The Good Boy – The One With The Bloody Hockey Game

The boy stood there watching in admiration as his brother hit the hockey ball hard with all his might so it will go through the row of small but thick plants. Every time his brother, angah, swung the hockey stick, without fail the ball flew through the plants, hitting the wall and making loud thumping sound. The boy was impressed and without realising it, he moved closer and closer to angah. With each swing he took a step forward and inevitably, as angah swung, the follow through caught him right at the chin.

Blood spilled over before the crying and scream of pain filled the air of panic. Angah’s face turned white looking at the boy frantically covering his mouth with both hands while pressing hard at the chin, as if he was afraid his chin would fell off. Blood started to drip through the little boy’s hands, making both of them even more panic. The boy's crying got louder.

Hurriedly angah ushered the boy inside to the bathroom. He then shouted a few panicky unstructured words and the boy, scared and in pain, somehow managed to make out what angah was saying.

“Please, stop crying. Mak is sleeping, she will wake up angry if you don’t stop crying. Stop covering your mouth, spit the blood out and gargle with this water. Please stop crying.”

The boy, still scared and in pain, can’t believe what he was seeing. Angah was on the brink of tears. Never had he seen angah as scared as that. He saw the horror in angah’s eyes, horror at the sight of his bleeding mouth and at the thought of mum waking up angry. Both of them knew what will happen if she found out.

The boy decided that he needs to stop crying. He doesn’t want to make angah cried & scared and he doesn’t want to wake mum up. So he tried to stop. He can’t. He was just too scared and the pain was too much. He tried again, still can’t. He looked up and he can still see the fear in angah’s eyes. He has to stop!

Miraculously, he managed to. Even more amazingly, he managed a smile!

“I was just playing around! It doesn’t hurt that much at all. I was just playing you. Gotcha!”

Angah look confused. He looked straight at the boy’s eyes, looking for confirmation of what he heard just now.

The boy said, “See, it’s nothing. Look!”

The boy opened up his mouth as wide as he can. Angah looked inside as if he was a doctor examining his patient. Everything seemed to be intact, no tooth fell off. A sigh of relief escaped angah’s mouth. A look of relief, and then a smile. Rubbing the top of the boy’s head he said, “What a strong brave boy you are.”

They looked at each other and smile.

But it was too late.

Mum woke up, furious, came storming to the bathroom and yelled, “What in the world is happening? What happened to you?”

The boy shocked and scared, feet trembling, answered, “I fell.”

The mum went berserk. Dragging the boy to her room, reaching for the rattan at the door, she yelled at the boy.

“Didn’t I tell you not to go play outside? Didn’t I tell you not to run and jump around? Why are you so stubborn? Now look what happened. That’s what you get for not listening to me! All I need is a little bit of rest but you just have to ruin it for me. I’m tired working all day, don’t you realise that? All I need is just a few minutes of rest! Why can’t you be a good boy for once and listen to me?!”

With that she started whipping the rattan at the boy’s feet again and again and again. The boy cried, pleading to mum to stop. Angah tried to explain what really had happened but mum just won’t listen. She was too angry to listen.

It went on for what seemed an eternity to both the boy and angah before luckily dad came home. Angah explained what had happened quickly and the dad went straight to the room, dragged the boy away from mum while telling mum to stop. After a few exchanged of angry words between mum and dad, the dad took the boy, now crying even harder, to the hospital where the boy got god knows how many stitches!

What a good boy indeed….