Naughty

Matilda from Roald Dahl’s novel of the same name.

When I was in 3rd grade, I got a bad mark. It was a zero.

My teacher was Ms Nguyệt Anh. She gave me a zero for scribbling the numbers instead of writing them out neatly.

Then she gave me a zero again the next day. 

I was petrified.

She asked me to have my parent sign it.

“My mom would be so disappointed in me.” I thought.

So instead of coming clean to her, I brought the notebook back home… and threw it on the neighbors’ roof. 

Poof- it’s gone! I breathed my sigh of relief. 

I thought, surely if the notebook would go away then my mom wouldn’t be aware then she wouldn’t really know how baddddd of a student I really am, right!!??? 

My mom never found out. Even all these years later. I graduated each grade with accolades and high scores. I got into good schools.

Covering my mistake came with a cost though. 

First was when the neighbor saw the notebook, he sent it back to my house. I nearly died. My heart sank when I received it back when my parents were away. No one saw. But I knew the neighbor did. He must have opened the pages to find out who it belonged to.

Next, I remember shakily scribbling my own little version of what I thought my mom’s signature looked like, next to the zeros. The teacher never even checked. She asked me the week that followed If I had it sighed. And I said yes.

And then, a few years later, I told my friend Ngân about the incident. “Strange how your learning went downhill like that in grade 3!”

I remember not agreeing with her framing. I did get 2 zeros. For scribbling. It didn’t say anything about my Math or English skill. It was a neatness skill which apparently that teacher valued.

At 36, I’m still that girl at the core. I did things nearly perfect.

I have high pain tolerance, but a low tolerance for being wrong-ed. Or worse, wrong.

I’m flawed. The sooner I let go of the perfect identity, the more I’m able to embrace my mistakes.

Getting a zero was bad. Compromising my integrity, not just to my mom but to myself, is worse.

Lately, I’ve been crying every time listening to the song Naughty from Matilda. It went:

“Just because you find that life's not fair, it

Doesn't mean that you just have to grin and bear it!

If you always take it on the chin and wear it

You might as well be saying

You think that it's okay

And that's not right!

And if it's not right

You have to put it right!

But nobody else it gonna put it right for me

Nobody but me is going to change my story

Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty”

At first, I thought my affiliation with the song was purely the daring spirit. How she takes ownership. How she doesn’t blame. How she refuses to let external circumstances be her destiny. It’s a story about resilience, optimism, and self-directed trauma therapy.

But through my tears during two of the most intense weeks in my life, I learned a new meaning from the song. I was healing my inner child via the permission to be “naughty” from a fictional character I admire. She happened to be the same age I was when I threw that notebook.

Unconsciously, I’ve been beating myself up ever since I was 8 over something I did not come clean to my mom about. Until today. 

Kids make mistake. That 8 year old Linh did. And every version of Linh thereafter did too.

And it’s okay. It’s okay to be a little naughty. 

I forgive her. And in turn, she tells me to forgive myself, whatever happens in the future.