It was recess. The corridors were filled with cacophony of students screaming from a sugar rush, teachers trying to maintain some discipline without being overbearing and intermittent slaps and ball dribbling.
In the middle of all this noise sat two boys from the sixth grade. They were seeking Radha’s particular brand of expertise to look into a matter for them. They weren’t looking forward to this interchange (they had heard tales of Radha’s oddity) but they were desperate and they needed someone who could get them results.
Radha sat behind the teacher’s desk, feeling a lot like Mogambo. Watson and Timothy were sitting to either side of him. Since they were his sidekicks, it had been their humble but pointless duty to remind him that he wasn’t supposed to sit on the teacher’s chair, a rule the teachers reinforced regularly. And Radha had taken their well-meaning advice and went on to do exactly what he pleased.
Well how would Radha become a detective if he didn’t take risks?
The two sixth grade boys had taken two whole minutes to explain how their third friend, who wasn’t here, had lost his new bottle. Now neither of them cared for this new bottle but after painstakingly taking permission from three set of parents, they had finally been allowed to have a sleepover and watch a movie late into the night. If the parents came to know of this blemish on an otherwise unblemished record, a record in itself for three boys, their night may get cancelled. And they’d rather die than go through the whole approval process again.
Radha had heard their story, falteringly given because they were so nervous (Radha was after all a legend among the juniors and the glowering faces of Watson and Timothy hadn’t helped), and now was deep in thought.
Seeing the two boys fidgeting, he nodded his head once in Watson’s and Timothy’s direction. They jumped to attention like a well-oiled machine and ushered the two boys out with promises that boss would get back to them when he had some leads.
“Boss you want to see the crime scene?” asked Mayur, aka Watson. He didn’t know who Watson was and neither did he care. Puberty had still not hit him and he was carrying all the baby fat thanks to his mother’s generous application of ghee on rotis and her conviction that allowing him to do any kind of physical activity would seriously damage his softness.
Radha shook his head. “Go eat your lunch you two. We’ll talk about this after school.”
Thankful and with grumbling stomachs, the two sidekicks made their mock salutes and went on to enjoy a junior’s tiffin they had nicked and the remaining five minutes of break time.
When Mayur and Sagar had left, Radha went back to his desk, thinking of the half-eaten apple. He had methodically gone through the names of each of his twenty-five classmates, including Mayur and Sagar, and had come up surprisingly empty handed. No one, it appeared, had eaten Anjum miss’s apple.
And before he had been able to pinpoint a culprit, a bottle had gone missing. Now just a missing bottle may have turned up in its own time. But when that was put together with the half-eaten apple…things started to get murky.
It looked like there was a new thief in Radha’s jurisdiction.
This is the second post in the series. To know more about Radha, click here.
tales of Suchita 
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