Guilty Feelings over Committing a Crime

Personal Narrative/Memoir: Stealing in Class

The game had started out simple and innocent enough: my classmate and I were swiping one another’s belongings—a pencil, a sheet of paper, an eraser—when the other was not looking. The reaction would be priceless. Then there would be laughter. And then we would do it again.

Eventually, we grew tired of simply teasing each other and wanted to expand the parameters of the game. The only thing was—no one else realized what we were up to—and we quickly got carried away with ourselves.

At the time, we were all sitting at long tables. No one had his or her own desk. The tables were lined up in three rows. Our table was at the back of the room. The rest of our classmates were in front of us or to our right and left. The pickings were not slim.

We laughed internally as we slyly stole one classmate’s notebook, another classmate’s calculator, another’s backpack off the back of a chair. We needed a place to stash them of course—just to get them out of the way. We stifled our giggles as we snuck off with our booty, not even paying attention to where we were placing our classmates’ items. It didn’t matter. We were silently cracking up. Our game was so funny to us—until:

“Hey, where’s my assignment book?” cried a girl one table up. Everyone in class stopped cold. The laughter died down between my friend and me. Assignment book? Did I take an assignment book? I couldn’t remember—we had been so busy and careless swiping things out in the open right and left.

Others now chimed up: “I can’t find my calculator!” “Somebody’s stealing stuff!”

I went white. Stealing? I hadn’t been stealing. This was just a game! Wasn’t it?

Now my friend starting talking. I couldn’t even understand what he was saying. Was he ratting me out? Was he denying it? Yes, that was it—he was acting like he hadn’t taken anything. He dropped my name—suggesting that maybe I knew something about it… I shook my head vigorously. I hadn’t taken her book—at least, I couldn’t remember taking it… I could hear other students murmuring our names. What was going on? Why had everyone gotten so serious? I felt numb—and slightly terrified. Items starting reappearing from out of nowhere: there was someone’s pencil; there was a calculator—oops, how did that get away?

But still no assignment notebook.

The teacher now loomed over us, staring sternly at us with her brow censoriously drawn. I had seen her give that look to others before—but never to me. I was mortified. It was true—we’d gotten carried away. I was so sorry—I wanted to produce the notebook so terribly: I hoped it would be found quickly as some students searched the closet, believing they had seen one of us stash it there. Had we? Had I? But I couldn’t remember.

The bell rang, and the teacher let us get away. I don’t know if the assignment notebook was ever found. In the life of a 4th grader, there is not a lot of time spent investigating or following up.