SATIRE | Once upon a time, in a town far, far away, there was a school headmaster (HM) who was rumoured to have 1,000 kek lapis (layer cakes) in his huge home freezer.

The talk swirled for weeks that this happened after some rich parents had given him generous gifts. Perhaps for overlooking their kids' discipline problems. Who knows? But the HM remained silent because "he believed he had done nothing wrong".

Then a school board member made the issue public, describing in detail the flavours of the suspicious cakes – chocolate, pandan and petai. In response, the HM broke his silence and "explained" that he was keeping all those cakes only for his brother. Keluarga, you know.

"Yeah, maybe, but it's still wrong," pointed out one town resident. "The rules are clear that a HM is only allowed to keep 10 kek lapis at home. This avoids gossip that he is being fed with too much sweet stuff for doing sweet things".

Another resident noted, "Why is he saying this only now? He should have declared the kek lapis to the...