Grade 6, Yeoville Community School
Fifteen years ago, a boy, Chris Skhosana, was born in Tembisa, a city in Gauteng. He studied at Highlands North High School in Balfour. He lived with his mom and dad, Mr and Mrs Skhosana. His mother treated him as an adult and his dad too.
He had wanted to become a doctor ever since he was in Grade 7 and he is now 21 years in Grade 11 because he repeated Grade 11 four times and it was his fifth time this year. Almost every teacher told him to quit his dream to become a doctor because it was too hard for his mind and he was lazy. The whole school knew him as Skothi because of his charming face and body. He was also known as a bully because he would call you and take anything or everything you had and make it his own. Everyone was afraid of him because they said he would squash your head into melting chocolate ice-cream. Even the matrics were afraid to be bullied by him, nobody would report him to the teachers because they were all afraid of him. He mostly bullied a small and smart boy named John who studied with him in the same primary school.
The reason why he bullied the boy was because he almost got a bursary when he was in primary school. While John was in the Foundation Phase, John made his dreams come true. The bursary took you to one of the well-known universities in South Africa, the Wits University in Braamfontein. When everyone decided, the final vote had come from him but John chose the challenger over him. That’s the reason why he had been bullying John for so long.
Chris forced John to be in a friendship so that the teachers didn’t suspect that he was bullying him. He forced John to tell him answers and do his homework and assignments. He wanted their friendship to last until the exams and then he would dump him. He wanted to get higher marks so that he could become a doctor.
At the end of the year, he passed but John wasn’t seen at the school anymore. The police offered a reward for the person who found him but nobody knew where he was, not even Chris. There was a secret witness who knew where John was. He had committed suicide and had never told anyone he was being bullied. Life was getting tough.
When his dad passed away in a car accident in Soweto, Chris started losing marks because of stress at home. He started smoking weed and drinking beer before he went to school. One afternoon during break, he thought of all the things they did which were mostly bad. He decided to visit a church counsellor to get help. Then his marks improved and he got a bursary to study to become a doctor at Johannesburg hospital.
Later, when he was qualified, he sent R250 000 to the high school for leaking pipes, blocked drains and lost textbooks. He even bought a new tombstone for his dad and for John. Then he supported his mom and family. He proved his teachers wrong about him. He is now known as Dr C.N. Skhosana around the whole of Gauteng.