Busted

The alarm clock rings and DARREN wake up from his nightmare. He wipes the tears off his cheeks, switches the alarm off and covers the blanket over his head. After ten minutes, his mother barges into his room and shouts at him to get ready for school. Reluctantly, Darren drags himself out of bed and goes on preparing for school. After breakfast, Darren opens his laptop and types in an online anti-bullying forum, “Someone get me out of this school.” He shuts his laptop and put it in his school bag when his mother shouts at him again. Darren leaves the house in his mother’s car and heads to school. At the entrance of the school, Darren’s mother kisses him goodbye. KESTER and his two friends see the scene from afar and laughs hysterically. Darren pushes his mother away and runs into school.

After school, Darren walks home alone and bumps into Kester and his friends smoking. He tries to turn and walk away from them but freezes on the spot when Kester calls out his name. Kester and his friends walk towards him and surrounds him. He threatens Darren to take a puff from the cigarette or they will not let him off. With no options left, Darren obliges. While taking a puff of cigarette, one of Kester’s friend pulls out his phone and films Darren cough from the smoke. Darren sees the phone and tries to snatch it away, but Kester pushes him onto the ground. They laugh at him and walks away. Darren stands up and walks back home. Upon reaching home, Darren’s mother demands an explanation for pushing her away in the morning. Darren ignores her and stomps into his room, slamming the door shut. He cries while his mother continues shouting at him from outside the door. He opens his laptop, goes online and sees the video of him smoking and immediately closes it. He goes to the anti-bullying forum and sees a private message in reply to his post in the morning, “Me too.” Darren replies the stranger and they start chatting online. Darren finds that the stranger’s struggles of not being able to fit in school is very similar.

The next day, Darren’s mother drives Darren to school again, they are silent in the car as the mother is angry at him. Darren reaches school and sees that students are glaring at him. He finds out that the video of him is circulating in school. He rushes to the toilet immediately to calm himself down. In the toilet, he hears a commotion going on in a cubicle. Curious, he creeps over cubicle door and sees Kester making out with his male friend. Wanting revenge, Darren secretly pulls out his phone and starts filming the whole process and quietly leaves the toilet. During lunch break, Darren sits alone and is writing an apology letter to his mother. Kester and his friends see him and walks towards him. Kester snatches the apology letter away from Darren and reads it out loud in the canteen. Darren stares as Kester starts tearing the letter in front of his eyes.

After school at home, Darren’s mother shouts at him for not apologising to her and for keeping quiet about everything. She has no idea what is going on in school. Darren locks himself in the room again and his mother continues shouting at him from the outside. Darren thinks about Kester tearing the apology letter and decides to post the video of Kester online with the title: “Soccer captain turns out to be gay!” He then goes online to the forum and starts ranting to his online friend about his mother and his school. In a twist of event, the online friend reveals to be Kester when he cries out about the video of him being uploaded online. Darren starts crying when he realises that he has become a bully he hates. After crying, Darren reveals to Kester his true identity; Darren does not tell Kester that he is the one who takes the video. Kester apologises. The next day, Darren sees Kester walk sheepishly into school alone as he is being judged by students. During lunch, Darren sees Kester sitting alone and his two other friends sitting at another table. Darren approaches Kester and asks, “Is anyone sitting here? Wildheart23?” Kester smiles and Darren realises he made his first friend in school.

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For memory sake