Sometimes, old wardrobes hide more than just last season’s coats.

As the past is dusted off, a forgotten backpack emerges, carrying with it the secrets of a childhood revenge that was never meant to resurface.

Read on for the full story!

Petty larceny for a petty revenge

Today, I was helping my parents clean out their wardrobe.

It’s this big wooden affair that has been in our house since before I was born.

They are getting rid of it in favour of a built-in unit.

I found an old backpack at the back of the wardrobe, it had probably been there for years. A lot of old stuff keeps coming out of the wardrobe since no one uses it anymore.

Thing is… the backpack does not belong to me… or to any of my siblings.

The author gives some background on how this strange backpack found its way into the wardrobe.

Rewind a few decades ago. I was in grade 6 (I was 10) and had this bully named M.

M who used to catch locusts/grasshoppers (you know, the big, green lobster-looking ones). and chase me around with them to scare me.

I was and still am TERRIFIED of bugs, especially flying and hopping ones. (Why do bugs have to fly????)

M was relentless in her antics.

Anyway, she had been doing this since grade 4. She would either put the grasshopper in my bag or chase me with it during lunch.

Once, she chased me for so long I decided to walk home instead of waiting for school to end.

Unfortunately, the adults in this story weren’t too sympathetic.

I told my parents.

My dad (he is the “rub some dirt in it” kind of guy) brushed it off and asked why I was scared of the grasshoppers and explained that the bugs were probably more afraid of me than I was of them. (Gee, thanks, Dad.)

My mother (the so-called “peacekeeper”) asked what I had done to M to make her do this to me.

I dreaded going to school every day and my nerves were not happy with me.

Cue petty revenge.

Their response was cold, calculated and clever.

This is not the part where I tell a teacher (grown-ups were clearly not the answer) or the part where I go nuclear and stage an elaborate revenge.

This is the part where I stole her backpack. I was ten years old and this was the most diabolical thing I could think of.

Our school did not have lockers, so you had to lug all your belongings from home to school. All your belongings.

M was going to miss this backpack.

The backpack had her school books, her spare cash and her bus pass.

For days, our teacher asked us to help look for the backpack as M had no way of getting to school and back without the bus pass, no way of doing school work.

Since M was notorious for scaring people with critters, the backpack was not found.

M told our class teacher that she thought it might be me but conveniently left out why she thought it might be me.

Like any good “criminal,” the author made sure to account for every detail.

But here’s the thing: I used to admit to small crimes (breaking a glass, eating the ultramel, leaving the sink running) even when I hadn’t done it to build up cred for when I committed bigger ones (breaking a window, spilling soda on my dad’s paperwork) so most grown-ups knew that I owned up to my misdoings.

So it wasn’t so hard to get the teacher to believe me. I even started crying and asking M why she would accuse me of something so terrible.

Losing one’s school bag was such a terrible thing to happen and I would never be so cruel (cue evil laugh). She had to replace all her books and redo all the class assignments as they contributed to the report card.

Finally, justice was served.

She also had to explain to her parents how she lost the bag and the bus pass.

She got into soooo much trouble with the teachers and even got spanked a few times for not having her homework done.

Anyway, clearly I never gave the backpack back and now, I guess I will be throwing it in the trash.

If you ever find this Monde, yes, it was me after all.

Looks like they officially got away with it!

What did Reddit have to say?

Snitches get stitches.

The petty thief should have done a little recon while they were at it.

Apparently petty violence can sometimes be the answer?

That backpack deserves to be framed, not hidden away in a wardrobe!

The backpack may be headed for the trash, but the satisfaction of a well-played petty revenge plot lives on.

Some childhood secrets are meant to stay buried, but not this one.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.