Chocolate Chip Muffins

Betray verb 1to be disloyal to a person or country etc. 2 reveal something that should have been kept secret. betrayal noun, betrayer noun from be-, Latin tradere hand over

That is what the dictionary says about betrayal. To me it is so much more. It is what Roger did to Jonathan in Tamora Pierce’s quartet ­In The Hand of the Goddess. It is what Peter Pettigrew aka ‘Wormtail’ did to Lilly and James Potter in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter. It is what Amir did to Hassan in The Kite Runner written by Khaled Hosseini. It is what Zafar did to Maheem in ­Kartography by Kamila Shamsie. More memorably, it is what Scar did to Simba in Disney’s The Lion King. I am sure there are many ‘real life’ examples of betrayal, but I live more in the fantasy world than in the ‘real’ world. Besides, fiction books can capture the feeling of those involved in the deed, not just the facts and can create a better understanding that you cannot get reading a history book.

My life, like anybody else’s, has been full of betrayal. Friends telling others my deepest darkest secrets, having lies told to my face, one or two cheating boyfriends and vice versa. However, one betrayal stands out the most. Even now, 30 years later, I think about what could have been and wonder. I still feel the sting. What happened has an underlying affect on my day-to-day life. The betrayal involved my two best friends at the time, Lucas and Khalia. We were all in year two at school and from the moment we arrived to the moment we left, and sometimes after that, we were inseparable. We were actually, as cliché as this sounds, nicknamed the ‘Terrible Trio’. We were always up to mischief, wether it be climbing trees or putting glue in our fellow classmate’s hair. One week the year fours decided that they were going to marry everyone in our class to one another. Naturally, they pared me with Lucas, as Khalia was away sick I had a crown made of daisy chains and Lucas had a daisy stuck through one of his buttonholes. The year fours actually made us rings out of woven grass. Lucas and I were the first pair to be married and we had our ‘honeymoon’ sitting under ‘The Big Tree’ at the edge of the oval watching the year 7s play football. Lucas and were happily married for 3 days. During that time, we acted how the year fours told us married couples should act. We shared our lunches with one another, called each other ‘husband’ and ‘wife’, held hands and one time they even made us kiss. Our peaceful union was shattered when Khalia came back to school. She wanted to be married to Lucas as well but they year fours told her she could not because a man could only marry one woman. They also decided that Lucas could choose whether he wanted to stay with me or divorce me and marry Khalia. After spending 3 days in marital bliss with Lucas I was sure he would chose me, Khalia would marry someone else and we would be friends as always, but then the unexpected came. Khalia said that she had two chocolate chip muffins for recess and she would give one to Lucas if he married her. Khalia’s chocolate chip muffins were famous in our year. Everyone liked them and there were queues and fights whenever she had two of them. When she said that I knew my marriage to Lucas was over. Nothing I had could compete with Khalia’s chocolate chip muffins and I hated her for it. If she was a real friend she would have married someone else, but no, she had to go steal my ‘husband’. To this day, I have never forgiven Khalia or Lucas and Khalia did not get an invite to my real wedding when I married Lucas’ best friend Samuel.

AN: written for my english portfolio. we had to write a short story based on the issues, ideas or techniques involved in the short stories and/or novel studied in class. Obviously i chose betrayal, i dont know why, it just stuck in my head and wouldnt leave. I thought about writting a dark and sinister betrayal story but it just didnt want to be written sigh