Categories
Stories from Vaegrath The Free Cities of Xanthar

The Wayward Slave

The Slave loved Blackgan city. The salt in the air, the grizzled fishermen and the feeling of the point of a dagger on his back. He balanced his life on the edge of cliffs, lived on the business end of a greatsword, walking the shadowy streets of the Free City of Blackgan Lake. This was the perfect place for him.

His position of prominence among the Free Cities of Xanthar made him a target of jealousy. Everyone wanted what he had; to have all the Wayward Slaves ready at a moment’s notice is serious power.

He turned a corner into a deserted part of town. A few blocks down, a wooden structure had collapsed into itself. There were shards of wood sticking out at awkward angles: the rotting corpse of a building of prominence. He pushed apart some of the wood and made his way into the ruins. He was in the inside of a destroyed tavern. There were tables and chairs in various stages of disarray. There was a bar, behind which several bottles lay shattered along the ground.

The Slave bent his knees a little and hopped onto the bar with no effort. He barely made a sound. He stepped off it, a smile dancing across his lips. Absent-mindedly, he picked up a shard of glass. That might be useful.

He stepped past the glass and around the remnants of a wine shelf. He felt around the mud a little and found a depression. Smirking, he took a step forward and jumped. This time, he made a sound, deliberately. Three times, he jumped, making loud noises, and then he stepped away. A moment later, the ground shifted and opened before him like a trap door.

A large man stepped out of it. He was bald, and he was muscular. He seemed overtly strong, as though he had deliberately built his body to show his strength. But his poised step and his perfect posture gave away a nimbleness that excited the Slave. It would be fun to tangle with this guy. So much fun.

His advisors’ words cut through his mind, At least try to negotiate first. That was useless. Who negotiates in Xanthar?

“Slave,” the big man nodded. His voice was deep, booming.

“You seem fun.” The Slave smirked.

“Hands out, please.”

“Oh, c’mon!” The Slave feigned a whine. The big man stared right back. “I’m sorry I called you fun.” He held his hands out by his sides.

The big man found the knives, obviously, but to the Slave’s chagrin, he also found the shard of glass. He was thorough. A bit annoyed, the Slave made his way into the trapdoor.

The room smelt distinctly of wine. A musty odour that indicated age, a sense that this place had been around far longer than the ruins of the tavern above it. Inside sat a table with four people around it. Three of them just looked like grunts: big muscles, hard faces, no shirts. It was the man at the head of the table that excited the Slave.

He had a large scar going down his wrinkled face, through one eye and a crooked lip. There was no eyepatch, no eyelids. The mutilated corpse of an eye was on full display. Pure white, leaking from the sides, so much that the man had to take a handkerchief and wipe the pus off from time to time. The Slave initially thought the man had a thin upper lip, but soon realized that the lip was simply missing, and instead, there was jagged flesh. An ordinary man would start pissing his pants at such a sight. The Slave, however, was no ordinary man, and could feel a slight bulge where an ordinary man’s piss would be.

He bowed deeply. Sarcasm, not respect.

“Lord Morrison,” he said. “What an honour. I must say I am a huge fan.”

Lord Morrison made no response. A slight grunt was all.

The Slave looked around, found a chair, and sat.

“The Lord didn’t say you could sit,” said a grunt, suddenly standing.

The Slave spread his legs in his chair and sized the grunt up. To his disappointment, there was no nimbleness in this one. All brute strength. Pathetic.

“Well, it seems I can! So, now you know.”

Fire took the barbarian’s eyes, and he reached for his side, where the Slave saw a glint of steel. Before anything could happen, though, Lord Morrison held his hand out and opened his mouth.

The Slave counted three teeth, but there could have been more amongst the shambles that was his mouth. His voice came out like a sword being scraped across wood: almost a hiss, with a grizzled husk. The words came out slow, calculated, confident. Arrogant. “No need for that, my dear chap.”

The Slave threw his mouth open, “That’s no fair, why does he get toys? The big mean man took all mine away!”

“Because you,” and Lord Morrison looked straight at him, “have infringed upon my grounds.” Every word came out carefully, each syllable enunciated. “There are few with the courage to do such a dastardly thing, and it must be applauded. But you must understand, you cannot be allowed to continue.”

“My mummy always told me that sharing is caring. Didn’t yours?”

It was hard to tell, but the Slave could have sworn Lord Morrison smiled at that. “Unfortunately, I had to cut my mummy’s life short. It is not the most comfortable of topics, so let us focus solely on your… insolence.” Lord Morrison looked over at the grunt to his left. “Edward, here, has been stuck with me for two weeks, unable to exact his vengeance upon the fools who destroyed the caravan that left two days ago from Myxhal. Some of those items were of supreme importance to Edward. He doesn’t like you very much.” He looked back over to the Slave, wiping pus from his leaking eye. “If you surrender now, he will only take three fingers from your left hand.” Edward smiled hungrily.

The Slave leaned forward. “I thought this was going to be a truce meeting.”

“What in the world gave you that idea, boy?”

“Must I remind you, my lord, that Eddie’s caravan was not the only one we took.”

“Six caravans were raided, and twenty of my men are dead.”

“The Slaves did all that. If I’m not mistaken, and please correct me if I am… that’s every shipment from Myxhal for two months. You have no product in Blackgan at all. I thought we deserved a little more respect than this bullshit.”

The grunt went for his sword again, advancing around the table this time. The Slave didn’t move. Lord Morrison held his hand up ever so slightly. “Archie, come now.”

“Listen here, you little shit,” the grunt was now towering over The Slave, his shadow completely engulfing the Slave. “That’s Lord Nestor fucking Morrison over there. Show some fucking respect or I’ll eat–“

“Archie!” said Morrison’s rasping voice, shutting Archie up at once.

The Slave, still in his chair, looked straight up at him, and his eyes turned just a little red. Archie’s head momentarily retreated. “Yeah,” There was a tang to the Slave’s voice. Metallic, like a sword, scraped across armour. “Archie.”

Archie snarled, and then backed away. The Slave could taste his fear. His mouth began to water. Oh, he was so happy that Morrison was threatening him.

“You know, Nestor,” said The Slave, feigning annoyance. The tension in the room seemed to rise the minute he said ‘Nestor.’ Archie definitely didn’t like it. “I really don’t appreciate all this,” he gestured vaguely at the room. “This isn’t really a comfortable environment for me. I don’t need this.”

Lord Morrison’s half-face curled in a snarl. “You don’t know what you’re fucking with, boy.” The pretence in his words was gone. There was an undertone in his voice, as though something was amplifying it. “You sit,” blood poured from his bad eye, and the good one glowed a dark red, “when I tell you to.” This was almost a hiss, and The Slave felt his muscles seizing. He felt his windpipe close. He couldn’t breathe. For a small moment, panic took him, his heart jumping, a sharp pain in his chest. He closed his eyes and concentrated only on the taste of Archie’s fear. It melted in his mouth, almost bringing tears to his eyes, going straight from his tongue to his brain, and exploding there. His windpipe opened.

He gasped air and regained control of his muscles. He was standing now.

His lips stretched into a smile. “Thank every god in the heavens you did that.” The room had become delicious. Every person in it tasted of a cake dripping in chocolate sauce. He had to gulp back some spit to stop himself from drooling. “I promised my girlfriend I wouldn’t fight until I was provoked.”

He threw the chair into Archie and lunged at the Lord, biting into his neck. There was an explosion of flavour as he ripped the Lord’s throat out with his teeth. Black smoke billowed from the hole he left there. The Slave breathed it in, the fragrance of a meadow of poppies filling his sinuses. His blood rushed through his body, and his limbs began to move at the speed of light.

The next few minutes were only flashes. The big man who had his daggers. Archie’s crimson guts. The other grunts cowering in fear. The taste of their terror. Black smoke filling the room. Sweet. Smoke. Blood.

To the others, the Slave was no longer a man. His eyes burst into fire, the flames licking at his brows. Every time they cut into him, he seemed to get stronger. The four grunts were no match for him, as Lord Morrison lay screaming on the ground, clutching the half of his neck that was no longer there.

When they all were dead, and his daggers lay dripping with their blood, the smoke billowing from their wounds found their way into The Slave’s nostrils. As he breathed out, his eyes flashed pure black for a second, and then returned to their usual green. Sheathing one dagger, he sauntered over to Lord Morrison, barely alive, thrashing on the ground like a fish out of water. He was trying to say something, but his throat was in tatters.

“I was hoping you’d do something like that.” The Slave pressed his knees on Lord Morrison’s hands, stopping him from casting any spells. “It seems you didn’t do your homework. You didn’t ask your men what they saw when the Slaves descended upon them. You should have, Nestor.” The Slave’s dagger sank in the exposed part of the Lord’s throat. Blood gurgled in the back of Morrison’s throat in spurts, getting more and more sparse. The good eye was engulfed in fear. Fear it was not accustomed to. Pure, unbridled terror. The Slave felt intoxicated, giddy, nauseous, almost.

“Oh, well,” said The Slave, as smoke once more began to escape Lord Nestor’s throat. “I guess you know now.”

Categories
Thoughts

My Parents, and Why I Hate That They’re Cool

I have the coolest parents in the world, and I hate it. I hate it.

All my friends have uncool parents, and I feel like their lives are much more interesting than mine. Their parents yell at them. Can you imagine that? Your own parents… yelling at you!?

I have this theory: a child’s ability to break rules is indirectly proportional to the coolness of the parent. You don’t need to punish children direly to get them to follow rules. You have to remove the appeal of breaking the rule. It’s true. I have never broken a rule in my life. The closest I’ve come to doing that is I stayed out after 7:30 p.m. It was the tensest day of my life. My heart was giving Usain Bolt a run for his money with the way it was beating. There was so much adrenaline in my body, I was shivering. It was so scary. I walked into my house, outrageously late. 7:38! I walk in, and my mom has opened the door. She looks at me, and my heart jumps into my mouth. Her eyes bore into mine, and she just goes, “Hi.”

I lost it. “I’msorryi’mlateishouldhavecalledyouandletyouknowimsosorryaslkty;alkj vlks;g;lkkjsldAAAAAHHHHHHHH!”

They were, of course, cool with it. That’s the thing. They didn’t make it like a restricted section of the library or something.

The minute someone tells you you can’t do a thing, you immediately say, “Why not, eh?” It suddenly becomes sexy. You want to do it even more. My parents didn’t make breaking the rules sexy. Even today, they’ll be drinking some wine or something, and they’ll offer some to me. They offer their teenage son some wine. And what does their daredevil of a teenage son do?

“I’d rather not sin, thank you very much.”

If Great Britain wanted to keep its reign over India, all they had to do was make independence non-sexy. The only way to do that, is to offer it before it was asked for. A spokesperson of the British East India Company says, “Hey, so we’ve taken over, and all, but listen, you can be independent if you want. Just say the word, and we’ll go away.”

If that had happened, Gandhi would still be a lawyer in South Africa.

My parents’ reaction to the issue of girls is what bewilders me the most.

Normal, uncool parents, what do they do if they hear rumours about their son and a girl? Beat the living shit out of their son, right? That’s just what they do. Not my parents.

There’s a girl that my friends tease me with all the time. One day, that girl, all my friends, and I were chatting when my friends started teasing me. My mom walks in, and hears all of this. She walks into the kitchen, and then says to that girl, “Bahu, would you like some water?”

You see what I’m talking about? My parents are the coolest people in the world.

Sometimes, I like to imagine what would happen if they saw me breaking some conventional rules.

I can see it in front of my eyes. My mother knocks on my locked door while I’m smoking weed. BEFORE YOU START COMMENTING AWAY, I MUST ADD THAT I DO NOT SMOKE WEED. This is a hypothetical reaction my mother would have if she saw me smoking hypothetical weed. HY PO THET I CAL.

Got that?

She knocks, while I’m mid-puff. I hastily put out the joint, making an ugly hole in the bedsheet in the process. I open the door and very coolly, ask her, “‘Sup?”

She takes a sniff of the room, and surprise litters her face. “Arsh.” She says, sternly. “What’s that smell?”

“What sme—nothing, I dunno.”

“Arsh, there is a smell. What is that smell?”

“It’s nothing, mom, what do you want?”

“That’s weed, isn’t it. You’ve been smoking weed.”

“No, mo—”

“How dare you. Do you not have any shame? You’re smoking weed in the house and you didn’t even think about offering any to me?”

Categories
Thoughts

The Gym

After seventeen years of relative indifference to gymnasiums, I went to one a few days ago to finally see what all the fuss was about. The result was an experience that I am not likely to forget for a while.

Never before have I felt less like a man. Never before have I felt so intimidated by testosterone. Never before have I felt so out of place.

I consider myself someone who can gel into a situation with relative ease. I can slip into a chair in the corner, do my own thing, and merge with the environment. I can become invisible to the general public. Never before have I felt so visible as the day I went to the gym. Trudging through the sweat and toil, I was greeted with “Oh-ho, Arsh? Gym today?”

Many things struck me as I tried to orient myself to this new world. First: Everyone seemed to know exactly what they were doing. While I was aimlessly wandering from one piece of equipment to another, everybody else was pushing me out of their way to get somewhere. When they got there, they’d pick up the equipment and use it with considerable agency. Did they research all this before they got here? Did they just have a machine-like dedication to what they wanted to do? Or are they (like I am wont to do) going towards the piece of equipment they think looks most impressing, like moths to a flame?

Second: The room was filled with grunts. I have passed this gymnasium (which, I must add, is in my Boarding school) many times to get to the Table Tennis area. Usually, they have music playing here. I always thought the music was there to give their work-out a sense of rhythm. Turns out, without the music, the place just sounds ugly. It’s already an ugly room, with crumbling white walls covered with valleys where students had punched them. It already smelt ugly, with at least fifteen sweaty, teenaged boys crammed in a room the size of an extravagant washroom. Turns out, the place is unbearable without blaring music because it sounds ugly, too.

Lastly: Girls. At some level, every boy in that room had girls on their mind as they grunted their way to a slightly healthier body. Sure, they’d cite athleticism or health, but at the back of their mind, even if it’s dismissed as a by-product, girls are the reason they dedicate this hour-and-a-half to this hideous room. When they actually come in, the room transforms. People who had been half-assing their exercises would suddenly be filled with the passion of youth. The room would undergo a new wave of grunts and, occasionally, shouts of anguish. The girls themselves looked like tourists in a museum, noting with considerable admiration, the beauty of certain exhibits in the room.

I wasn’t just staring at the people in the gym. I was working out. I had a friend show me the ropes and almost kill every muscle in my body. I came out of there feeling like I had held the weight of the sky on my shoulders. It is a good feeling, knowing you have done some hard work. I applaud myself, knowing that this is nothing compared to the dedication these boys show every day. I describe them like lesser beings, toiling mindlessly, but I am the lesser being. I am the thinker in their midst, too weak to lift their weights. I am not the intelligent, creative, eccentric artist that I think I am. I am learning my place in this world of men. I am a disoriented tourist in the city of my own people.

Categories
Poetic Prose

We Don’t See Enough of the Sky

We don’t see enough of the sky.

The most we see are glimpses through the gratefully granted cracks between buildings. We spend our days and nights staring at blanks ceilings, plain ceilings, dead ceilings. We spend our lives engrossed in dead things, forever waiting to join them in their eternal slumber. We are jealous of their peace. We envy their rest. We yearn for that sleep, that nonchalance.

Everything we do, we do it for the future. We plan and we plan and we plane. We make the assumption that the future exists.

We do not know the future. ‘“The future’s not ours to see, que sera sera.” And yet we say, “shall, will, might.” We deal in things that are yet to happen. In the future, we will go to universities. In the future, we will study the wonderous possibilities this world offers. In the future, we will make the decisions that lead us to a cleaner Earth. In the future, we will live our dreams. In the future, we will be truly alive. Alas, tomorrow never comes, and we sit with glazed eyes, staring at the dead ceiling, waiting for our date with Death, wondering what she’ll wear.

Meanwhile, the sky watches us. We travel from room to room in a room, constantly boxed in. We don’t see the sky enough, but It watches us. It sees our endeavours and knows our dreams. It was here long before we were born, and will be here long after we finally die. It surrounds us, protects us, preserves us, and we don’t spare it a second glance. We don’t even acknowledge Its existence.

Here’s a simple question: what colour is the sky?

Blue, of course.

Nope.

Look at it, O smug reader. It is not blue. It is the colour of life. It stretches out farther than the eye can see. It teems with life. Stare into its wisdom, O smug reader. See that it knows. See that it stares right back at you. ‘I’m here, son,’ It says, with reassuring eyes. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.’

How can we claim to have problems? How can we claim to be in distress? How can we be anything but grateful for the sky’s wondrous reach? We batter it, assault it, and riddle it with our bullets of gas. Yet, we complain of misery? With every molecule in the sky crying out in pain at once, how can we complain about poor grades, bullies, or that girl who just will not say yes? As we complain about the future, we destroy the shield that protects us from the perilous present.

We don’t see enough of the Sky. All we see are tiny slivers through the cracks our buildings allow us. If only we saw it, regarded it in its infinite wisdom, we’d see the colours of life and the vibrance of the kky. Only when we see its life will we see how truly dead we are.

We don’t see enough of the sky.

If we did, we would come alive.

Categories
Thoughts

On Aaron Sorkin

I’ve begun watching a show on Hotstar called The Newsroom. It’s a really cool TV show, with some of the best writing I’ve ever seen. It finds a new story in every episode, while still being connected to one over-arching story. Not a lot of TV shows can do this well. Crime shows try, but often fail. Newsroom succeeds. Another show that succeeds — and when I say ‘succeeds,’ I mean, ‘blows it out of the damn park’ — is The West Wing. These two shows have one thing in common. They’re both written by the best screenwriter in the business, Aaron Sorkin. I want to talk about Sorkin. There’s one thing he does that I find beautiful.

It’s the politics. Of course it’s the politics. It’s not the politics, though, it’s how Sorkin addresses Politics. He knows how awesome a political story can be. You can see it in The West Wing, most prominently, but it was Newsroom that brought my attention to it. I want to talk about the ease with which he talks about it. Most people are scared to talk about politics. They’re scared that their viewers will rain fire on them, and they’ll get less money because of it. Here’s the thing about Sorkin, though. He does not care.

Sorkin knows exactly how divisive politics is. In fact, this is what he calls attention to. He shows you how divisive politics can be. He shows you every possible fact, and then beats you over the head with it.

A common trap such shows fall into when trying this, is that they declare a side. They tell you that one side of the conversation is wrong. It is very difficult to show every side of a political conversation without completely alienating at least half your fan-base. Sorkin, however, does it.

I think it’s in the diversity of his characters. They’re different people. They’ve all got their own opinion on every subject. Sorkin puts all his characters into one room, and then goes HAM.

The most important part is the talking. People talk. The beauty of every situation is in the talking. People don’t understand this. When they see a scene where people are just talking, they groan and roll their eyes. To take a slight detour into another show, Game of Thrones has a couple of scenes where the talking is awesome. (Actually, the more I think about it now, the more I feel like if they asked Sorkin to write some of the episodes of Thrones, it would literally be a perfect show.) Sorkin shows you the beauty in talking. He understands it, and shows us the music in people’s words. I did his course on Screenwriting on MasterClass.com, and in it, he says “that’s not how people talk.” Yeah, it isn’t. That’s not the point, though. The point is this: that’s how such matters should be discussed. My father says, based on a quote often used by one of his friends, “A story should be told as it should have occurred.” Never has a truer sentence been spoken. Sorkin tells the story as it should have occurred.

His best scenes are when five smart people are in a room, and they begin talking about a really scary topic like gay marriage or abortion. He shows you every aspect of the debate, while not looking like a complete ass, staying true to the characters and what they believe, staying true to human nature, and at the same time, telling a story that blows your mind.

Yeah, he’s telling stories, but he’s also talking directly to the government. “This is where you’re going wrong.” he says, “You’re not talking enough. You’re jumping to conclusions. You need to talk.” Talking can solve problems. Almost every episode of The West Wing ends in a problem being solved by talking. Talking is a step towards world peace. Yeah, we can’t talk world peace into existence, but talking can get us closer.

It isn’t what Aaron says. It’s how he says it, and the fact that he says it at all. At the bottom of everything, there is one message. Talking solves more problems than shooting or blowing something up ever will. And that is a beautiful statement. That could take us one step closer to making the world a safer place for our children.

Categories
Random Stories

Powers

**This story was written for the following prompt: “You have a useless superpower where you gain a random power each day that prepares you for the events stored in the day. Why this is useless? They’re all subtle, like summoning an extra toilet roll. Then, one day, you wake up with eldritch, god-like powers.”**

When I woke up, the door almost smacked me in the face.

I opened my eyes to be an inch away from my bedroom door, which was usually a few steps away. I blinked. Suddenly, the door was about a step away. I raised an eyebrow. Okay, zoom-eyes today. I blinked a few more times before I saw the familiar distance.

That was weird. My powers don’t usually matter much. This was a useful power. I never had a useful power.

I dismissed it. Maybe I needed it today.

I brushed my teeth, took a shower and dressed myself. I disconnected my phone from the charger. It turned on as the cord left the socket. There was a calendar notification: “education thing today – dress well!: 11:00 Today.”

“Ohh.” I said. The zoom-eyes suddenly made sense. The President was coming to the University today. He was an alumnus. He was making a speech. I’ve got zoom-eyes to get a better look at him.

I packed my good suit.

A briefcase in my hand, I walked out of my house, over to my car. On my way out, I saw my neighbour. I nodded in his direction, and he smiled back. “Wow, what a weirdo.” he said.

I stopped dead. “Excuse me?” I said, turning around.
“What?” he said.
“What do you mean, ‘what’?”
“Jack, are you OK?” he said, very closely followed by, “What. A. Weirdo.” The weird thing was, his lips didn’t move with his second statement.

I frowned. Then my eyes widened. Telepathy.

“I didn’t say anything.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and quickly got into my car.
“That guy’s a damn quack.” he thought, as I peeled away in my car.

Zoom-eyes and telepathy. Two in a day. And two actual powers today!

But what did that mean? I always, always used my powers. Not like this, with the door almost smacking me, and my neighbour calling me a weirdo. But in actual life, when I needed the powers the most. When there’s no toilet paper in the toilet, I make it out of thin air. When I need to check papers, I have super-fast writing. What the hell would I need telepathy for?

I got to the University, went to my office, and checked the time-table. I had to teach a lecture until 10:30. Then, the President. I nodded to myself, and walked to the class. It was a flight of stairs, a long corridor and another flight of stairs away.

It wasn’t a great lecture. It was the noisiest class I’ve ever had to teach. I heard bored students and preoccupied children. I couldn’t concentrate. The disturbance went from annoying to enraging. The rage kept building up inside me for no reason whatsoever. In my rage, I threw a whiteboard marker across the room at a student. As soon as it left my hand, I realized what I’d done. Come back.

In mid-air, the pen turned and flew back at me. I caught it as if it had come and landed in my hand. My brain acted before it could comprehend what just happened, and the student started. It had looked like I just aimed the pen at the dude’s head, and not actually thrown it. But I definitely saw it go towards him, and turn back.

That was a new power.

That was almost telekinesis.

My heart was beating. There’s no way I could go on teaching the class. I checked the clock. 10:25. “Ok, class dismissed!” I said, and slammed my briefcase shut. I stormed out of the class and headed right back for my office.

The door to my office slammed into my face.

What the hell?!

I looked back. I looked around. I was in my office. Only a second ago, I was in the class. The class was far away.

My eyes widened as I realized what had happened.

Not three powers. Four.

I had superspeed, too.

This had to be connected to the President somehow. He was coming here. There’s no way my having four such high-level powers in one day, let alone one. I checked the clock. 10:27. Preparations for the president would start any time now. I just had to check one thing.

Inside my office, I looked at a pen in my pen-stand. I stuck out my hand. Almost immediately, the pen flew into my hand.

Telekinesis.

Telekinesis, telepathy, superspeed, and zoom-eyes.

I always used every one of my powers.

There was only one explanation to all this.

The President of the United States was going to be assassinated today.

And I’m the only one who can stop it.

Categories
Hostile Hostel

Part 6: Why?

Nandini felt like she was going to be sick. What could possibly be the reason for this? Why would Arnav want to frame Madhav? They were best of friends!

The world spun. She didn’t know anything anymore. She felt betrayed, confused, and angry, all at the same time.

She needed to find Arnav. She had to confront him.

She rose slowly, staggering. She turned around, her head pounding, the world spinning. She looked at the field to find Arnav standing, frozen, his eyes shooting between Nandini and the clothes.

Arnav’s mouth was open. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but nothing was coming out.

Nandini picked up Arnav’s shirt and stormed towards him. “Why, Arnav?” she said.

Arnav didn’t say anything. He stared at the shirt, and then at Nandini.

“Arnav?”

Silence.

“Arnav!” Nandini yelled, sickened, the tears finally escaping her eyes. “Talk to me, goddammit!”

Arnav spoke softly and gently. His hands reached up. “Nandini, please,” he said. “Calm down.”

“Arnav, don’t mess around. These are your clothes.” She jerked the shirt forward. “That’s Madhav’s room.” She pointed up at the window. “I know what you did. Tell me why!”

“Nandini, you don’t know what happened—”

“Really?!” she yelled. “Want me to spell it out for you? O.K., here: you got up in the middle of the night. You snuck into Madhav’s room. You opened his cupboard with his key. You know where he kept his key, because you’re his best friend. You took his razor, which was easy enough to find. You went to Laxman’s bed and slit his throat. THAT’S what happened. Don’t tell me it’s not. Don’t insult my intelligence. Do me that courtesy at least, because I know what happened. I want to know why. Why did you kill Laxman? Why did you frame Madhav?! You were best friends!”

 “O.K.,” said Arnav, his face going from one of despair and terror, to one of unmitigated rage. “You wanna know why I killed Dhule? You wanna know why I put your precious Madhav in jail? It’s because your boyfriend was a manipulative jock bastard!”

That took Nandini by surprise. “What?”

“That’s right. The guy you love so much was an asshole. He was the scum of the earth, and I hated him, and everything he stood for. He made me sick. I’d have spit in his face, but he’d probably have liked that. So, I did something worse.”

Nandini’s rage turned into confusion. “What?!”

“Didn’t you hear? Every day? ‘Oh, look, it’s Madhav and his pet!’ ‘Oh, look, it’s that hottie, Madhav, and his pet!’ That’s what I’d become. His pet. But I was so much more. I was his torture dummy.” He paused, “and in front of the teachers, and during exams, I was him.

“In fact, every word he ever wrote – ever – was mine! You thought he was smart? You thought he was sweet? NOPE! The sweetness was an act, and the smartness was me. He wrote my name in his exam paper, and made me write his on mine. If I didn’t, he’d beat me within an inch of my life. If I deliberately wrote bad answers, he’d beat me within an inch of my life.”

Nandini couldn’t believe it. That was not her Madhav. That was not the Madhav she’d eaten sandwiches with in the corner of the football field. That wasn’t the Madhav she’d loved.

“And the last straw? You.”

That hit Nandini like a bus. “Me?”

“From the day you came, to this day, I’ve liked you. Whenever I went to bed, the one face that came to my mind was yours. You’re pretty. You’re funny.” He chuckled. “And, as you’ve proved today, you’re smart as hell. Way too smart for me.” He looked into her eyes. “I like you, Nandini. I may even go as far as saying I love you.”

She’d never known. To her, Arnav had always just been Madhav’s best friend. That’s it.

“One night, when it became time to have the shit kicked out of me, Madhav asked me who I liked. I didn’t tell him. He hit me, punched me, kicked me until I told him I liked you. After that, he began talking to you more and more and more. He deliberately made it look like he spent most of his time with you or trying to impress you. Everyone started teasing you two together. He knew it. He loved it. Then, he asked you out, and you guys became a thing. Every time you guys were together, he looked back at me, and winked. He thought you couldn’t see him. He thought you were stupid. The only reason he even talked to you was because I told him I liked you.”

The winks. The winks she’d loved so much.

This was too much for her brain. That can’t have been the only reason Madhav had talked to her.

“I have proof. You can talk to Jayesh. He was in on it. He always was. If Madhav ever had a best friend, it wasn’t me. Never. It was Jayesh. Who do you think started the ‘pet’ thing?

“If you asked him, he’d tell you in a heartbeat. He’ll tell you how every night at eight thirty, they’d pull me to Jayesh’s room and beat the shit out of me, regardless of whether or not I did anything to deserve it. Then he’d laugh, remembering. If you don’t believe him…”

He pulled up the shirt he was wearing. “You can believe this.”

Nandini gasped.

His body was covered with bruises. Some of them were fresh, as if they had been done last night. Nandini’s knees wobbled, threatening to give in. “No.” she said. “It can’t be. He wasn’t like that! Madhav wasn’t like that.”

“Not in front of you, no. He was an angel in front of girls and teachers. As soon as he got into the boys’ dorm, he was the worst bully you’ve ever seen.”

Then, Nandini realized something. “But if you hated Madhav so much, why did you kill Dhule?”

“Dhule was a creep. He had it coming. But in the big picture, he was collateral damage. See, if I killed Madhav, the blame would immediately fall on me, because Jayesh would blame me. Once he got involved, Santosh Sinha would get involved. I needed to destroy Madhav, without putting me in the crosshairs.

“See, I’m smart, unlike the image he’s been trying to make of me. I proved it to him. No one found out. No one was even close.” He paused to regard Nandini with the coldest stare. It tore through her soul, freezing it from the inside out.

His lips twisted into a smile.

“Until you.”

Nandini was terrified. The fear gushed through her veins. The colour was slowly draining from her face. She saw Arnav’s hands reach into his pocket. She knew he was holding something in there. Instinctively, hers went to her pockets. She found her pen and notepad. Her fingers closed around the pen, and removed the cap, all in the pocket.

“I’d always known you were smart.” Arnav said. “If we were together, at least I’d know what I had. Madhav never did.”

He paused.

“I love you, Nandini. Nothing crushed me more than those days when Madhav gloated about how he’d stolen you from me, like you were a bag of cash. He never knew what he really had. I would have, if he’d given me the chance. I’d be so much better than him. But I’m sorry, Nandini. The police are here. I can’t have any loose ends.”

He pulled a pen out of his pocket and pounced. Nandini pulled the pen out of her pocket and met the charge head on. She saw his pen before it came down on her. She caught Arnav’s arm, and brought her own pen down in a deadly arc. With a sickening crunch, the pen sank into Arnav’s forearm. He screamed, and his pen fell out of his hand. Nandini took a step back and pushed him away from her, grabbing her pen in the process. He fell to the ground, another scream escaping his mouth. She looked at her pen. A mixture of blood and ink dripped down its cylindrical body and fell to the ground. She threw it in disgust and ran.

She didn’t know where she was running. Her legs had minds of their own. She was in a daze.

After a while, her legs stopped running, and she realized that she had begun to talk. Her mouth formed sentences all on its own. By the time her mind caught up with her body, the principal, a policeman, Ashok and Ganesh were following her. She still didn’t know what she was doing. Somehow, she knew that a policeman would be here. She led them to the site of her fight with Arnav. Arnav was gone.

Unable to speak, she pointed to a small pool of blood that had been made in the dirt there, and at the pens lying next to it. The pool continued in a trail. Next to the trail were some footsteps.

Their voices were muffled, and Nandini didn’t have the energy to comprehend them. She saw the others run to follow the trail and footsteps. The policeman had his gun out.

She didn’t follow. She didn’t even realize what was happening. She slowly sank to the ground and fell. And fell.

And fell.

THE END

Categories
Hostile Hostel

Part 5: A Pair of Underwear

She froze. Her body tensed up. She strained her ears. She needed to catch every single word.

 “Ganesh, what?” whispered Ashok, incredulous.

“Just listen. You remember anything from last night?” whispered Ganesh urgently.

Ashok chuckled. “Not much.”

“Exactly. Me, too. Until now.”

“Oh, no. What did you see?”

“A lot, Ashok.” He paused. “I remember looking out of the window, and I remember a pile of clothes falling out. I don’t know whose clothes they were, but I know I saw them. I also remember a guy walking out of Madhav and Dhule’s room almost immediately after the clothes fell. It wasn’t Madhav, and it definitely wasn’t Dhule.”

What?!

“Ganesh, you don’t know that for sure.”

“I do, Ashok. You tell me you didn’t see that guy. I remember talking to you about it.”

“Ganesh—”

“C’mon. Look me in the face, and without blinking, tell me you didn’t see a guy walking out of Dhule’s room. Tell me.”

A few seconds of silence followed.

“O.K., there was a guy. I remember that.”

Nandini had to hold back a gasp.

“And it wasn’t Madhav.”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on!” cried Ganesh. “Ashok, you’re lying to yourself. I rememb—”

“Ganesh!” Ashok’s voice was an urgent whisper. “What the hell are you doing?!”

Nandini couldn’t believe it. There had been a third guy. Madhav was innocent. Her train of thought pulled out of the station, and the roaring of its wheels on the tracks drowned out all other noise.

Unheard by Nandini, the conversation continued:

“First of all, the police have Madhav in custody for killing Dhule. Not some cheap, second rate private eye, the Police Force. Second, you were high! Nothing you say can be trusted. Nothing!”

“It’s not like we had cocaine, or LSD, or something like that.” Ganesh pointed out. “It was just weed. You don’t get hallucinations from weed.”

“Hey, here’s an idea.” Ashok said. “Explain that to the damn police!”

The third guy had thrown out clothes.

“But you have to admit, the guy who came out of their room was a third guy. Not Madhav.” Said Ganesh, but Nandini wasn’t listening.

“O.K.” said Ashok. “Maybe it was. But you have to be careful where you say all this stuff.”

But if he had thrown out clothes, the police would have found them. There was only one logical explanation. The clothes were buried.

“We have to tell the police.” Said Ganesh.

“Are you crazy?!” said Ashok. “Didn’t you hear what I just said?!”

How, though?

 “We have to tell the police!” Ganesh said. “Those drugs are nothing compared to murder!”

“I know that! Stop saying ‘drugs’!” said Ashok. “I just…”

The dorm entrances are always closed at night

“What?” Ganesh asked, but Ashok offered no answer. “That’s what I thought. You’ve got nothing.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” Ashok paused, deep in thought. “Ok, let’s do the following: we’ll come up with a cover story. We weren’t doing drugs. We were studying. We’ll go to the principal, and tell him what we saw. If he asks why we didn’t say anything earlier, we’ll just say we thought nothing of it before, and now it seems important.”

Nandini’s train of thought stopped in its tracks. She realized Ganesh and Ashok had made a decision on what to do.

Shit, she thought, looking down the corridor. The longer she stared, the longer it became. She looked desperately for a place to hide until Ashok and Ganesh left. The rooms in the corridor were still under construction, so, at the moment, everything except the corridor was closed off.

“Got it? Alright, now get to class.” said Ashok.

Where could she go? The farthest she could go noiselessly was about a third of the corridor.

Suddenly, a thought struck her.

Slowly, making no sound, she started going down the corridor, paying close attention to Ashok and Ganesh’s footsteps. When she was confident of her distance, she turned around, and started walking towards them. She looked up – still walking – to see Ashok and Ganesh, and froze.

So did they.

“Oh!” yelped Ganesh, his eyes wide. Nandini gasped, and hoped they bought it.

“What—” started Nandini.

“Nandini! What are you doing here?” said Ashok, looking mad and frightened at the same time.

Nandini looked from Ashok to Ganesh, and back and forth a few times. “No, what are you doing here?”

“We…” Ashok looked to Ganesh, and his eyes widened. “NO! No, it’s not what you think. I swear!”

“I mean,” said Nandini, “You know what this place is, right?”

“Oh, shit!” said Ganesh, realizing what she was implying. “No, Nandini, you’ve got it all wrong!”

 “Nandini, on my life—” started Ashok, but Nandini interrupted.

“I mean, I support the LGBT community wholeheartedly. It’s just that… Don’t you have a girlfriend, Ganesh?”

 Nandini turned to Ashok. “And isn’t she your sister?”

“Nandini, hear me out—”

“I mean, she is not going to like this.”

“Nandini!” shouted Ganesh. Nandini stopped, mid-sentence, conscious of her rapidly beating heart.

“Don’t do that.” he said, advancing a few steps.

Nandini took a deep breath, internally yelling at her heart to calm the hell down.

“I… I’m sorry,” she said. “I judged you. I shouldn’t have. What you came here to do is none of my business.”

“Damn right.” said Ganesh. They left the corridor, and Nandini kept walking ahead. She got around the corner, and slammed her back into the wall. She peeked out, watching the two of them walk away, and then part ways at the end of the corridor. As soon as she knew they were gone, she slumped to the ground and heaved a great sigh of relief.

She sat there for a while, thinking.

The killer buried the clothes. He first threw them out of the dorm room, and then buried them. How? The murder happened in the middle of the night. The dorms were locked all night. There was no way the killer could have gotten to the clothes from inside the dorms in time to bury them properly.

Unless…

The dorms had bushes under them, right? Right?

If they did…

The killer threw the clothes out of the window. He waited until the morning. It would be too dark to notice any clothes in the middle of the night. Then, at 6 a.m., when the dorms opened, the killer quickly buries them under the bushes. He runs up to the form and gets into bed just in time for the dorm parent to wake them up.

If they didn’t…

Then I’m screwed. she thought.

One thing was certain, though. Madhav was innocent. Ganesh had seen a third person. She had been right all along.

She had to tell Arnav.

But what about the bushes? If the clothes had to be buried, the evidence on them must be incriminating.

She decided to check out the bushes. She got up, and walked down the corridor. She ran down the stairs two steps at a time. By the time she reached the end of the staircase, she was running. She told herself to calm down. If she was seen running, she’d attract attention. That wasn’t something she wanted. She had to physically strain the muscles in her leg to keep them from darting down the fields.

She knew where Madhav’s dorm was. From a distance, she identified the window. She dropped her eyes in a straight line down from the window, and—

“Yes!” she whispered excitedly. Along the wall of the dorm was a line of shrubs. She ran to the bushes under Madhav’s window. She dived into them head-first, throwing dirt around, frantically looking for a single piece of cloth that could lead her to Dhule’s killer. She didn’t care about the dirt under her fingernails. She didn’t care about the dirt flying into her eyes. She only cared about the clothes.

She felt it before she saw it. She tried to pull the shirt out, but there was too much mud on top of it. She clawed at it, and found it. But it wasn’t just a shirt. There was a pair of pants and a pair of briefs, too. The full package. All covered in blood.

But whose clothes were they?

The launderers always wrote the name of the student on the shirt when they washed it. All she had to do was find the name.

Nandini turned the shirt over, her hands trembling, her heart pounding. The fruits of all her efforts were in the palm of her hand, waiting to be eaten. She pulled the hem of the shirt up, and read the name. The handwriting was bad, but it was still pretty easy to make out the name that stopped her heart: Arnav Nair.

No.

Never.

Not Arnav!

Maybe the killer borrowed his shirt?

She scrambled for the other clothes. She checked the pants. Arnav Nair.

She slowly realized her folly. Arnav was also a suspect. He was a boy. He was in the building when it happened. He could have sneaked out of his room.

But he had no motive! Why would he want to kill Laxman Dhule? And he knew that the blame would inevitably fall on his best friend!

He knew the blame would inevitably fall on Madhav.

The killer went out of his way to frame Madhav.

Oh, no.

What if the motive had nothing to do with Laxman? What if Laxman was just the closest person to the real victim of the crime? What if it was never about Laxman in the first place?

What if it was always about Madhav?

These thoughts raced through her head. They made more sense, but less sense. Every question gave rise to more.

She eyed the underwear. Pants and shirt could have been lent, but no one lends underwear. The answer was written in front of her.

It was all down to a pair of underwear.

She picked them up, and read the name.

Arnav Nair.

(TO BE CONTINUED…)

Categories
Hostile Hostel

Part 4: Guilt

Nandini tried her hardest to get close to Ashok and Ganesh, but wherever she went, everyone around her went silent. It was as if all of them had had their vocal chords ripped out of their throats simultaneously.

Everyone stared at her: half of them with disgust, the other half with pity. Their eyes burned holes in her soul. All of a sudden, she realized what a terrible, selfish person she had been.

Since the murder, all she had thought of was Madhav. Not once had she thought of Laxman Dhule.

Laxman Dhule: food connoisseur.
Laxman Dhule: sixteen-year-old student.
Laxman Dhule: body in a morgue.

He had been loved, too. Maybe not by anyone in this school, but someone out there loved him. He had his whole life ahead of him. Probably a career as a food critic, or even a restaurant owner.

Now, nothing.

She hadn’t even thought of the fact that his parents were abroad, and wouldn’t be able to fly in until tomorrow. They would have to sit in their home, thinking about their child. Their only child, with his throat slit, and his head in a puddle of his own blood

She forgot all about her investigation. The guilt drowned her, almost choking her. She pushed through the throng of people. Some made way out of pity. Some yelled, “Oi, watch it!”

All she ignored.

Blood rushed in her ears. Tears came to her eyes. A lump formed in her throat. Her knees wobbled, and wanted to give up. She clenched her fists and went to her spot in the football field: the only spot where she wouldn’t be disturbed.

Once she reached, her legs gave up, and she fell to her knees. The tears began to stream through, and her fists unclenched. She let her body fall to the floor. She began shaking violently with each sob. When she had finished crying, she let her eyes open.

She stared at the spot, remembering the first time they were here.

They’d been good friends for months, and they used to talk to each other a lot. Everyone kept teasing them together. Every time they were given any work together, the class would break into the chorus of “Tujhe Dekha Toh Yeh Jaanaa Sanam.” A year into this friendship, Madhav asked Nandini, very casually, if she wanted to skip lunch and eat snacks in the football field.

She remembered eating sandwiches out of Madhav’s tiffin box. She remembered laughing at Madhav’s jokes. She couldn’t remember the jokes. Just laughing at them.

After the laughter, there was a moment where they looked into each other’s eyes. Then, Madhav began to lean in, and Nandini didn’t stop him.

She remembered how happy she had been that day. She remembered how happy her friends had been for her. She remembered the wink he gave Arnav when they were together. He thought she didn’t notice them, but she did. And she loved them.

Now, there were no winks. Laxman Dhule was dead, and Madhav was in the Juvenile Detention Centre.

She couldn’t be in this spot any more.

Nandini picked herself up and darted from there. She ran faster than she had ever run. She wasn’t really looking where she was going. The only notion in her head was out of here.

She ran straight into Arnav.

She fell over, Newton’s Third Law of motion dropping her on her ass. Arnav also went hurtling to the ground, and landed with a painful “Oof!”

Nandini got up, exasperated. “Arnav!”

“Yeah, hi.” Arnav said, dusting the dirt off his butt.

“Did you get anything out of Jayesh?”

“Nothing.” He said, examining his butt for any sign of lingering dust.

“Arnav, I—” her words were failing her. They refused to come out. She began crying again.

Without thinking, she fell into Arnav’s arms. Her tears began to fall onto his shirt.

Arnav didn’t say anything. Madhav would have known what to say. He would have told her that it was going to be fine, that she was going to get through it. She would have been happier if Madhav was here.

She stepped away from Arnav and sniffled.

“I’m sorry.” He said, finally.

“It’s not your fault.”

His gaze fell to the ground.

“Was it the same for you?” she asked him. “Did they all shut up wherever you went?”

“Except Jayesh, yeah. He started calling me murderer ka chamcha.”

“What?!”

“Yeah. Till now, I was Madhav ka chamcha. Now, I’m murderer ka chamcha.”

“That’s not right. You’re not his chamcha.”

“Tell that to them.”

Her mind drifted to Jayesh. Being the son of Santosh Sinha gave him a certain power over everyone at school. Wherever he went, the looming shadow of his father’s influence followed. He would get angry over the smallest things. He would beat children up and then blame them. His father always backed him. This made him short-tempered and hot-blooded.

That got Nandini thinking.  

Laxman’s murderer had planned this very well. He made sure to do it when Madhav was the only other person in the room. The murderer forced Laxman’s face into the pillow as the blood flowed from his throat, so that he didn’t wake Madhav, or anyone else in the dorm. He made sure to wipe the prints off and put it back, not only exonerating himself, but putting Madhav directly in police crosshairs.

“You know what?” said Nandini, connecting dots. “I don’t think Jayesh could have done this.”

Arnav’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”

“Jayesh is too impulsive to have done something so cold-blooded as this.”

“Cold blooded?”

She looked at him and nodded. Her mind was racing. Her heart was beating. Adrenaline flowed through her body, firing up all her crime-novel-reading experience. “If Jayesh is anything, he’s proud, and he’s got hot blood. He’ll go blind with rage before being cold enough to think through killing a guy.”

Her mind was racing faster than a cheetah hot on the tail of a frightened deer. Nothing could stop her now. She was circling Arnav, as he twirled on the spot, a bit confused. “I don’t understand. What are you saying?”

“This murder was very well thought out. If Jayesh wanted to kill Laxman, he’d have been up-front about it. He’d have brought all his friends, and they’d all have beat him to a pulp in the washroom.”

Arnav opened his mouth and then closed it again.

“Jayesh didn’t do it!” She whirled around, and looked at Arnav with pride. She was pleased to find an expression of growing surprise on his face.

“You… you’re right…” he said. “That’s good thinking, Nandini.”

“Thanks.”

The guilt was still roaring in her ears, but she pushed it away. Yes, Laxman was important, but she’d made a promise. She was going to exonerate Madhav no matter what it took.

Her heart began to flutter. She felt the power returning to her legs.

“Go to Madhav’s room,” she told Arnav. “See if you can find anything that can prove that either of these guys was there. If you find anything, call the police.”

“Are you even listening to—”

“Arnav!”

Arnav’s hands shot up. “OK, OK, fine, I’ll go.”

With that, he darted off.

She couldn’t believe this. Their detective work was actually going somewhere! They’d eliminated one suspect already. Just one more to go, and they’d have their killer!

She still couldn’t shake her guilt. It loomed behind her like a stalker in a black hood.

She would not let her guilt take her. She would fight it.

She would find out who killed Laxman Dhule.

It was quite some time before she found Ashok and Ganesh again. She stayed a good distance away, keeping them in sight, but not staying too far. She followed them until the academic block before Ganesh grabbed Ashok by the arm and pulled him out of the crowd with great urgency.

Nandini waited for a while before following them into the deserted hallway.

“Where are you taking me?” Ashok said, as he was dragged away.

“Just come.”

A few fervent turns and a flight of stair later, Nandini realized where they were going. There was a secret spot on the third floor of the block, where neither students nor teachers come. It was a building-in-progress. This was where a lot of couples went to kiss. Why were they going to the kissing booth?

Despite herself, she had to stifle a giggle. Were Ashok and Ganesh a couple now? Or were they always a couple?

Nandini hid behind a turn in the corridor, as they stopped in the middle of a big room. Bricks and powdered cement were littered all over the room.

She was far enough for her to be invisible, but not far enough for them to be inaudible. Then, she peeked around the corridor.

“Are you going to kiss me?” asked Ashok.

“Just shut up and listen.” Ganesh whipped his head from side to side. Nandini snapped hers back around the corridor, and glued it to the wall.

Although Ganesh was whispering, the absence of other people made it much easier for Nandini to hear the words that sent her soaring through the roof.

Her legs began to feel numb once again. Her heart began to speed up, and her lip began to tremble. She knew that all her effort had not been in vain. All her stalking and detective work had finally borne fruit. Ganesh’s words made Nandini the happiest girl alive.

“I don’t think Madhav killed Dhule.”

(TO BE CONTINUED…)

Categories
Hostile Hostel

Part 3: Sanika Gandhi

Arnav’s face was frozen in a state of confusion. “You want to what?”

“Help Madhav! Your best friend?” said Nandini, a little annoyed.

“I know who Madhav is, thanks.” he said, rolling his eyes. “I meant, what did you say before that? Did you say ‘investigate the murder’?”

“Yeah!” she said, exasperated. “Have your ears stopped working?”

“Nandini, what do you think the police are doing right now?”

“Accusing Madhav! Seriously, Arnav, have you been paying attention?!”

“If there’s any evidence to show that Madhav is innocent, they’ll find it.”

“No, they won’t! They’ve stopped looking. They have opportunity and the weapon. I have to do this, Arnav, no one else will!”

Arnav stood in front of her, silent.

They were standing in a nondescript corner of the football field. It had been Madhav and Nandini’s “place.” This was where they’d go when they had a free class. They would sit and talk. Often, they’d be late to class because they hadn’t heard the bell, or ignored it.

Being back here without Madhav pained her. But this was the only place where she wouldn’t be disturbed.

“And I can’t do it alone, Arnav.” Nandini continued. “I need you. You know the boys better than I ever will. The murder was done in the boys’ hostel. It can’t have been any of the girls.”

Arnav was silent for a long time. Too long, it seemed to Nandini. Just say yes. I can’t do it without you, Arnav. Just, please, say yes.

“O.K.,” said Arnav suddenly. “Let’s do this.”

***

They sat down with Nandini’s pen and notepad, and began formulating a list of suspects. A little less than half the school had been eliminated simply because they were girls. They then realized that only one floor of boys could have done it, because the lifts are guarded by night. If anyone from another floor had come to Laxman’s floor, Madhav wouldn’t be their only suspect. Their suspect pool was down to one grade — theirs. They now had 84 suspects. Still too many.

It was Nandini’s idea to break it down by motive. They found several motives to work with, but only one which would certainly cause a murder: a girl.

Sanika Gandhi was the most popular girl in the school. Not in the sense of Plastics from Mean Girls. She was actually a nice girl. Pretty, kind, and generous.

At some point or the other, even for the smallest amount of time, every guy had felt something when they saw her. The only guy who could positively say that this hadn’t happened to him was her brother, Ashok. One guy, however, was lucky enough to confess this feeling and get a positive response. Ganesh Iyer, the Head of Sports. Five-ish months ago, he had asked her out, and she said yes. They’d been dating ever since.

Laxman Dhule also had a huge crush on her. He felt like he had nothing to lose. One day, Laxman walked up to Sanika and confessed his love. Not a crush, or vague “feelings for her.” Love.

Sanika, being the nicest girl in the grade (and most popular), had become an expert at rejection. Nandini had never heard a nicer way of rejecting someone. She explained that she was with someone else, and that she did think he was cute, but what he wanted could never happen. Nandini had always respected Sanika for that. Envied her, even.

Laxman didn’t seem dejected. For the longest time, Nandini thought that the rejection had been so good that Laxman didn’t even feel bad. She thought that was the end of that.

Boy, was she wrong.

It could have been the fact that Sanika called him cute. Maybe that had translated to “Keep trying, and maybe my answer will change.”

A few days later, Sanika found a note on her bed. She opened it to find a poem — badly written, and more lovesick than a little puppy. It was sappy, cliché, and signed with a flourish at the end: Laxman Dhule. And that wasn’t the only poem he wrote.

At first, it was funny. After that, it got borderline creepy. Since Sanika was an angel on Earth, she couldn’t refuse the poems. She kept accepting and reading them. Laxman probably thought she’s liking them. Nobody liked them. He kept sending them, more every day.

He began to go farther than complementing her eyes and hair. That was when Sanika stopped reading. Still, he persisted. Sending four or five poems a day. Five days and a few tonnes of poems later, Sanika stopped being nice, and told him off. She told him to stop immediately.

He must have been really insulted. That’s what made him really repulsive.

He began spreading disgusting rumours about Sanika. No one really believed him, but if the wrong words reach the wrong ears, it doesn’t matter who believes.

His worst mistake was spreading a rumour about the biggest brute of the grade, Jayesh Sinha.

Jayesh, son of the legendary movie star Santosh Sinha, acted like he owned the school, mostly because he did. His father had the principal under his thumb, so Jayesh got whatever he wanted. That and his well-built body made him a fearful candidate indeed. Almost everyone hated him, but nobody said anything. There were a few who were smart enough to get onto his good side, and those smart enough to just stay away from him altogether. Laxman, however, was stupid enough to deliberately get onto his bad side.

“I saw them!” he cried to anybody who would listen. “Both of them, in an empty classroom!”

Only a few days before Laxman’s death, word had reached Jayesh. His anger was like never before.

Word had also reached Sanika, her brother Ashok, and her boyfriend Ganesh.

Together, they made up Nandini’s suspect list.

“But, Nandini,” said Arnav, after they had discarded several pages of weak motives and non-suspects. “We can’t walk up to them and ask if they killed Dhule. Especially Jayesh.”

“Of course not, dumbo.” said Nandini, excitedly flipping the pages of her notepad and scribbling. “They’ll all say ‘no.’”

“I mean, we can’t ask them anything about that night directly. We can’t do an interview like on all the cop shows.”

Nandini looked up at him. “You’re right…” she sat in the grass and thought about it a little. “We have to be discreet. We’re going to have to ask the questions without asking the questions. We have to observe.” She put her book and pen down. “This is all anyone will talk about for the next few days. We have to be fast. God knows when they’re going to charge Madhav. We have to be quicker than them. We have to find any evidence that someone else was in the room. We’re going to listen in to their conversations.” She looked at Arnav. “Tonight, you go to Madhav and Dhule’s room, and search that place.”

“Nandini, that’s a crime scene. I’m never going to get in there.”

“I don’t care.”

“There’s tape there saying ‘Do not cross.’”

“Are you listening to me? I don’t care! There’s got to be something in the room. You’re going to find it. Don’t get your fingerprints on anything in that room. Go through the tape, and get the damn evidence!”

Arnav gave an exasperated sigh. “Fine!”

“During the day, you’re going to get as close to any of these three as possible. It should be easy to get Ganesh and Ashok together. I’ll take them. You take Jayesh—”

“Why do I get Jayesh?”

“Because I don’t like him very much.”

“I don’t like him very much.”

“I don’t care, Arnav.”

Arnav didn’t speak.

“You take Jayesh. If you see him and his street gang hanging about, try very, very hard to eavesdrop.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

It was a murder investigation – something she’d been dreaming of doing for most of her teenage life. She was Nancy Drew (or Nandini Drew, if you like) and she wasn’t going to stop until justice was served.

Today’s investigation was going to bear fruit. She felt it. It can’t have been Madhav. He wouldn’t do anything like that. Furthermore, he didn’t have a clear motive. These three were the only people with any motive at all. It had to have been one of these.

She got up from her corner, armed with notepad and pen, and walked into the day, regenerated. Nandini’s heart fluttered. She was trembling with excitement. One of these three would free her Madhav, and reunite them. One of these three would let her touch his face again. One of these three would make Madhav the happiest guy in the school.

And no matter what it took, she was going to find out who.

TO BE CONTINUED…