The Group Project Alibi

Milo had told his group exactly three different excuses for why his section of the project wasn't finished. The trouble was that he had told them to three different people, who all happened to be in the same group chat.

Milo sudah memberi kelompoknya tepat tiga alasan berbeda mengapa bagiannya dalam proyek belum selesai. Masalahnya, ia menyampaikannya kepada tiga orang berbeda, yang kebetulan semuanya ada di grup obrolan yang sama.

To Astrid, he had explained that his laptop had crashed and taken the whole file with it. To Percy, he had claimed his grandmother was visiting unexpectedly and he couldn't focus. To their teacher, somewhat more ambitiously, he had said he'd been dealing with a family emergency that he would rather not discuss in detail.

Kepada Astrid, ia menjelaskan bahwa laptopnya rusak dan membawa serta seluruh filenya. Kepada Percy, ia mengaku neneknya tiba-tiba datang berkunjung sehingga ia tak bisa berkonsentrasi. Kepada guru mereka, dengan sedikit lebih berani, ia mengatakan sedang menghadapi urusan darurat keluarga yang tak ingin ia bicarakan rinciannya.

Each excuse, on its own, was plausible enough. The problem, which Milo hadn't considered, was timing.

Masing-masing alasan itu, kalau berdiri sendiri, cukup masuk akal. Masalahnya, yang tidak Milo pikirkan, adalah waktunya.

"Wait," Astrid typed in the group chat, "I thought your grandmother was visiting, not your laptop."

"Tunggu," ketik Astrid di grup obrolan, "tadi kupikir neneknya yang berkunjung, bukan laptopnya."

"Different day," Milo typed back quickly, already sensing where this was going.

"Harinya beda," balas Milo cepat, sudah merasakan ke mana arah pembicaraan ini.

"Also," Percy added, "didn't you tell Ms. Okafor it was a family emergency? Is your grandmother the emergency, or is this a whole separate thing?"

"Lagi pula," tambah Percy, "bukannya kamu bilang ke Bu Okafor itu urusan darurat keluarga? Neneknya itu daruratnya, atau ada urusan lain lagi?"

Milo stared at his phone, aware that he had officially run out of ways to make three unrelated lies sound consistent. He considered a fourth excuse to explain the inconsistency in the first three. Then he realized that this was exactly the kind of decision that had gotten him into trouble in the first place.

Milo menatap ponselnya, sadar bahwa ia resmi kehabisan cara untuk membuat tiga kebohongan yang tak berhubungan terdengar selaras. Ia sempat memikirkan alasan keempat untuk menjelaskan ketidakcocokan dari tiga alasan pertama. Lalu ia sadar bahwa justru keputusan semacam inilah yang sejak awal menjerumuskannya ke dalam masalah.

"Okay," he typed. "None of that happened. I just haven't started my section, and I panicked."

"Oke," ketiknya. "Semua itu tidak terjadi. Aku hanya belum mengerjakan bagianku, dan aku panik."

There was a long pause in the chat.

Ada jeda panjang di obrolan itu.

"That's honestly more believable than the laptop thing," Astrid replied.

"Jujur saja, itu lebih masuk akal daripada cerita laptop tadi," balas Astrid.

"I respect the honesty," Percy added, "but you now have eighteen hours to write four pages, so I hope panic is motivating."

"Aku menghargai kejujurannya," tambah Percy, "tapi sekarang kamu punya delapan belas jam untuk menulis empat halaman, jadi semoga panik bisa jadi pemacu semangat."

Milo spent that night writing faster than he had ever written anything in his life. He was fueled mostly by the humiliation of being caught in a lie so complicated it had needed a shared timeline to fall apart. He finished with forty minutes to spare and sent it to the group with a single message: "Never doing that again. Any of it."

Malam itu Milo menulis lebih cepat daripada yang pernah ia lakukan seumur hidupnya. Tenaganya terutama datang dari rasa malu karena ketahuan berbohong dengan cara yang begitu rumit sampai butuh jadwal bersama untuk membongkarnya. Ia selesai dengan sisa waktu empat puluh menit dan mengirimkannya ke grup dengan satu pesan: "Tidak akan kuulangi lagi. Semuanya."

"Sure you won't," Percy replied, followed by a laughing emoji that felt entirely deserved.

"Yakin nih tidak akan," balas Percy, disertai emoji tertawa yang terasa sangat pantas.