A Great Disappointment that turned out to be a Blessing

Shock. That was the first thing I felt when I saw the Principal coming towards us, her mouth pressed into an angry line. Comprehension came second; but it was too late. Before long, she had herded us out of the corridor, into the ground, ordering us to stand in a queue under the blazing sun and the watchful eyes of other students.
After she had left, I started to think. Why had I done it? Couldn't I have just followed my usual behavior and sit in class? Self-hatred hit me like a wrecking ball. I cursed the moment my friends and I had decided to follow the other students’ example and gotten out of class, thinking that if they never got punished, why would we? Of course, that was a horrible excuse and we knew it.
Standing there, with my equally grief-stricken friends, I felt a deep, piercing sadness. We didn't deserve this. We were the top-scorers, the good girls of the class. And we had been reduced to this, just because we were senseless enough to follow the example of others.
Then the pleading began. In a desperate attempt to get ourselves out of that humiliating situation, we tried to negotiate with the Principal and the Coordinators. But no one would listen. I felt betrayed. It was like they had forgotten our good grades, our previous commendable behavior. They shouted at us. They acted as if we had done this countless times before and they had only just caught us.
At last, I could not hold my tears back and they spilled form my eyes, making the situation even worse. My friends tried to calm me down but I couldn't hear them over the loud, desperate sobs wracking my body and the hollow ringing in my ears. All I could think was, “nothing will ever be the same again. My reputation is in shreds.” After some time, I calmed down and later, we were let inside our class. My elder sister found out about the whole situation and went to talk to the Principal, despite my protests. Soon, I was summoned by her and, taking deep breaths, I stepped into her office.
She asked me to explain the whole situation to her and after I did, she told me something that I will never forget. She said, “If someone steals, will you start stealing too?” This phrase has been latched to my mind since then. I came out of the office thinking that if I hadn't experienced this, however traumatizing it was, I might have done something like this later in life that would have had far worse consequences than being punished in front of the whole school. Wasn't this a blessing in disguise? That day, I found out that life has these little ways of making you learn things that help you a lot in the future and thought that maybe, life isn't so unfair after all.