IT was fifty years since they’d passed out from school. There were giggles and chuckles, lots of laughter as balding men gazed adoringly at grey haired women. They gasped to realize who each of them was, even as old friendships were reignited, and shy glances at first crushes were exchanged. They slowly gloried in the fact they were all alive and healthy.
Suddenly, a voice spoke out, ‘Where’s she?” They all knew who it was that was being referred to. “Let’s not talk about her!” said one of the balding men, looking quite successful in his tailored suit. “She’s a disgrace to the class!” said another, as some nodded.
“I remember her in school. She was quite a flirt there too. Remember how she flirted with the acting principal from Australia?” “And he poor man, with his wife and kids back home, didn’t know what was happening to him!” said another of the classmates. But the same voice which had asked the question, asked the same again, “Where’s she?” “I think at home!” “Didn’t anyone tell her about the reunion?” “And have her here?”
The person who’d asked about the whereabouts of the missing classmate, now stood in front of her classmates arms akimbo, she brushed aside the photographer who was going to take a picture, “Listen,” she said, “Even I flipped for that young acting principal from Australia, and,” she looked at another classmate, who was still pretty though a beauty when younger, “Didn’t you too?”
They all laughed, the men too, as they spoke of pretty teachers they’d been attracted too. And then the same one who’d asked the question spoke again, “We’ve all slipped here and there, and if this was a group therapy session, we’d all be telling each other stories of our misdemeanours, wouldn’t we?”
They all looked at their toes. “So, let’s do something this our fiftieth year, something which we will never forget, shall we?” They all looked at her, the men strangely not daring to crack a joke. “Let’s go over to her place!” “What?” said a few.
“Yes, let’s go to her home, and show her that even if she slipped and fell, and fell again and again, we are all like her, fallen men and women. We were either lucky in not being found out or we got our second chance! Come on, let’s go!” The same photographer was called next year on their 51st class reunion, “I’ll have to increase my charges!” he said with an impish grin.
“Why?” they all asked. “Because there’s an extra one here!” The one who laughed the loudest and had the happiest face as the others milled round her was the one who had been missing last year..!
