The Turn Of The Night

Chapter 9

The sun had long vanished behind clouds and coldness hugged the morning air as two girls hastily put down their bags in their desks and ran to join the morning prayer of the school. When they reached the ground, they found that the prayers had already started and everyone had closed their eyes and folded their hands.

'So near yet so far' sighed Aanya as she and Ishyaa went to join the line of late comers. They would get their names written on the name line again which to them seemed like a blotch against their name.

' The boys would have embraced this' whispered Ishyaa to Aanya. 'Yeah, those two dumbos… ' she whispered back while they were supposed to be praying. 'Guess we were really harsh to them the other day… but you know what.. We won't be saying sorry' harrumphed Aanya.

'Be silent.' glared the middle aged Mathematics teacher.

Trrrr… the first period bell rang and all the classes filed back to their classrooms. Aanya and Ishyaa were the last to leave, a punishment for coming late. But it wasn't their fault, their pool car had punctured the tyre which caused the delay….

Finally as the students of class 12 left, the girls trudged back to the class rooms and entered to find an absolute mess. Two boys were playing cricket with a torn page and a pencil box, some sang wildly and one danced to the tune while some other were engaged in a fight…

'What's the big deal?' yelled Aanya. 'Have fun, our dear class teacher or rather Ma'am Boring isn't present today!!! Jinga Lala' hurrayed the boys.

The girls made their way to their seats and engaged themselves in conversations with the other girls who sat quietly in their seats. They all grimaced at the abominable condition of the boys.

Aanya and Ishyaa had seen the desk behind them empty but both thought that the boys were up-to some mischief being the i***t Masterminds… and didn't give it much thought.

Grrr Grrr.. The bell rang. Forty minutes had passed soo fast and both the girls had forgotten everything about the boys. It was drawing period now and most of the girls swooned in their seats as Mr Bandhopadhay arrived.

'Good moooorning sir' said the girls in a sing-a-song voice while some of the boys didn't even care to stand up.

' At last! Marks today' blushed Ishyaa. 'Yesss' chorused the girls seated at their side. A week back Mr Bandhopadhay had taken their drawing examinations and the girls inevitably saw this as a chance to impress sir.

'I wish I get full marks..' said Aanya longingly. 'Of course you will get, you drew a beautiful zentangle art, dunno about me though' replied Ishyaa. ' Let's keep our hopes high' Aanya smiled back.

As the other girls got their results, Aanya and Ishyaa became more tensed by the moment. Roll number 8 was called up and the next was Aanya's..

AANYA..

Sir called. Aanya sat up straight and standing up she walked down her row to the teacher's desk. She felt terribly nervous and it showed in her dark hazelnut coloured eyes.

' Full marks.. Everyone.. Learn from this girl she drew up an absolute masterpiece. I thought it was printed only to be proved wrong.. ' the rest of the speech being drowned by the deafening applause… seriously by the girls and sarcastically by the boys. Ishyaa too had drawn a beautiful piece of things printing and gotten forty nine. Both were absolutely pleased..

'Aarush and Darsh… seemingly these two artists have collaborated' announced sir with sarcasm dropping in every syllable. The whole class stopped talking and Aanya and Ishyaa grimaced.

'These two have drawn a large pig… in a large sized chart paper.. And have named it Piggy Payday… the name seems too familiar to me. ' sir spoke threateningly. Though the class understood the gravity of the situation, the students could not suppress the smile that flickered on their lips.. This included the girls too even if they were immensely angry at the two boys.

'WHERE THE HELL ARE THESE TWO?!?! ' yelled Mr. Bandhopadhay at the top of his lungs. ' Sir, both are absent. ' said the class monitor standing up. 'Scaredy Scoundrels.. I would have dragged those two to the principal today if the rascals were present.' announced sir.

***********

The girls were sitting on the cemented basketball court watching other students play football or cricket as they had their lunch.

'Hey , why are both of them absent on the same day ? I mean it's very unlike them isn't it, those two nearly had a perfect attendance record last year.' said Ishyaa as she chewed her paratha after wrapping it with the potato curry. 'I guess they were scared ...they did know what they had done, right?' fumed Ishyaa. She was still angry about that pig drawing which clearly depicted their drawing teacher.

'I don't depend upon them to know the result days Aanya… don't know what has happened!!' Ishyaa replied. ' Yes...boys..I guess their alien a*******n theories came true or they have gone to fight some zombies together.' Aanya replied. The girls spent the rest of the break coming up with weird theories about their absence but little did they know they had hit quite close….

It was the last period and physcology again..one week had passed ..already.

'Good Afternoon' the class said to Mrs Chatterjee. Some yawned, while some were lost in their daydreams. The class drenched sweat and body odour..but it was normal.

' Ma'am is gonna say something today about how ghosts might take over the world...boooooo' whisper yelled Manish, the class jester and the girls chuckled which earned the boy a stern stare.

' Silence ...pin drop ..I am gonna say about the parallel universe today' said Ma'am. Aanya perked up. She knew this theory, though unproven, was a major source of debate.

' Imagine a stack of bread when you are looking from the front, you see only one bread. But imagine that the loaf falls and you see it from above, what do you see?' asked Mrs. Chatterjee. 'A loaf of bread.' answered Manish. ' Absolutely' smiled back Ma'am. Manish was astounded. For him it seemed an opportune moment for cracking a joke but turned out, he was correct. This was a rare thing.

'In essence, you see all the breads, but that's when you change the way you visualize the bread. Parallel universe theory suggests that if we change the way we see the world, we can come upon different worlds, each determined by different conjectures and probabilities of decisions taken by all and every human being. So in theory there can be infinitely as many worlds as this….' Mrs Chatterjee said.

Aanya was astounded. Manish thought he was again thinking of another joke, 'So Ma'am like those films, is there a realm where we go after death?' he asked.

'Theoretically speaking..I can't say no….' she replied as the bell rang Grr Grr...