ABCD Part 01

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ABCDPART I

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A! Wake up or youll be late for school! came the shrill voice from somewhere within thehouse.

But A was already up. He sat on his bed staring out the window. His mind had drifted offsomewhere. It had been doing that a lot lately; the shout brought back his senses.

The morning had thrown a brilliant shade of blue and yellow into the room. Or maybe thatwas just the sky-blue wallpaper.

A got up and went into the bathroom through the door that was uncomfortably close to hisbed. But the door had to be there! While he went about brushing his teeth, he remembered something:this kid on television always looked at his teeth in the mirror while brushing and he could see thoseugly mutant germs get whacked and flung here and there in his mouth by the sheer power of histoothpaste. A moved towards the door with the brush in his mouth and turned the light on. He had thetoothpaste from the advertisement alright, but he never saw the germs. Maybe he did not look hardenough? No way am I that stupid! he thought as his growing common sense rubbed into his head thatthere were in fact no ugly mutant germs in his teeth just the food from last nights supper. Thetoothpaste tasted good anyway.

He walked into the dining room dressed in the white shirt and the childish red tie carrying abag on one of his shoulders that must have weighed almost as much as a grown goat! He sat down onthat chair on the right end of the table which he always for some reason chose.

M came with the breakfast boiled eggs that always made him choke. She looked down athis feet, put down the pan on the table and knelt before him in quite haste.

When will you learn to tie them up by yourself, huh?M grumbled as she quickly knotted upthose black shoelaces with the really short aglets. Darn! She always did them so fast how will heever learn if he cannot see them done? Now hurry up and eat. She ordered as she got up and went forthe kitchen with the pan. Then it was yet another battle with the evil eggs and the shoving them downhis throat with water.

He was only halfway there when ring, ring! came the bell from outside. It was the school van.This always happened to him! Always halfway through the egg when the stupid van showed up! In onedaring attempt, he thrust the rest of the egg into his mouth and emptied the whole glass of water on it the most awful feeling in the world came next. On top of it, M came shouting how he alwaysdeliberately brought it down to this kind of delay-situation. How is that possible?Imean, if I couldcontrol time Id at least make it easier for myself; but no, Im choking on egg! he said to himself.

Run, run, run out the door and up the mini-stairs of the three-wheeled wonder. The van-wala, their sole guardian for the dangerous yet adventurous trip to and from the school, shut up therear gate which was also the emergency exit. Then he got on his drivers seat and started whippingthe mechanical horses; they were on their way.

On the up trip, the passenger count was six. Lets call them A, C, D, E, G and H. A was A. G andH were boys. And by common sense C, D and E were girls. Now, to elaborate on the dynamics of thismode of transport would have been an exhaustive task had it not been so simple. The passengers herewere, in no way, strangers; yet there was the fact that they were all forced to bear each others

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company for the length of the ride.They all knew each others names, work information and seatpreference. In here, everything you say counts and with what you say you can make good friends orbad enemies.

The two boys sat close to the driver, which is obvious since they get on before anyone else.

They were kind of stupid though, because in case of an emergency, theyd be thelast ones to exit thevan through the emergency exit.C, D and E were crammed in beside G, leaving the other seat, whereH and A now sat, relatively empty. The three of them had a thing about sitting together so now theysat like that all the time. Likewise in the afternoons, when five people would be shoved into each seat,and not to put too fine a point on it, some of them werentas thin as others.

In this coach there were two obvious groups: G and H, being veteran passengers, sometimesstruck up a topic only understandable by the two of them. The three girls always seemed to haveplenty of topics. The two groups hardly ever communicated other than at times when a territorialdispute had occurred. A well he belonged to neither group.

That was not so surprising since hed only been using the transport for a couple of months after

his dad F decided to live somewhere else. Now he did not have time to bring A to school anymore busy man, he was.

A recalled something as he stared into the moving streets through the iron bars... somethinghed seen on television: This bunch of dangerous looking men was often carried in a caged truck,somewhat resembling their coach, and then marched into a really big stone building in a straight line.Every morning at the end of their trip to school, their van would be parked a little way off from the redgates and theyd be marched the rest of the way much like those dangerous looking men.

There was the matter of crossing the street, so now they came up on the pavement opposite thegates and waited for the signal.

Oblivious as he was to the mundane visions and noises all around him, something caught Aseyes today like nothing had ever done before well, except maybe that really cool action figure,which no one was going to buy him.

Another van had arrived and it cut them off to cross the streetbefore them. That was strange,he thought, the vans never stop directly at the gate. What caught his eye was the lone occupant of thevan it was a girl about his age.

Yuck! he shrugged, girls! They always want things all to themselves; Ill bet she doesnt letanyone get up in her van.

Suddenly, just at that moment, the girl turned and looked directly at him with her big hollow

eyes and fixed a firm gaze upon him.Damn it! Did she hear me? How can that be? he said to himself. She kept her gaze fixed athim, all the way across the street and still at it as he tried to hurriedly enter the red gates. He wasfrightened what a strange girl!

--- 2 ---

Shish! A was glad he didnt have to see the strange girl with the frightening gaze again at school that

day. Bylunchtime hed forgotten the whole thing.

The next morning he was again accused of deliberate delay. Then choking on bread, waterdown his throat, ring and ring and he was off.

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Today he tried to talk to his fellow travellers but he got cold replies and harsh looks. E wasthe nicest among them. She asked him things about himself and talked to him properly. She was verypretty too.

Out on the pavement opposite the gates later on, he was really scared beyond... something. The

exact same scene from yesterday: the van pulled up in front of the gate as they were crossing the street.This time he was sure she was looking at him and smiling but he couldnt look out of fear. The smilemust have been an evil one. He thought. She was still looking at him, and he was sweating. Only a few feet more and hed be safe inside the school. He shut his eyesand almost tripped as he tried to cross thegate in that condition. He heard her cackle from behind. At least it was over!

What did he do wrong? He never even tried to get on her van! Was she going to complain tothe principal that forgiving yet absolutely merciless woman who he had never met? A did notblame her she had a thousand naughty children to take care of. His fear was justified because suchthreats of complaint were as abundant as air in this school.

During Tiffin break he stayed as far as he could from the place hed so often suspected to bethe principals office. He also kept a lookout for her. Nothing happened and heeventually went backto his classroom with a sigh of relief. Perhaps he had nothing to be worried about after all.

After school ended that day, he marched up to their van along with the rest of the squad. Ashe waited behind the coach for the others to get up, he looked around gaily and sighted the dreadedvan almost as if he was destined to do so. This time too, the girl looked straight at him but turned awayabruptly and looked elsewhere as if in great melancholy. That really unsettled his synapses and hestared into blank space for a while until somebody shoved him quite hard.

As it appeared now, a new boy would be travelling with them. That made the down-trip

passenger count eleven. Eleven! Six people in one row ! Is that even possible?It turned out to be. Hewas just unlucky enough to have chosen the seat in which six instead of five of them were crammedinto. There was no space to breathe! Apart from the six people from the morning trip, there were fivemore: I, J, K, L and N; K being the new boy. I and J were girls.

What a nightmare! Instead of three, now there would be seven-eight different conversations none of which would be allowed to outshine the others in volume. K was a cool boy who had acomputer at home, and who thus began to shed his endless knowledge on every kind of electronicdevice. He was cool because he could draw the face of a boy with glasses out of the word cool (whichhe chose to demonstrate on the first day); and he wore glasses too! Or as they called them in the worldof the cool:spectacles or in an even cooler world: specs! A felt quite ignorant indeed. Everybody

liked K. Except for the five people from morning, the others lived quite close to the school so they allgot off before A within a short amount of time.

That night, he decided that the next day he would face off with his supposed nemesis andeither tell her off or say sorry because he couldnt afford getting complained against.Becausewhenever a girl complained, the teachers would always believe and side with her so he was in bigtrouble if his complainer was good at acting.This is exactly why I cant stand girls theyre so stupid and strange!

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He could not find his nemesis anywhere around the playground today; plus, the last two dayshis timing was mistimed and he couldnt spot her van either. It was recess today, so all the students

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were bound to come out. After spending some twenty minutes constantly refusing his classmates pleasto join their game of ice-water (!) he hit upon a new plan.

This was risky but he couldnt stop himself for some reason perhaps the darker side of himwas waking up or something. He planned that while all the teachers were munching their snacks, he

could look for her in all the classrooms one by one. After touring eight to nine classrooms, he bargedinto one in haste since recess time was almost at an end; but he quickly took a step back and hidbehind a door. He smiled in victory... for he had found her. He peeked...

Carefully tucking himself in behind the curtain, he looked: there she was! She was studying inthe grade he had passed last year. He focused all the attention he could muster up through the sweatand the speedy beating of his heart and observed her. She was scribbling away at a piece of paper,probably drawing something. She wasnt very white kind of golden with a little pink. Her cheekswere plump like his pillows. Everything else was neat her hair, dress, desk everything. Theneatest hed ever seen. Nobody else was in the classroom so this was his chance.But as soon as he took astep forward, ting, ting, ting! came the sounds from the giant bell that was rung at the end of every

period; recess was over. He raced back to his classroom.

Today in the evening he remembered her again. What was she doing in there all alone inrecess hour?he wanted to ask her. No, he would have to ask her; but it would be another week beforeanother recess! Hed have to find some other way.

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Tiffin hour, thats the only time. He calculated his options in the morning on the next schoolday.

When the hour came, A wasted no time and, wiping his face with his sleeve, made his way tohis destination. He peeked in like last time to check the temperature there she sat, at the sameplace as last time, biting sadly on a piece of bread. He could tell she hated it. But the point ofimportancewas: he couldnt just barge into another classroom with the teacher sitting right there!Hisstomach churned it did that whenever he didnt have his Tiffin. He turned and noticed that theteacher was busy checking some copies, so maybe he could walk in unnoticed. No, that was too risky.Maybe, if he just stood there shed notice himand come to him. In such hopes, he moved and stood rightin the middle of the doorway so that he could be seen loud and clear. It did not seem to work and itwasnt long before a tap on his shoulder made him turn around real quick.

What are you doing here, my dear? asked the lady-teacher who just caught him in the act,is this your classroom?

No, he nodded. Well then what are you doing here? Have you had your Tiffin? No. Then go and have it. And you are not supposed to enter another classroom, do you

understand? He didnt stop there any longer just nodded and turned away. After covering a safe

distance he felt the urge to run the rest of the way and did so She might just choose to call him backand scold him some more.

He was now in a situation that couldve been called stuck between two thorns (butit wouldnot be called so because no genius ever said it out loud!). He couldntstay put, nor could he risk getting

caught in the same act twice by the same teacher. Shell obviously smell the fishy stuff.

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The week passed by. The first three days he was on his toes all the time in fear of being calledto the dreaded principals office. Hed only seen the van once since then she didnt turn to look athim but stared at something in a grim manner.Oh boy, she looks sad; what have I done now? Hethought no he really wanted to ask her that.

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It was finally recess day again and today he had no intention of playing any sort of game withhis classmates. Today was the day of... confrontation, yeah. They say curiosity kills the cat. Howevercuriosity could not have been his only motive for asking her whatever he was going to be asking her.He was there in a flash.

Had anyone seen him walk into that classroom then and there, they wouldve said he waspossessed. A boy of such fragile nerves ever-so-carelessly walked right up to the girls table; hedidnt even turn to check if ateacher was there. He dragged a nearby chair and sat down opposite her.

She looked up a few seconds later than she should have. She was drawing something: childrenrunning in a field perhaps. She also strangely held the pencil in her left hand man, girls are weird!he almost said that out loud.

What are you doing here?She asked promptly. He noticed her big front teeth and how theymade her look quite like a squirrel he giggled. Why do you laugh? asked she, sending out anannoyed look and pushing aside a teeny-tiny smile.

What are you drawing? Hecross-questioned. Without a word, she slid the page towardshim. How come you never come out and play?

I dont like to. replied she, looking down.Well, why not? Everybody likes to! I cant, alright! She looked quite agonised.

Why are yougetting sad?To this question she did not reply, instead she pulled the pageback and continued to draw. In this moment of silence he noticed something: a pair of crutches leanedagainst a nearby wall. Is there a lame person in your class? You know, lame people really creep meout. He said absent-mindedly, his juvenile brain not being able to put two and two together.

Those are mine. She replied calmly; as if she was quite accustomed to that question and itdidnot quite pique her that much.

Oops. Why do you need crutches? I thought only old people need crutches. Is that whyyou

Yes! Are you done figuring it out, mister genius?Her eyes were becoming wet.Im sorry. What else could he say? An awkward silence followed. His head was

completely empty at this moment nothing! Dont say anything, its gonna get worse! he was saying

to himself. However, she seemed to be going through a storm of mental phases. Finally, she put downthe pencil, recollected herself, and spoke in a semi-normal tone:Mother says my legs are too weak. She also said theymay get better. Im hoping... she sighed.

Anyway, Iveasked you before, but, why did you come here? I uh, that day you looked sad, and you looked and I thought I had done something

Im really sorry if I have. Silly boy! She began, and for the first time since he knew of her existence, her wide smile

broke out into hearty laughter. That was a huge relief for him. Also, he felt a weird pinch at his waistthat tickled and made him want to laugh. He controlled it. It was all still a bit confusing.

Finally, she stopped laughing and continued, I was sad because well, as you can see, I donthave any friends. Nobody wants to stay in here and play with me so I feel sad sometimes. Also, you

were very rude; you always looked away from me as if I was a scary monster or something. I nevermeant any harm!

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Wow, such nicely made sentences; I wish I could talk like thatfor once. He thought. Ill play with you! Really? Thats nice of you. But arent you gonna miss playing outside? Nah, not really theres too much sun and I get fried and tired and I always get caught. Can

I play with you instead? Please? His voice went up a pitch in excitementand anticipation.Well, umm,pausing a little longer than necessary, alright; but only during recess. And youmust leave before teacher gets here.

Okay, deal! He held out hisright hand for a shake.She didnt seem to get it, What? Come on! When you make a deal you have to shake hands!Man, youre weird. Oh, saying this she held up her left hand, which caused aminorhand-shaking catch-22.He quickly put up his other hand instead; the deal was finally signed!Your hand is really cold. What shall we play today, then?He asked.Okay how about ludo? Whats that?

Youve never played ludo? He nodded.Man youre weird! Ha-ha! Dont worry, Ill teach you. Get that board and the box on top of it

from over there. She said, pointing to the table in front of hers.

And so they delvedinto the world of childish games and their rules. He was, in one word thatsquite out of his level of vocabulary, mesmerised. Hed never noticed anyone like this before: Oh, how pretty she was! Eyes so big and dark and sparkly, they looked like the night sky; fingers, too fair andtoo long; and her voice she need not sing to put somebody to sleep. The most adorable thing washow she sniffled every now and then, probably because of a cold, and how it made her look exactlylike a squirrel. He liked squirrels.

As for her, she was happy to have found a friend at long last other than pencil and paper. Sheneed not judge him. God takes care of the frail well, at least sometimes. Sounds like acock & bull story? Well, dont believe it; whos asking you to?

ABCD Part 01

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