It was the teacher’s day and the Strait’s Times decided to do an article on teachers. They went to many schools, interviewing many teachers, but none of their stories were as interesting as English teacher Ms Catherine Lim’s. This is her story.
Catherine always awaited her father's return with fear and eagerness. Why? That was because often, he would come back drunk and beat her. However, sometimes he would come back with bags of food that he bought from the nearby coffee shop, but of course that almost never happened. Even if her father brought food home, he would buy it only for himself and often left just scraps for poor Catherine to eat.
Catherine went to school like any other regular child. She was one of the smarter ones in the class, often passing her test with flying colours. However she only returned home only to be beaten up by her drunken father still with a beer bottle in his hand. Her father was not always like this, but he had lost his job and resolved to drinking and gambling as a way of life.
Then one day, her teacher, Mrs. Lim got the class to write a composition about their fathers. Mrs. Lim also said that the story had to be true and could not be made up. Catherine squeezed in every single detail about her father from how he would come back with a beer bottle swaying in his hands, to him severely abusing her.
Once at her desk in the staff room, Mrs. Lim started marking script by script, reading each passage carefully, checking for any spelling, grammar or punctuation mistakes. When she got to her star pupil’s script, she was completely shocked. She immediately asked Catherine to report to her. The first question that she asked Catherine was if any of this was true and why did she not tell her about it. Catherine answered, “I was afraid that my father would beat me up even more.” From the way that this was said, it sounded like she could not take it any more
Mrs. Lim immediately called up the police and reported a case of child abuse the police immediately rushed over to Catherine’s Father’s house and arrested the man. Mrs. Lim then offered to adopt Catherine and she gladly accepted. Ever since, Catherine has been living in a house filled with love and grew up to become one of Singapore’s best English teachers.
