I nearly broke a boy’s thumb in kindergarten

Date: Somewhere in the second half of 2006

Venue: One of the tutorial classes in Murdoch University, Perth.

Unit: Children & the Media

Question posted by tutor (also my lecturer): What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when someone asks you about your childhood?

Answer: I nearly broke a boy’s thumb when I was in kindy.

Brutal, isn’t it? I guess I was a bit of the little terror when I was a kid. Frankly though, the whole incident was a result from an accident.

I don’t know how most people are as a kid. I, for one, have absolutely no patience for boys. Sure, I’d think a boy is cute or hensem but other than that, I find them annoying most of the time. I guess it didn’t help that my kindy class were dominated by girls and some of the boys in our class were just whimps. Heh.

There is this one particular boy in my year that had all the girls gushing over him. According to Mum, he was officially the cutest boy in the whole kindy. I think I still have a picture of him somewhere (he was my dance partner in the kindergarten concert) but honestly, I don’t remember how he looks like without the picture to jolt my memory. It’s been over 20 years now, yet, I still remember his name – Mr Khoo Willie.

Khoo Willie was not only in the same year as I was, but he was also my classmate. I remember a few girls in my class who have crushes on him and will always jostle around so that they get to sit beside him in class. Thankfully, I was not one of them. I let them jostle all they want while I promptly sat my cute lil butt down with my friends who equally have no patience for boys, or Khoo Willie in this case.

One fine day, halfway during a class activity, 2 of my girlfriends and I needed to use the loo urgently. Now, our kindergarten was actually operated in a double storey terrace house, which means that our class had an adjoining bathroom to the class next door. The 3 of us rushed to the bathroom before any sort of “accident” happened to either of us. One girlfriend, A, ran ahead and locked the door to the other classroom while the other,  B, ran to the toilet bowl so that she could use it first. As I turned around to close the door to our classroom, I noticed that Khoo Willie was standing just outside the door and wanted to go into the bathroom with us because he needed to use the loo too! No way was I ever going to let him in – the only boy with 3 other girls – into the bathroom with us! I told the boy off and said something along the lines of, “Ewww! You’re a boy! You cannot come in with us!”. A heard me and came to my rescue where the both of us promptly push Khoo Willie out of the bathroom and slammed the door shut at his face. Thinking triumphantly that we had succeeded in getting rid of a slimy, smelly boy (we were 5 then, all boys are slimy and smelly!), A and I took turns to use the toilet while B stood near the door waiting for us.

After flushing the toilet and washing our hands, we opened to the door in order to return to class only to find Khoo Willie sobbing quietly beside the door. I was all prepared to start scolding him when either A or B noticed that his thumb was placed on the door frame and it was bleeding! We started to panic and made quite a spectacle out of the whole thing. Our  teacher rushed to the scene to check on Khoo Willie and was horrified at what happened to him! A, B and I were all crying quite hard by then. I don’t know about the other 2 but at that moment, I was scared shitless. I thought I’d broken Khoo Willie’s thumb and all the girls in kindy will hate me for it!

It took quite a while for our teacher to get our testimonies out. She managed to piece the story together and realised that when A and I pushed Khoo Willie out of the bathroom, he was holding on the door frame with his thumb positioned in the groove of the frame when we slammed the door at him. I was guilt ridden for the rest of the day and perhaps the day after next too. I remembered wanting to do something to make it up to him and let him know how sorry I was to have hurt his thumb, even though it was an accident. However, as quickly as the incident happened, it was also quickly forgotten. The short attention span of a child ma.

That’s it. That was the story of how I nearly broke a boy’s thumb when I was in kindy. Thinking back, I’m really surprise at how Khoo Willie did not end up bawling his eyes out when his thumb was stuck between the frame and the door. Any ordinary kid would. All he did was sobbed quietly and patiently waited for us to open the door so that he could freed his thumb. The boy sure was brave and for that, I guess I respected him a little back in kindy. I think I was more relieved that his mother did not come barging into the kindy and threatened to hurt me for hurting her son.

I’ve never seen Khoo Willie after kindy ended that year. From what I heard, his family moved to KL and had settled there ever since. Truth be told, whenever I recall this story, I do wonder how he’s doing and if he ever remembered that 3 little girls nearly broke his thumb in kindy.