If We Keep It Quiet

‘It’s best if we keep it quiet,’ the Headmaster said.

The young boy remembered those words and the Science teacher.

His parents agreed to take him to another school. The Headmaster offered ‘a smooth transfer even though it’s mid-year’. Couple of schools owed him that return favour.

The Science teacher was reprimanded. He taught there for thirteen more years. There were other complaints, also kept quiet. He got the National Best Teacher Award a year before he died in a hit-and-run accident. 

Many years later, a fine summer morning, the retired Headmaster was walking in a park with his young grandson. A man in his late thirties came up to him and said, ‘It’s best if we keep it quiet.’

The old man collapsed.

The boy later told the police, ‘That man said something. I can’t remember. If only I could.’