A school bell that once lived in a classroom was very diligent in it’s duties, always ringing for breaks at the right time for decades straight. “It’s all a matter of having correct sense of time”, the bell told the other school supplies, and it was indeed a matter of fact that it knew exactly when to notify others for their break or for the end of the day. And so years passed, and our good school bell was starting to get very old.

One day, however, the unexpected happened: our good school bell forgot to ring for a break, exactly at the end of the first hour. The other school supplies, that is, the school bags, protractors and rubbers got really anxious when they saw the clock and realized what had happened. “And now how are we going to play with our friends?”, they wondered as they looked out of the window. Noone was to be found outside, however, as without the school bell’s ringing, how would they know the time for break had come?

So they decided to look for the school bell and ask what had happened. “I’m sorry, I forgot…”, the school bell told them with a trembling voice and immediately rang, promising that this would never happen again. And so that day the school supplies were ten minutes late for their first rest.

The very same thing happened the next day, however, only this time it happened before they even gathered all together in the morning. At first the school supplies seemed to enjoy it, only to realize that this way they would be forced to leave school later in the evening, however. So they went over to the school bell and asked once more what was wrong. “I’m sorry, I thought I had already rang…”, the bell said to justify himself.

Things went terribly wrong when a few days later the school bell rang half an hour later for dismissal. As soon as the school supplies realized it, they got really furious and went over to demand a proper explanation.

“It seems that out of the many years I have been working in this school, I have lost my time sense… I’m terribly sorry…”, the school bell said in disappointment and burst into tears. The other school supplies, however, were so angry at his this time that they demanded he quit his job since he was unable to fulfil his duties and they shouldn’t have to put up with any delays for having their breaks. “You should be fired!”, yelled some of them at him.

“I’m sorry… I’m terribly sorry…”, the school bell kept apologizing. A postman then rang the door who left our good school bell a letter. As soon as he opened it, tears flooded his eyes.

It was a letter of retirement from the Minister of Education, with which he personally thanked the school bell for his life-long commitment to his duties and apologized that his retirement had been delayed for so many years that he had gotten so old waiting for it to the point that he even started forgetting.