By Maritza Brunt
Did you hear about Anya?”
Ruth looked up from her reading book to see her friend Eliza next to her.
“What did you say?” Ruth asked.
“Shh! Keep your voice down!” Eliza whispered. “I asked if you’d heard about what Anya did.”
“No? What happened?” Ruth asked.
“She cheated on the Bible quiz we had before lunch!” Eliza hissed.
Ruth was shocked. She didn’t know Anya very well, but she knew Anya was one of the smartest girls in their class, and she was especially good at knowing a lot of things from the Bible. Why would she need to cheat?
“Are you sure?” Ruth asked slowly.
“I’m positive!” Eliza said. “William saw her, and he told Kalia, and she told Max, and he told Amy, and she told me.”
Ruth frowned. That seemed like a very long way of hearing something.
“I just can’t imagine Anya doing something like this,” she said.
Just then, their friend Ella dropped into the seat next to Ruth.
“Can’t imagine what?” she asked.
“Anya cheated on the Bible quiz!” Eliza whispered to her.
“No way!” Ella exclaimed.
“Shhh!” Ruth hushed both of them. “We don’t know that for sure, and I don’t want Anya to hear you talking about her.”
Ruth looked over to the art area. Anya had the yellow paint out, and it looked like she was drawing a giant sunflower.
Ruth turned back to her friends to find that Max and William had joined the girls at the reading table. They were discussing Anya’s cheating in whispers that were getting louder.
Ruth nervously glanced back at the art area. Sure enough, Anya had stopped her painting and was looking over to them with a curious look on her face.
She doesn’t know we’re talking about her, Ruth thought. She felt a funny flip in her tummy.
“I’m leaving,” she announced to her friends, standing up. “I don’t like talking about people behind their backs, especially because we don’t even know whether it’s true that she cheated or not!”
“Who cheated?” asked Grace, coming over to the table.
Ruth didn’t answer her, and instead walked over to the puzzle corner. She was halfway through a vehicle puzzle when her teacher, Mrs. Lemon, rang her special bell.
Ruth looked up from her puzzle, and her heart sank. Nearly all the students were crowded around Eliza and Ella at the table, while Mrs. Lemon stood at the front of the room with her arm around a crying Anya.
“Come on over to our group time mat, please, class,” instructed Mrs. Lemon.
The students slowly shuffled over. Ruth kept her eyes on Anya the whole time. Anya’s bottom lip was trembling and tears leaked out of her eyes and dripped down her cheeks.
When all the students were seated, Mrs. Lemon motioned for Anya to sit as well.
“We have had a very serious accusation today,” she began.
Max raised his hand. “What’s an accusation?”
“It means saying that someone has done something wrong or unkind,” explained Mrs. Lemon. “In this case, Anya has been accused of cheating.”
For a moment, nobody said anything. Then William piped up.
“She did,” he said. “I saw her.”
“I didn’t,” Anya sobbed. “I promise I didn’t!”
“Let’s start at the beginning, William,” said Mrs. Lemon, rubbing Anya’s shoulder to calm her down. “What did you see?”
The tips of William’s ears turned pink, but he spoke up again.
“During our Bible quiz, I couldn’t remember the right answer. I was looking at the whiteboard at the front of the room, trying to think, and then I saw Anya lean over to Grace’s desk. It looked like she was trying to look at Grace’s paper to get the answers.”
Anya was already shaking her head.
“I dropped my pencil,” she said. “It rolled off my desk and all the way under Grace’s. I was leaning over to pick it up off the floor. I never once looked at Grace’s paper, I promise!”
William went quiet. Then Mrs. Lemon spoke up.
“I was at the back of the classroom watching you all the whole time you were taking your Bible quiz,” she said. “I saw Anya’s pencil drop off the desk, and I saw her reach over and pick it up, and go straight back to her quiz. I can tell you all right now she didn’t look at anyone’s paper but her own.”
Now the whole class was silent. You could have heard a pin drop while the students thought about how wrong they’d been.
“I’m really sorry, Anya,” said William. He looked truly ashamed. “I shouldn’t have said you were cheating without knowing if you really were.”
“It’s okay,” said Anya. She looked like she’d calmed down a little.
“We all know cheating isn’t right,” said Mrs. Lemon. “But even if Anya DID cheat, gossiping isn’t right, either.”
Ruth sat up a little straighter. Gossip? Is that why her tummy had done a flip?
“Gossip is talking about someone else in a not-so-nice way,” continued Mrs. Lemon. “It doesn’t matter if someone did or didn’t do something. If you’re talking about them, that’s gossip.”
Ruth looked around. Most of her classmates now also looked ashamed, especially Eliza and Ella.
Mrs. Lemon walked over to her desk and picked up an apple.
“This looks like a nice apple, doesn’t it?” she asked.
The students nodded.
Suddenly, Mrs. Lemon dropped the apple to the floor. Bending over, she picked it up and dropped it again.
“Miss!” gasped Eliza. “What are you doing?”
Dropping the apple one final time, Mrs. Lemon picked it up, took a few things off her desk, and came back to sit in front of her students. Holding it up, she slowly turned the apple around.
“The apple still looks good, doesn’t it?” she asked.
The students nodded again.
Mrs. Lemon brought out a chopping board and a knife that she’d taken off her desk. Balancing the apple, she carefully sliced into it until she’d cut most of the sides off. Then she held up the apple again.
Ruth gasped, and so did many of her classmates. The apple was all brown inside!
“Your words have power,” explained Mrs. Lemon. “Whenever you gossip or say something unkind or untrue about someone, it might not look like you’re hurting them on the outside. But if you look inside, you’ll see that the words you used really do hurt someone.”
That explains why Anya still looks so sad, thought Ruth. Everyone gossiping about her must have really hurt her heart.
Mrs. Lemon put the apple, knife and board aside. But before she could say anything else, Eliza stood up and made her way over to Anya.
“I’m so sorry, Anya,” she said, tears in her eyes. “I know that my gossip hurt you today. Can you forgive me?”
Anya smiled a small smile. “Yes,” she said softly.
The other students quickly crowded into Anya and Eliza, also offering up their apologies and asking Anya for forgiveness. Ruth watched Anya’s smile grow brighter and brighter.
“I think we’ve learned an important lesson today, class,” smiled Mrs. Lemon, watching them. “Now… who would like some apple that didn’t get dropped on the floor?”
And hands went up everywhere.
PICTURE CREDIT: pexelsfreeimages
