Our school wasn’t known for high-profile crimes or sensational scandals. It wasn’t a place where daring heists occurred or mystery novels could be set. No, our thefts were far humbler, but to us students, they were every bit as significant as a diamond robbery. And by “thefts,” I mean the disappearance of pens, pencils, sharpeners, and the most tragically victimized item of all, erasers.

  Now, let me tell you something about myself. I wasn’t the most responsible kid. I had the uncanny ability to lose things at an alarming rate. If there were an Olympic event for misplacing items, I’d have been a gold medalist several times over. My parents were exasperated, especially my dad, who claimed I could lose my own shadow if it weren’t attached.

  Of all the things I lost during my primary school years, erasers topped the list. I must have misplaced over a hundred of them, which, when you think about it, is almost an achievement. My dad had tried everything, lectures, scolding, bribing, but nothing worked. One day, out of sheer frustration and desperation, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

  “Enough is enough!” he declared, holding one of my brand-new pencils in one hand and an eraser in the other. “If you lose this eraser one more time, you’ll have to answer to me!”

  “What will you do?” I asked, half curious and half nervous.

  “You’ll see,” he said ominously.

  What followed was a stroke of parental ingenuity, or madness, depending on how you look at it. My dad drilled a hole into the end of my pencil and then another hole through the middle of the eraser. He threaded them together with a sturdy piece of string, tying the eraser and pencil into an unholy union.

  “There,” he said, triumphant. “Now you can’t lose it.”

  I stared at the contraption, part amused and part horrified. It looked like some medieval device designed to keep kids like me in check. But I had to admit, it was effective, or at least, it seemed that way at first.

  “Lose this, and you’re done for,” he warned, wagging a finger at me.

  Armed with my new pencil-eraser hybrid, I went to school, determined to prove I could keep it safe. For the first few hours, everything went smoothly. I even felt a bit proud of my “special” pencil, though it drew some curious stares and a few laughs from my classmates.

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  But then it happened. The inevitable. The eraser, and the pencil, were gone.

  I have no idea how it happened. One moment, it was on my desk; the next, it had vanished into thin air. I searched everywhere, under my desk, inside my bag, even in my pockets. Nothing. Panic set in as I realized what awaited me at home if I returned without it.

  Tears welled up in my eyes. I was nine years old, standing in the middle of my classroom, feeling like the world had ended because of one lost pencil. My teacher noticed me sniffling and came over.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  I tried to explain, but between the hiccups and the tears, my words were barely intelligible. It was more like a mix of crying and English, a language I now call Cryish. To my surprise, my teacher somehow understood me. Maybe years of dealing with kids had made her fluent in this peculiar dialect.

  She patted my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry. We’ll find it.”

  What happened next was both extraordinary and hilarious. My teacher went straight to the headmaster’s office and reported the “theft.” Yes, my missing pencil-eraser combo was now a matter for the highest authority in the school.

  Our headmaster, a stern but fair man, made an announcement over the school’s crackly PA system.

  “Attention, students. Until the missing pencil and eraser are found, school will not close today. I repeat, no one is going home until this matter is resolved!”

  You’d think he’d just declared martial law. A collective groan erupted from the classrooms. It was as if I’d accidentally set off a national emergency.

  The entire school sprang into action. Students crawled under desks, rummaged through bags, and turned the classrooms upside down in search of my pencil. Some kids took it as a challenge, others grumbled about the delay, and a few just pretended to search while sneaking snacks from their bags.

  After what felt like an eternity, but was probably only ten minutes, a girl from my class triumphantly held up my pencil. “I found it!” she declared.

  The classroom erupted into cheers, and I ran over to her, tears still streaming down my face. “Where was it?” I asked.

  “Under the table,” she said, handing it back to me.

  I stared at her, bewildered. “But I checked there!”

  She just shrugged. “Maybe you missed it.”

  To this day, I have no idea how I didn’t see it. Was it truly under the table all along, or had it been somewhere else entirely? Was there a tiny thief among us who had a sudden change of heart? The mystery remains unsolved.

  The good news was that school was dismissed, and I returned home with my pencil and eraser intact. The bad news? My dad wasn’t impressed.

  “You lost it anyway, didn’t you?” he asked when I recounted the story.

  “I found it!” I protested.

  “Barely,” he muttered, shaking his head.

  In hindsight, the whole episode seems absurdly funny. The idea that a single missing eraser could bring an entire school to a standstill is the kind of story you’d think only happens in fiction. But for me, it was very real, and a lesson in how even the smallest things can turn into the biggest dramas.

  And yes, I still lost erasers after that. But at least none of them ever caused another school-wide search.

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