The Beginning of An Adventure

We heard many stories of Anita mam, Mrs Anita Karmarkar, our soon-to-be Maths teacher in Class 9. Till now, we had the maths teachers and they were lout, but nobody was even an inch closer to Anita mam. They say, "Maths teachers are always strict", but I believe that the one with anger management issues become Math teachers. Our seniors had given their testimonial about her and had already scared the hell out of us. 

"Don't even try to fool her. She is Lady Sherlock Holmes. She knows when you lie."

"You dare not to do her homework, and she would hit your knuckles with that damn wooden duster." 

"She loves hearing your screams when she pinches your stomach and pulls your hair." 

"If she smiles, don't think she is happy. It means you are screwed." 

Though I was an average boy in academics, my friends were excellent in making other students lives hell in the school. We used to call it Fun, but now, the legal word is 'Bullying'. We all used to stay hardly 200 meters away from the school (if come and go by the main gate) (and a jump away if we decided to come and go by the broken school compound) and that was an advantage. Nobody, not even the seniors, would dare to mess with us. 

As school started, we realized that Anita mam already had done her homework on us. She used to say, "You are on radar. Be alert" and we too never crossed our paths with her. Be it homework or anything, we did it religiously. Everything went well until ...

It was a Wednesday, the most boring day in the timetable. A day without any PE, music, arts and crafts and library period, and on the top of that, after the lunch break, the most boring SST period. After hogging the lunch boxes, we were feeling sleepy and what would be the best time to take a nap in the class than the SST period? So, four of us went and sat on the last two benches of the corner row. To our surprise, Anita mam entered the classroom. We were told that SST teacher wasn't feeling well so she couldn't take the class. 

Mam started solving problems on the board and we were struggling to keep our eyes open. Those years, call it a ritual or a common practice, we used to sit with your school shoes removed, especially after the lunch break. The guy sitting on the second bench somehow took a shoe of the one sitting on the first bench and pushed it with his leg to the one sitting behind, and by doing so, the shoe reached the last bench. After some time, the one sitting on the front bench could not find his shoe, and without giving it a thought, he looked behind at us. From his angry face, and lip movement, I could guess that he was threatening me that he would complain it to mam. With my stupid acting skills, I tried convincing him that I didn't have his shoe, but the grin on my face made his belief strong that his show was with us. As soon as he got up to complain, I signalled him that I would send him his shoe back. Mam was busy writing problems on the board. I took the shoe in my hand and tried to slowly throw it at him, but horror happened. The shoe slipped from my hand and got landed on Anita mam's head. It was an accident for four of us, but a deliberate attempt to hit teacher for everybody but us. 

With the fire in her eyes, the red-faced woman shouted, "Who did this?" That shout was so loud that I can still hear it while writing this story. 

Nobody spoke. 

They knew the consequences if they would tell our names.

The owner of the shoe, a very sincere child, got a tight slap as he too didn't open his mouth. 

The class was in graveyard silence. Her eyes moved from one corner of the class to the other, and she approached us. 

"I know you have done this. Accept it or be ready for the consequences."

We looked at each other as if we were saying, "For friends, we are ready for any brutal punishment."

"Come out. We are going to the Father's office. I am sure you will open up there." She said and we were taken to Father D'Mello's office. 

Father listened to the story narrated by Anita mam. He opened his drawer, took out the bait stick, and asked, "You still have a chance to tell the truth or ...", and we said, "We didn't know who did it. We didn't do it."

We were back home with swollen posterior and a diary note saying, "Your child has been rusticated from the school for the next 15 days". 

We didn't show it to our parents as it would have made our posterior swollen more. We decided to spend the next 15 days as if nothing had happened. But what would we do if not go to school without people doubting us? 

                                                                          (... to be continued)