"Oh, ready for school?" She put on an energetic smile with her tired face. Wrinkles starts to form around her eye lid, she start to get older, I thought to myself. 

"Mm..." I nodded then sit on the chair to have my breakfast, my mum walked back to the kitchen, started to 'nag' at me. 

"Have you packed your bag?" "Water bottle?" "Do you need to wear tie for the first day of school?" "Did you put in your umbrella?"

"Mm, Ah, Orh" Three simple humming word, understood by my mum, as a simple way to say yes. 

"You sure you don't need to wear a tie for school on the first day?" She asked again when I'm about to leave the house. "No. I've asked the principle that already." 

"Oh..." She felt a bit relieved and nodded, "Do you want me to go to school with you?" 

"It's okay, I can managed... besides, you haven't had any sleep for the past few days, go and have some sleep." 

That energetic smile again from her, even though I hate her being a nagging mum, but she always shows her positive side to me. "Okay, I got it, have fun in school! Make some friends as well."

Unable to smile right, all that responsibility on my back, flash back to last Christmas, where all the problem comes, and till now, it wasn't settled yet. "I'm going off now." I said with an unenthusiastic tone. 

"Bye!" She said as she waved to me goodbye before closing the gate. 

Heading towards the school, I can hear a lot of student who wearing short pants for boys and long skirt for girls, walking with their parent to school, while I'm alone thinking, just one year, and all I need to do is to graduate. I stood outside the gate, looking at the school logo's and name at the front gate. "Dunearn Secondary School", 

"I'm 18 years old this year, most of the people might be in ITE, Polytechnic or even JC, well, I've been retaining twice, once in secondary 3 and another in secondary 4. I prepared to start working last October when I didn't came for the exam, because I knew I will flunk it. But... Last year Christmas's Day..."

Story by: RongYi

Edited by: RongYi