her grandma and helping her mother in the kitchen. In all that turmoil she forgot to take her English homework notebook to school. She realized that during morning assembly and told Jyoti, her best friend. Jyoti told Arunima not to worry and everything will be fine. It so happened that Arunima and Jyoti sat next to each other and had almost identical hand writing. During the English class when Mrs.Anthony asked for the homework notebooks Arunima nervously stood up and admitted that she forgot to get her notebook. She tried to explain her situation at home but Mrs.Anthony wouldn’t listen to anything. She started scolding Arunima. Tears started rolling down her cheeks. Jyoti at once stood up and said – “Ma’am Arunima is trying to defend me. Here is her notebook. Look even her name is written on the cover.” So Jyoti was punished instead of Arunima.
Mrs.Anthony’s niece Sofia happened to be in the same class. At dinner table she told her aunt how Arunima was going through a rough time at home and how Jyoti helped her. Jyoti had changed the cover of her own notebook and written Arunima’s name on the cover just to save her from the punishment. Hearing this Mrs. Anthony was highly embarrassed. She realized that her educational degrees only made her a teacher but a ten year old taught her how to be a good human being.

©️ Sumita Bose