Hero for the day

                             Hero for the day

      The alarm rang at six-fifteen on the 11th of July, Thursday. A family of eight began their daily routine. Izzati ,the eldest daughter of the family of the family headed downstairs for breakfast in the kitchen when Izzati saw Izan ,the second born and Kak Lina ,the maid were outside on the verandah talking with the grill door wide open. A peak of curiosity led Izzati to ask what had happened as it was unusual for the sliding door to be opened this early.

     En.Rizal came downstairs when he heard the news from his son Izan. Kak Lina was explaining the ‘break in’ in a more detailed form like hearing things in the middle of the night ,however could not get up and kept feeling uneasy all night. It seemed nobody could get up that night. Kak Lina had opened the lights downstairs around 5.00 a.m. only to discover four figures running away from the backyard. She was surprised that they had melted the iron rod grill’s lock and threw the lock in the grass when she woke up. Even so, they could not open the grill door because of the double lock that was installed.

     Thinking the ‘danger hour’ had ended, the family returned to their routine. En.Rizal decided to inspect the damage that was done to the grill door. However his wife ,Puan Rina warned him not to go outside and told him to wait until the policemen arrived for she had a sinking feeling something bad was about to happen. En.Rizal assured her that nothing would go wrong. As they were talking, Anis, the fourth sibling was out on the verandah. She couldn’t resist taking a peek at the ‘crime scene’.

     Suddenly, out of the blue, four figures appeared in the backyard and they were armed with sharp tools. They approached silently but quickly charged towards the family when they noticed their presence. En.Rizal shouted for everyone to get inside the house but Anis just shivered and stood still. En.Rizal realized this in the ‘nick of time’ and quickly pulled her inside the house. Izan managed to swipe a couple of golf clubs and handed one to his father. En.Rizal immediately pulled the grill door and locked the sliding door.

     Izzati, Kak Lina, Anis and Adam, the third sibling was led upstairs by Puan Rina. Puan Rina told Izzati to get her hand phone and told everyone to stay inside her room, which she immediately locked. Izzati dialed the police’s speed dial and called the police center, whereas Puan Rina called the guard house and the next-door neighbors.

    The situation was pretty intense as En.Rizal was left to defend the family from the possible robbers. The four robbers were pretty much upset as their attempts to break into the house was a failure. One of them whispered something to his partner’s ear and unexpectedly both of them left, leaving the other two banging on the sliding door. En.Rizal held up the sliding door in order to prevent the glass from shattering.

      While En.Rizal was holding back the two other robbers, Izan noticed the two missing robbers who were at first nowhere to be found were on the other side of the house. He quickly shouted loud enough to be heard upstairs to be careful as the robbers were making another attempt to ‘break in’ from upstairs. As soon as everyone heard what Izzati had to say, everyone was thrown into panic. But Puan Rina had a plan. She asked Izzati to look out the window and locate the other two robbers. Izzati did as she was told and found them, one of them had jumped up one of the water pipes and started to climb up, while the other one had become a human stool to help his partner grab on the water pipe.

     Puan Rina told Kak Lina to remain in her room with her three younger children and locked the door. She went to Izzati’s room afterwards where her daughter waited to execute the plan. As the first robber closed in, Puan Rina and Izzati readied themselves. With perfect timing, Puan Rina opened the windows hoping the robber would fall, but he managed to cling to the window sill. Carefully avoiding the swinging parang, Puan Rina sprayed pepper spray directly to his eyes. On the other side of the window Izzati was ready with a small stool .she hit his head and his hand causing him to fall? His partner tried to catch him but all he caught was a bad headache and backache when his friend fell on him. Both of them were still alive.

    A feeling of relief entered the heart of Puan Rina and Izzati, but faded as the sound of shattering glasses was heard from downstairs signaling that the attempt was successful. Before they realized it, the fallen robbers had already recovered and on their way to join their accomplices. The family upstairs could only pray to God to protect their beloved father and brother.

    After a long silence, Izan shouted for everyone to come downstairs. Puan Rina was the first followed by the rest of the family. Izan explained as if he could not believe it, “They ran away as soon as they bro...Broke the glass…it…was like they saw something”. En.Rizal had a stroke of bad luck and stepped on a piece of a broken glass. Puan Rina treated her husband’s injury with some help from Kak Lina while Izzati and Izan comforted the younger siblings. Even though suffering an injury, En.Rizal stayed faithfully by the door guarding his family.