Peter shifted the blame on me and said I was the one who told him to steal the money and give to me and that I bought him the clothes and shoes as a reward. I was alarmed that I began to cry, I did not believe this was happening.
I denied it and tried to say that I had no idea where the money came from.
The headmaster pointedly told me that I was a criminal and he gave me six strokes of the cane. As if that was not enough, he sent me home with a letter to my parents.
My father almost killed me when he hears the story from me that evening after receiving the letter from the headmaster.
He gave you money and you received it? As being what? Are you now a bank/ he asked. My mother was now weeping and lamenting that she had always warned me against keeping bad friends.
My mother believed my story because she trusted me but that was where it ended because my father argued that I had criminal inclinations for even accepting money from a boy .
He whipped me so badly that I had welts all over my body, it was a terrible period of my boyhood life. I had wished the ground would just give way and have me in.