The Culprit*

The bell rang. The sound of shuffling bags and screeching chairs filled the classroom. She started running, aware of the fact that two of her friends were behind her. Her heart started throbbing as her young legs carried her towards the grass.

"I'm first!!"

She yelled to her friends who were both tired and not interested in debating their way out of it. One of them left to eat since she wasn’t going to be first and the second was left to push the swing. She held her 50 fils between her teeth so as not to lose them. She didn't want to be the only one without chips from the cafeteria today. She got on the swing and her friend started pushing her. After a while, the swing started to slow down. She motioned to her friend to pick up the pace.

"I'm tired! It's your turn"

She positioned herself to jump off at the next push. Pulling her hair back and with all her force, she pushed herself off of the swing and landed on all fours. Something was wrong. She couldn't breathe. She realized what had happened and as her face started to get red, she motioned to her friend that something was wrong. The terrified young girl ran to the first teacher she saw pointing at her friend who was now on the grass coughing. Her friend had just swallowed 50 fils.

Gasping for air amidst the faces of worried teachers, she waited at the nurses' office holding her chest and trying to minimize the pangs of pain she felt. Her mother came running down the hallway only to find her 11 year old daughter in tears. She held her hand and started running towards her car; all the time hoping that they would make it to the hospital in time.

Speeding through the roads of Kuwait, they heard a thump. The daughter could see that her mothers face suddenly turned pale. She stopped her car and went outside. The daughter couldn't hear what her mother was saying on the phone but she managed to hear the words flat and tire. What the hell kind of day is this she thought. "I'm so going to die".

They waited until her father arrived. She hugged him because she knew he would make it all better. He drove them both to the hospital and waited as mother and daughter rushed to the emergency room. After necessary X-rays and inquiries, the doctor told her that she is lucky to be alive. The 50 fils has lodged itself right between her lungs and if it had been a 100 fils she would have surely died. He gave them both the option of extracting it or waiting for it to pass naturally through the system. Now that the risk of not being able to breathe has passed, it was nearly safe to let it be. The daughter, being the scared little coward she was, decided on the latter.

She was given 2 weeks. If the 50 fils did not pass through her system within that time limit, the doctors would have no choice but to extract it manually. Given nothing but a stick; she started her 2 weeks of checking on everything that passed through her system and found nothing. 2 weeks passed and scared of what might come, she lied to her mother and said that she found it and flushed it down the toilet.

A relived mother believed her lying daughter unaware of the consequences. Nothing happened to the daughter but she knew that one day, when she got older, she was going to blog about it.

*Thanks to Z for the title.