She was the classic bully who made me feel like I had to let her borrow them despite the fact they weren't hers.
Then one day, I looked in my pencil case, and they were gone. I just knew it was Linda who took them.
I hear Linda hasn't changed much since then and has been arrested for dishonesty.
Should I have confronted her about my pens? Could that have made a difference to her?
Being tougher is exactly what the NZ Retail Association is calling for. Thieves, shoplifters to be precise, have cost retailers $1 billion in the past year and the association that speaks for those businesses is doing its best to campaign for tougher penalties.
It said the penalties were not deterring criminals and was calling for a dedicated taskforce and tougher laws.
The association said thieves were getting more brazen and aggressive and the value of the items being stolen was slowly increasing. The association said the justice system wasn't taking such crime seriously enough and therefore the thieves were taking bigger risks.
Brett Wilson, chief executive of Watchdog Security which covers Tauranga and Rotorua, said Rotorua was seeing a big rise in shoplifting because of the city's homeless problem.
He said as people got more desperate they would take more risks to get away with it.
So, whether you're the Linda type in the classroom or the little kid who wants his brother's truck, the bottom line is if you take something that isn't yours, there should be consequences.
The consequences should be significant enough that you don't ever want to take something that isn't yours again.
It needs to be nipped in the bud before things get out of hand.
