It was beautiful outside. The perfect temperature, not too hot and not too cold. Jayden was walking home from school, yielding his eyes from the sunlight streaming through the trees. Jayden was already mentally analyzing his homework. He would get home, and would rush through his homework so that he could play baseball afterwards with his neighbor Logan.


The next morning, Jayden had a
very normal day. He got ready for school, and walked the quarter mile with his
friends. Jayden was an 8th grader, and his friends were mostly 6th graders.
Once he got to school, he veered off from the group down the 8th grade hall. He
was a half an hour early, and there was no one there yet. As he briskly walked
down the hallway, he thought of what he would do in his first block, science.
Absentmindedly, as he walked by all the classrooms, he looked through all the
windows of the classrooms. He walked down the hall, still tired from waking up
early. Then, all of a sudden, he heard a crunch.


Jayden looked down, toward the
noise. When he saw it, he jumped back in alarm and it out a squeal. This was
bad. As he had been walking down the hall, he had stepped on one of the new
Macbooks that had been set out in front of computer lab. Jayden almost fainted.
He had completely stepped through the top screen, and had taken out most of the
computer as well. To replace that would cost more than the computer itself. Not
only that, but Jayden was broke.


Jayden was beginning to become
frantic. He wouldn’t be able to face a teacher if they found out, and it would
be even worse if his parents found out. What would he do? He must hide it. That’s
what he had to do. Maybe, just maybe, the teachers wouldn’t miss it. They would
just think, “Hey! I thought I ordered another Mac!” and move on.
Jayden had to do something. He grabbed everything broken and ran
into the bathroom. He ran into a stall, and started frantically trying to piece
the crushed computer back together. He started to realize he was violently
shaking, and tried one last desperate time to fix it, make it better, make his
worries go away. But it didn’t help the useless pieces of crushed metal and
plastic, they were too much for him. He fell over in a heap of despair and
tears.
When he woke up, he forgot for a moment where he was and what had
happened to him. There was someone else in the bathroom. He sat up and banged
his head on the stall’s partition. Ouch. He waited for the person to finish
drying his hands and left. Once he had, Jayden decided to slow down his
situation. He looked at his watch. It was 9:42. This meant that it was halfway
through his second period, which was geography.
Jayden looked down at the broken bits. He just sat there for a
while, taking the whole seen in. Everything seemed so blurred, so undefined, so
loose. Jayden just stared. He slowly fumbled, tried to piece the parts
together, in no logical order. He tried to organize himself, straighten himself
out. He would be fine! It was an accident, He didn’t mean any harm.
But then Jayden started to think in a different way. He started
thinking about how he would have to pay for it, it would be his fault. He would
get in trouble if anyone found out. He was already in a lot of trouble for
skipping classes. It would be too much to break all that news to an adult at
one time. Jayden decided that he would keep the broken computer silent, and say
he lost his binder as an excuse for missing class. Jayden stood up, stretched,
slid all the broken pieces into a pocket in his backpack, cleaned himself off
at the sink, and walked out.
Jayden was very fortunate to get away with missing classes. He was
just told to keep himself more organized, and then ignored. After school,
Jayden ran home. He did all his homework, and then locked himself in his room.
He slowly slid out the computer remains and started to study them,
investigating the damage and trying to read the small words and codes on the
circuit boards. Then Jayden tried to put it together. He was able to make it
look like a computer again, but a lot of the parts were bent and the keyboard
was all scrunched up.


Jayden finally reached the
conclusion that he would never be able to fix the computer. All he would be
able to do would be to try to cover up what he did. Jayden decided to hide the
pieces for now and then see if anyone would notice that something was missing.
He did so, and then went outside and played baseball with Logan.
The next day, all went well. Until math class. Class had just
started, and Ms. Wiggins was instructing us to do the warm-up quickly, as we
had a long lesson that day. I was just pulling out my workbook as the
loudspeaker mounted in the corner crackled on. “Hello, this is your principal
speaking.” Mr. Hawthorne said in a very authoritative voice, even though we all
knew it was him. “The theft of a very valuable computer has been reported. It
was last seen on the ground right outside the computer lab.” Jayden’s heart
stopped. He almost dropped his notebook, but he quickly refrained. He could
feel himself shaking violently. Jayden’s math teacher stood up straight and
said to the class, “None of you would have done that, right? You know better!”
Then the whole class said, “Yes, Ma'am.” Except for Jayden. He just sat there
with his mouth shut tight.


The next day, Jayden was home,
finishing his homework. When he was finished, he had to have his Mom sign a
permission form for a field trip the next week. She came in, asking for the
paper. Jayden swung his backpack over in front of him, and mindlessly put his
hand in one of the front pockets, where he remembered stuffing the form earlier
that day. Without thinking, Jayden quickly pulled out the disk drive to the
broken computer. For a brief second he looked at it, realized what it was, and
shoved it back into his backpack, grabbing the form for his Mom to sign. But
she had seen the disk drive, too. “What was that?” She asked. “Something for
your technology class?”
“Nothing.” Jayden quickly
replied. He couldn’t let his Mom know what it was. “No, seriously. I want to
know. Let me see it.” She demanded. Jayden felt as if he could have just melted
into his chair. He slowly pulled the disk drive out, and handed it to his Mom.
“Is that it?” she asked. “Yes.” Jayden muttered. “Can I check?” she asked.
“Fine.” he said, and slowly handed over his backpack. Jayden’s Mom slowly
pulled out all the pieces, until she found the cover. “This is a MAC?” she
screamed, with more anger than question in her voice. “Where did you get this?”
she demanded, hovering over Jayden like a hawk. “School.” He muttered,
regretting it the second after it came out of his mouth. But it was too late.
His Mom looked like a volcano just about to explode. “YOU STOLE
THIS???” Jayden’s Mom was red in the face now. She made Jayden go to his room,
and to stay there until the next day. She then rushed into the kitchen to break
the news to his father.


The next day, Jayden was told
by his parents that he had been expelled from school for stealing valuable
property and then damaging it. They were very disappointed in him, and told him
he should know better. Then they left his room. For the rest of his life,
Jayden was in misery because one day, in middle school, a small accident
happened. One simple accident that ruined his education, record, and future.
One simple accident that would cost everyone’s trust in him, and respect for
him, anything positive for Jayden. One simple accident that ruined his life.