I had a thing for surprising people, no matter what the occasion was.
Won an award at school?
“Surprise!”
Got a bruise on my knee?
“Mom, guess what I have on my knee!”
Lost my stationery pouch?
“Guess what I lost today!”
It didn’t have to be something good. As far as I was concerned, anything that got people thinking and wondering about the smallest of things was a surprise.
After school, I’d usually walk back home, go to the back of the house, retrieve a key from underneath a potted plant, and go inside. No one was at home then.
One particular day, however, my sister was home. As I walked up the slope to my house, I realized that the bedroom window (which had no barricades) was open. My sister was in the living room, reading a book, too involved to see me standing outside the glass door.
The plan thus formed was to surprise (and scare) her since I’d come back home a little earlier. So I hoisted myself onto the window ledge, slipped my feet into the bedroom, and kept my schoolbag on the floor. I tiptoed towards the door, stifling my giggles as I turned the door handle and peered outside. I couldn’t see much.
I opened the door completely and stepped outside, ready to say “Boo!” There she was, with a cricket bat raised in her hand. She’d seen the door handle turn and she’d picked up a cricket bat, waiting for the “unknown” to walk outside the door so she could slam the bat down on their head.
I screamed, she shouted and we both just stood there for a moment, trying to figure out what had just happened. If she hadn’t looked twice before making a decision, I’d probably be dead. Luckily enough, she didn’t hit me.
“Are you absolutely crazy?” she shouted.
”I was trying to su-surprise you,” I whispered.
She glared at me for a few seconds and composed herself. Then she hugged me, realizing how stupid I was.
In the evening after my parents got back home, there was a huge discussion about how the maid had left the window open and how my sister should’ve closed it, followed by how I should always think twice before pulling off a “surprise”.
Scared out of my wits after that, I did the only logical thing I could think of doing.
I hid the cricket bat.