The Good Boy – The One With The Missing Car Key

It was already Sunday. 4pm.

The boy was walking around aimlessly, back and forth from his room to mum’s room. In his room angah was getting ready, already in his black pants and now putting on the batik shirt. In mum’s room, mum was putting on her tudung while dad was combing his hair. The boy is not happy. He felt like the time moved too fast. Seemed like Friday and Saturday was cut short by 23 hours each!

The boy continued his aimless walk. He was still in his shorts. Unlike everyone else, he wasn’t getting ready. Despite mum asking him to get ready for the tenth times, he kept on walking back and forth. As he passed the living room, he saw the car key. Right there on the coffee table, he saw it. Then he smiled.


“Angah is coming back this Friday. He will take the bus so he will probably reach home by Maghrib,” mum had told the boy as he was having lunch last Tuesday.

The boy’s eyes widen in excitement.

“Ok,” he said, trying to conceal his thrill. “I need him to take a look at the bike. Something is wrong with it.”

“What’s wrong with it? You can get ayah to take a look,” mum suggested.

“That’s ok, I’ll just wait for angah,” said the boy.

Mum just smiled, knowingly.


“Anyone knows where the car key is?” Suddenly dad shouted to no one.

No one answered. Everyone was outside, ready to go. Dad asked again, standing at the door.

This time mum answered. “I don’t know. Where did you put it? It’s not on the coffee table? Maybe it’s in the dinning room.”

“It’s not there as well.” Dad continued searching.

After a while mum went back in the house to help looking for the car key. Soon everyone was looking for it. Along, angah & alang joined in the search. The boy stayed outside. After a few minutes of waiting alone outside, guilt started to creep in. He went inside.

Inside the house he saw everyone was looking frantically. High and low. Left and right. Still no sign of the key. The boy saw angah getting restless. The boy knew angah needed to go back to school before six. The time was almost five. The boy moved his attention to his dad. His dad was scratching his head with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Where is the key? It was on the coffee table before, where did it go?” asked dad, again to no one.

The guilt was getting stronger. The boy felt he should admit it now. But he was scared and embarrassed too. Yup, the embarrassment stopped him from admitting that he hid the key because he didn’t want angah to go back to his school. He wanted more time with angah. Two days were not enough.

However, he knew just what to do.

“Has anyone tried the book shelves? Maybe it’s there.” He said, in hope that someone would start looking there.

No answer. Everyone was busy looking for the key.

The boy walked to the shelves. Pretending to look for the key, he said, “I need help here, I can’t reach the top part. Maybe it’s there.”

But everyone kept ignoring him. Why would the key be there? How can the key end up being there?

The boy didn’t give up. He kept on urging everyone to look at the shelves. ‘Oi everyone! Are you all deaf? Start looking at the shelves. I’m giving you guys a clue here. Read my lips, THE BOOK SHELVES!’

After a few times asking everyone to look for the key at the bookshelves, along suddenly looked straight at the boy, funny expression on her face. She walked to the shelves, and sure enough she found the key, hidden behind some books!

“Everyone, I found the key! It was at the book shelves!”

How did it get there, who put it there? Everyone was asking the same question. And soon enough they all exchanged the look, the knowing look. Then they exchanged smiles. Then small held back giggles. The boy heard alang whispered to along, “No wonder he was so eager asking us to look there!”

Then dad, noticing the look of guilt in the boy's face, said quickly, “Ok thank god we found the key. Lets not just stand here. Lets go now, we are already late.”

Taking the cue from dad, everyone went outside to the car. Smiles on their faces, especially along's. She had so many teasing words in her head. But she realised it wasn't the time yet.

In the car on the way to angah’s school, the boy kept quiet and kept looking down, embarrassed. He knew everyone realised what he did. But no one blamed him and no one was angry with him. No one even gave him the usually mockery, which was nice. He would have cried in embarrassment.

Angah was late, but thank god he didn’t get into trouble! And later that night, after they got back from angah’s school, the teasing started. Fast, thick & heavy.

The boy was just relieved that everyone saw the funny side of it!