Chapter 2 - Surprise, Surprise

The first day of school after Summer vacations is always exciting. Seeing your friends after 2 months and to get to ask what they did over holidays was always a moment to look forward to. But then there was the matter of holidays homework which always made students nervous. Especially students like Ekam who spent the first half of the summer holidays procrastinating that they will do it in the second half, and then in the second half there was always one family function which stole full quota of leftover attention from their already attention deprived mind.

Ekam was in 5^th B. 5^th being class and B section. 5^th B has 5 subjects and each teacher gave at least some kind of homework to students to make sure students remember civilization called School. Otherwise, in jungles of childhood mazes were in abundance. Out of a total of 5 subjects, English had the most cumbersome homework of cursive writing practice. The remaining subjects' homework was in quantities which can be completed in a week or two weeks, but Miss Rachna the English teacher of 5^th B believed in extending the slavery of homework to the full extent of sixty days of vacation. Her exact words, “One page of cursive writing daily won’t kill you, folks.”

Ekam meagerly touched the boundary line of completion for all the subjects except English. So, feeling nervousness was obvious. With mingled thoughts of friends and homework, Ekam entered class which was already bubbling with forty-seven of his classmates discussing their vacation.

It didn’t take much time for Ekam’s best buddy, Nandu, to see him entering the class and rushing to him with more intense emotions than anything possible on the face of the earth at that moment. And then they picked the crumbs of their last conversation as they were not apart for the last sixty days.

Nandu shared his story of going to his grandparents' house, which was in Amritsar, forty kilometers from Beas. Ekam traded in return his story of going daily to his Baapu’s fields and how he taught him to ride a bicycle. Nandu got impressed with Ekam’s achievement of riding a bicycle on his own. Nandu always followed Ekam in all his ways, from buying the same school bag to started calling his granddad Baapu.

By the time School assembly got over, Ekam’s super detective dream story made Nandu’s eyes light up like a pair of jewels. Nandu can easily see Ekam becoming that super detective one day.

While Ekam and Nandu settled on their seats and along with the whole chattering class waited for their Math teacher, Miss Sood to arrive. They got the first shock of the day when they saw Miss Rachna entering the class in her usual sure-footedness walk and landing her purse with a loud thump on the teacher’s table. Miss Rachna was not expected till the fourth period. Nervousness started bubbling in Ekam’s stomach pit like a water kettle simmering over the stove.

By the look of the class, it seems along with Ekam many others in the class have not completed the cursive writing homework. Ekam was praying to all seven gods and then to the homework god himself to make Miss Rachna forget to ask about the homework.

But Miss Rachna never forgets.

“Ekam” Miss Rachna called.

Ekam finally realized that the scientists of Discovery documentary which he watched during the summer holidays were not lying, when they said we have scientific proof of how the world started but not sure if priests have the scientific proof of the existence of god. He knew for a fact that this is his last day. Students were less afraid of Miss Rachna’s homework volume, but they were more scared of her punishments. According to one 6^th class senior, once Miss Rachna slapped a student four years ago, one can still hear the echo of the slap in the school’s silent corridors. While telling about Miss Rachna few tuition-going students trailed off at the last part of the sentence and ended it with great dread by saying, “She has a room in her basement.” Ekam started towards the teacher’s table and burned internally incense in front of each Science god, to save him from his English teacher’s wrath.

Along with the remaining class, Nandu also said his last goodbyes to Ekam. He knew the world would not be the same place without Ekam.

Miss Rachna was busy going through some admission papers when Ekam reached her desk and stood on the farther side without saying anything. She kept going through the documents. With each passing moment, Ekam was seeing all those procrastinating moments of his summer vacation flickering right in front of his eyes. Once he said no to his mother for homework because he was busy blowing spit bubbles.

And then, Miss Rachna put her papers down and looked at him and said, “You need to go to staff-room. A new student is joining our class today, can you please bring her?”

Ekam was so deep in his thoughts, he did not register what Miss Rachna said. He was thinking to blame the shopkeeper for not stocking up enough of the cursive writing books, as each time when Ekam went to buy the book Shopkeeper was out of stock. He thought he will say that Shopkeeper knowing that summer vacations are coming should have bought more stocks of cursive writing books. While Ekam was rummaging for more layers to add to his lie, Miss Rachna’s voice jerked him out of his reverie.

“Her name is Kannu. She will be sitting with Tanwar sir, now go and bring her to class. She’s new to the school so she will not be knowing the way to 5^th B.” with that Miss Rachna again went for deep dive into her documents.

Nandu was the first person Ekam looked in his disbelief. With luck siding Ekam, other students also thought Miss Rachna has forgotten about homework. Without giving another moment to fate and his English teacher to hold him back for any reason, Ekam barraged out of the classroom.

Ekam’s boiling pot of nervousness now has changed into cold waves of the ocean, which were reaching shore and touching his feet to full relish. The empty school corridor has never felt this tranquil before. Only a student who gets to send by a teacher on administrative work knows, how soothing the outside of the classroom feels. That, and no homework check.

Lost in his reveries Ekam did not realize when he descended to the ground floor of the school. He was standing in the Primary wing of the school and the Staffroom was on the other side of the long corridor, towards the Secondary wing. Completing the given task within time will make him a candidate for Miss Rachna’s homework scrutiny. So instead of marching directly towards the Secondary wing, Ekam chose to take a longer path. First, he went to the water cooler and drank one glass of water at glacial speed. At one moment it felt, he is trying to count the atoms of Hydrogen and Oxygen in each gulp.

Like a deer in the forest, he knew he cannot remain in open for long as any by-passing school staff can ask him predatory questions like, why he is outside his class, so he decided to spend the next few mins in the boy’s toilet. After taking one of the longest bathroom breaks in the history of mankind, Ekam emerged from the washroom and then felt the need to spend a good amount of time on his mum’s teaching of washing hands after washroom visits. If he had washed his hands a little longer, he might have his fingerprints wiped clean as well. And then it felt to Ekam a good amount of time wasted and now he can go his way and look for that poor student who is waiting for him in the staffroom.

 When he reached Staffroom, he saw a girl waiting next to the Art and Craft teacher, Mr. Tanwar. After taking his teacher’s permission, Ekam started escorting her back to class. When they crossed the long corridor halfway through, Kannu hesitated and muttered softly, “School building looks quite big.”

Ekam looked towards the scrawny little girl and nodded his head in affirmative motion. Taking him of reserve nature, Kannu went one step ahead and introduced herself. Ekam shook her extended hand and after seeing her front two teeth missing in her ear-to-ear grin, he didn’t help himself and extended a similar grin in return. Quickly he started talking and told her about how big the playground is and where the laboratories are, though primary wing students are not allowed there. He also told her about the canteen and what she can easily get from there.

“As you will see in some time we have the best-located class in the Primary wing. It's near to stairs, so we are the first ones to go downstairs in the interval and get to choose the best spots for lunch and playing and on top of that in the classroom, our’s is the only class which has extra room in back, so we usually play paper-ball cricket when we have a free period” Ekam boasted with the puffed chest.

“Cricket in class? What about teachers? No one scolds or punishes?” Kannu awed.

Ekam was too inside the boasting territory to retreat. “Nah! They can’t stop us. And we are the seniormost class in Primary wing, we are not afraid of the stupid teachers.” Surprise, surprise, how quickly one can forget about the simmering pot of nervousness, all proven and un-proven gods in Ekam’s eyes, smiled.

Ekam has started feeling comfortable about himself around Kannu and also with the first-period bell approaching near, it felt right to report back to Miss Rachna.

When Ekam entered his class, the whole room was very quiet. And when he saw Miss Rachna, though uncomfortably but still asked for her permission to go back to his seat after handing over the new student to her. Ekam reached his seat and felt his gaze slipping towards his best friend Nandu.  

Nandu was happy seeing Ekam back to class but felt eagerness in his glance as he has something urgent to tell him. The moment Ekam sat on the seat which he shared with Nandu, he saw Nandu sliding a note towards him.

The note read, “Rachna didn’t check the homework.”

Ekam smiled towards him and wrote back, “Guess we are in luck.”

Nandu hesitated and wrote back, “How’s the new girl? I hope you didn’t mention anything bad to her.”

Ekam gave him a confused look and pushed his reply back, “She seems cool like us. She seems our kind.”

Nandu read his note and slowly shook his head and nudged his reply to Ekam.

“She is not our kind. She is a teacher’s kid, that too of Miss Rachna.” And there Ekam got the second surprise of his first day back to school.

A small droplet of sweat formed on Ekam’s forehead and parts of his talk with Kannu reverberated in his ears. Cricket in class. Not afraid of stupid teachers. The cauldron of nervousness was back on the stove.

-- Chapter 3 of Ekam's Adventures will publish on 18^th July --