Apparently, my brother says that Nicholas Kwan from Year 7 is in debt. It all started when he lost his locker key and it was the original key so he had to pay Mrs Alegan $40 to get a new key from the locksmith.
Well, because he didn't have the money at that time, he begged Jayagopi or someone else in his class to lend him money. Jayagopi refused and Nicholas told him that if he lends the money, he will get twice the amount in return.
Somehow, he also borrowed $20 from Carlos and made the same promise. Somehow, he promised to pay $20 as interest for everyday he fail to pay. So in the end, the debt ballooned from $60 to $140.
Apparently these kind of transactions have been going on for quite some time with different people. Nicholas has been borrowing money from everyone to buy various things like cards and everyone has been charging him a very high interest rate. I mean even the ah longs or loansharks don't charge 50% interest per day.
A few days ago, Nicholas' mother approached my brother and asked why does Nicholas keep on taking money from the piggy bank to school. My brother didn't know about it so he said he doesn't know. Nicholas later confided in my brother that his piggy bank got a lot of money and he was taking it to pay off his debts. The most hateful thing is Nicholas' friends like Jayagopi always follow him to the canteen and insist that he belanja them.
Its a very disturbing case and before he gets into more trouble, I believe it is my duty as both a senior and the President to talk to Nicholas and tell him to return only the original sum instead of the huge sum it has ballooned into and stop asking people for money. Nicholas is a very naive boy who likes to attract attention. He is very scared of losing face and I think thats the reason he consented to belanja-ing his so called "FRIENDS".
I am shocked at how his so called "Friends" take advantage of him and his fear of losing face. My brother says that he always try to be the boss of the class, the big brother of the class and he is a huge attention seeker.
Interesting, ain't it? When I was 12, I never thought of charging my friends interest and neither do I treat my friends as money guzzlers. Maybe, that's because I came from a government school where not everyone is as rich as Nicholas.
I still think that Nicholas' so called "Friends" are behaving quite unethically and greedy. There is a line and they certainly crossed it by becoming ah longs and loan sharks. The worst thing is that Nicholas actually consented to paying those high interest rates.
Utterly despicable!
Labels: Musings and Thoughts, School Life
