Episode 4: The Stolen Bell
Eight-year-old Peter befriended a school chum named Buddy. Not that Buddy was really Peter's 'type', but Buddy was teased by everyone else and gravitated toward Peter for friendship and Peter responded. (Maybe it was because Peter was a loner too. Peter regretfully admits that he was also a teaser, so that wasn't the reason!)
Buddy lived in a neighbouring suburb to Peter, and the two often walked home together as far as Peter's place before Buddy continued on to his own. Unlike Peter, Buddy tried to buy friendship by doing daring things. One day, he stole the little brass bell from the counter in a shop a few doors from where he lived. Buddy gave the bell to Peter, without telling him where it came from. However in the district where Peter lived, it seemed that everybody knew everybody-else's business, and it didn't take long for word to spread around the community that the little bell had been stolen from the shop in the next neighbourhood.
Soon Peter found out the bell was stolen and he challenged Buddy about it. Buddy quietly confessed, but was scared to do anything about it. So Peter took the matter into his own hands. He boldly went into the shop and placed the bell on the counter. 'I stole this from you,' he lied, 'and I have come to return it and apologise!' He then turned to hurriedly leave.
The elderly shopkeeper looked at Peter with one eye and demanded, 'When? I've never seen you in my shop before!' This put Peter on the spot as he had no idea when the bell was stolen, but as Buddy had given it to him about three days prior, he lied, 'Three days ago.' The shopkeeper continued to stare at Peter, which made the lad feel most uneasy. He remembered his mother's warning about lying: 'If you tell even the tiniest fib,' she had cautioned, 'it will catch up with you and you will have to keep on lying to cover up and it will then take a whopper to cover it.' Peter tried to dismiss his mother's portrait in his mind. 'I stole this from you three days ago, and I apologise!' he mendaciously announced a second time.
'You're covering up for someone else, aren't you?' the gentleman demanded. At this Peter broke down and confessed to lying, and tried to leave Buddy out of the story. But the persistence of the shopkeeper pushed Peter further and further into a corner. Finally, Peter named Buddy as the culprit. It was then that Peter felt sick in the stomach. He had betrayed the very one he had sought to protect. And he had lied in the process -- thrice. This was a hard lesson for Peter and he wondered if lying wasn't worse than stealing. He determined then and there to shy away from dishonest at whatever cost.
His friendship with Buddy somehow survived. Peter never learned what action the shopkeeper took against Buddy but neither forgot the lesson in honesty they learned that day. Reform, however, is a process and for Peter the lessons were to continue...
-- Lionel Hartley, Not Finished Yet -- Chronicles in the Life of Peter Blank
"This serial saga, although novel, is not a novel. It is merely a series of true-life episodes highlighting the extraordinary working of an extraordinary God in a very ordinary life. Each episode contained a lesson for Peter Blank, a lesson we can all learn, from a lesson-book life that is not finished yet."
As first appeared in FreEzine Magazine July 2000 ff
