It was one glorious October day. Pale leaves littered the pavement as I walked to school, feeling excited as I enjoyed the crunch of leaves under my feet.

I entered the school and headed straight to my classroom, where I saw my best friend, Bilal. We greeted each other warmly.

After glancing at my hair, he said, “This isn’t going to be a good day for you!”

Confused, I asked what he meant. He replied, “Did you see the notice board in the corridor?”

When I said I hadn’t, he dropped the bombshell: the school had called in a barber that day to cut the hair of all students who had been ignoring the repeated warnings for the past month to keep their hair length short, in accordance with the rules. I was one such student.

I began to panic, frantically thinking of ways to escape the situation. Bilal noticed and told me to sit down and take a deep breath. I felt lightheaded as more of my classmates appeared, some already sporting fresh haircuts. My mind raced, trying to come up with a plan, but before I could act, the bell rang.

A teacher arrived to inspect our class and, without hesitation, pulled me aside and placed me with the group of students marked for haircuts. I tried to shrink into myself, hoping to appear small and unnoticeable.

We were then taken to a room where the barber was all set with his instruments. Embarrassed and disappointed, I sat in the chair as the barber, wearing a wicked grin, began his work.

It felt like an eternity as I waited for him to finish, the sound of the scissors cutting away my hair echoing in my ears. Finally, he whipped the cloth off me and declared my hair “school appropriate”.

I walked into my class, only for everyone to burst into laughter. I felt so humiliated that I would have given anything, any sum of money, just to vanish from there.

Utterly embarrassed, I sat in my seat and was on the verge of bursting into tears when I realised that this was my fault — for being irresponsible. But I still felt very bad.

Hours passed and the school ended, and I dreaded the moment I would show my parents the haircut. When I got home, my mother looked at me with surprise, but she didn’t ask immediately; she seemed to be waiting for me to speak up. When we sat down for lunch, I told her everything.

My mother consoled me, and later that evening, when my father came home, he assured me he would take me to the barber to get my ‘monstrosity’ of a haircut somewhat fixed.

In the end, I got my haircut fixed as best as it could be done, and that day, I realised the importance of developing a sense of responsibility and paying attention to rules and warnings.

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 17th, 2025