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Thursday, April 2, 2009

A few years ago, my 11-year-old daughter was being picked on at school by a girl in her class who was stealing her lunch every day.

I noticed that my daughter was losing weight rapidly, and always seemed to come home from school hungry. When I approached my daughter about what had happened to her lunch, she simply said that she had shared it with another girl.

After this had been going on for a few weeks, I demanded to know what was going on. My daughter eventually broke down and confessed that a girl in her class was stealing it every day. When pressed for details, she admitted that it was one of her friends. Every day, a girl — whose parents were dentists — was stealing anything and everything that had sugar in it from my daughter's lunchbox.

Immediately concerned — not only for my own daughter, but also for the other child — I rang the other child's mother. Formerly a close friend, I was anxious to report to her that her daughter was doing the wrong thing. I was glad that this matter would be settled in an adult way at last.

Upon calling, however, I was greeted with accusations of lying. The mother, so firmly in denial about the delinquency of her daughter, insulted both myself and my daughter a few times, accused me once more of lying, and hung up on me.

My daughter had expected me to fix everything with one magical phone call and was waiting for me to tell her everything was going to be fine now. I didn't want to lie to her, however, so I just said to tell me how it went the next day.

The next day was much the same, only worse. Angry that my daughter had 'tattled' on her, the other child had progressed to hitting my daughter in order to get the food she wanted. After seeing my daughter come home with bruises up and down her arms, and in tears again, I decided it was time for more drastic action.

A short trip to the chemist later, I was armed with every parent's worst nightmare — a packet of chocolate laxatives. I instructed my daughter, very specifically, not to eat them, but only to let the other child to steal them, and sent her off to school.

Picking my daughter up that day, she was mysteriously silent. Asking her how her day was, a giant grin spread across her face. Practically gushing, she told me about the other girl's accident.

Laughing hysterically, she recounted how she had tried to talk the girl out of stealing her lunch, but in the end, the girl had snatched the chocolate out her hands and eaten it right in front of her. It wasn't until after lunch that the other girl had begun to get sick.

"Oh mum, you should have seen it," my daughter said. "The teacher asked what she'd had to eat, but all she said was that she'd had some chocolate that I gave her. I swear mum, right there in the classroom! She just pooped! And pooped and pooped and pooped."

I smiled, glad that things had been settled once and for all.

"Oh, but mum," said my daughter, piping up from the backseat. "The teacher says that next time I share chocolate, I have to bring enough for the whole class. Can I bring some more tomorrow?"

Picture posed by models.

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