WHEN our teacher asked us to write a humorous essay on any of our friends, the person who immediately came in my mind was Uzma. I could write pages on her! And so I began writing excitedly, adding a few tidbits to add to the humour. I gave it the title, “The chattering machine”. Happy with my work, I handed it to the teacher.

The next day, when our teacher returned our essays, I was asked to read mine aloud to the class. Glowing with pleasure, I started reading my essay. The whole class burst into roars of laughter. I had definitely written something really humorous!

When the bell for recess rang, I immediately shot off to find Uzma, the file containing the essay in my hands. I was sure she would laugh her head off when she read it. She was sitting there as usual, on the bench under the tree with the others of my group of friends. However, there was another girl too (one of my classmates) who was saying something to Uzma and at the same time laughing, and Uzma, I could see, had turned scarlet. The others were absolutely quiet, listening to this girl. I could sense that something was wrong. When the girl had walked away, I approached them.

As soon as Uzma saw me, she yelled, “I will kill you!”

I was absolutely taken aback. “Why? What happened?” I asked.

“Show me what you’ve written,” she said snatching the file from my hands.

“Wait,” I said. “I’ll read it to you.”

I was not at all pleased to see all this. Things were obviously not happening the way I had expected them to. So I read, rather solemnly ‘the humorous essay’ that frankly, didn’t sound at all humorous now. The others of the lot, failing to suppress their laughter, burst out. But Uzma didn’t even smile; she was fuming!

“Do you think this is funny?” she said when I had finished.

“Why, yes. Isn’t it?” I said not knowing what to say.

“No. You have made fun of me!”

“But I didn’t mean to!”

“Why did you only choose me?”

“Because you were just the right person for this sort of essay. I couldn’t think of anyone else.”

“You could’ve written some other name instead of mine. And why did you go reading it to your whole class? You’ve made a laughing stock of me!”

I suddenly lost my cool. “You don’t know what fun is. You don’t know how to laugh. Go and find someone like yourself. You’re not fit to be my friend.”

Making this small but outrageous speech that evidently declared the end of the friendship between me and Uzma, I strode away. Later, when I was alone with one of my friends, Amna, I said to her, “There was nothing to be cross about in that essay, was there?”

“If I were Uzma,” said Amna, “I would’ve been cross too.”

The next morning, when I arrived at school, Uzma was not there yet. As I stood in a corner waiting for her, one of my classmates approached me. “Your essay was really funny,” she said. “I couldn’t help holding my sides with laughter.”

At that moment, we saw Uzma coming toward us. “Here comes Uzma, ‘the chattering machine!’,” she said with a chuckle, her words loud enough to reach Uzma’s ears.

Before Uzma could lose her temper, I lost mine. “Hey you, listen up,” I said to the girl. “Don’t you dare call Uzma by that name again. And if you do, you’ll be the subject of my next ‘humorous’ essay. And mind you, you won’t like it a bit!”

The girl stood staring at me in utter bewilderment and I knew by the expression on her face what she was thinking about me: ‘Really, what a peculiar girl!’

I too was a little astonished at what I had just said. Uzma, too, was dumbstruck.

“I’m sorry Uzma,” I said to her. “Please forget it. And if anyone ever says a word to you about that essay, then you just tell me.”

“It’s alright,” she said with a smile. “Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

Uzma soon forgot it, but I didn’t. The story of the humorous essay taught me something really serious.