When Radha and his classmates returned to their classroom after a rousing match of football…
Radha was rather good at this sport, thank you very much. “Dev D” thought it was the technique and muscles that made him so good at the sport. And yet, it was Radha who had scored the first goal of the match! None of them understood that you needed to be agile and fast – which Radha was. Muscles only hindered that but no, even their coach got all dreamy eyed when “Dev D” started to dribble the ball. Oh the utter injustice.
…anyways, when they came back to their classroom, all sweaty, muddy and red in their faces, they were met with an unusual sight. The whole of the classroom was littered with papers, discarded foil paper balls, pens, ribbons, craft paper…
The class monitor, seeing the strewn garbage and the mutinous faces of his classmates immediately rose to the occasion. He shooed everyone away to wait in the computer lab, called Parshu uncle to clean up the mess…all the while…
Radha wasn’t interested in what “Gee D” was up to. His elusive thief had struck again and he had a limited window of opportunity to look for clues before Parshu uncle spoilt it all with his overenthusiastic broom. Before anyone could stop him, he had jumped, escaped the clutches of Dev D and his goonies, just like he had when he had scored that goal, and entered the classroom.
As soon as he entered, the chaos around him turned into a dull din. He surveyed the crime scene just as he had learnt from Mr. Holmes. The trajectory of the garbage told him someone had been digging into their dustbin. Even though the breeze had scattered the debris around, it hadn’t strayed far from the overturned bin. But what the thief had been looking for Radha couldn’t say. He knew the thief hadn’t found anything because of the overturned bin. He must have needed to vent his frustration at being thwarted and kicking the poor bin must have provided the best solution.
He turned around and was proud to see Watson (Timothy was absent) standing guard at the door, not allowing even Parshu uncle to enter and do his job. He saw his English teacher behind the crowd of children and her I-am-not-happy-I-am-losing-precious-time look made him turn quickly back to the crime scene for one final sweep. Seeing nothing new, he told Watson to let everyone in.
At lunch break, the two friends had their meeting in the empty classroom. “Did you find anything?” asked Mayur, unconsciously turning to his left to see what Sagar was thinking.
Sagar was of course home, sick again no doubt. No one in their whole entire school fell sick as often as Sagar. Mayur and Radha obviously knew that Sagar’s sickness had nothing to do with his health.
“No. This thief is smart. He doesn’t leave behind any clues.”
“How do you know it’s a he? It could be a she. It could also not be related.”
Radha looked at Mayur sharply. He knew Mayur wasn’t a whole lot into their “game” unlike Sagar but he had been warming up to it. This just proved it. Puffing his chest with importance, he said, “Girls are generally clean. They don’t make a mess like the one that the thief made with the dustbin. They may not be related but I have a feeling they are.”
He left it at that. Every great detective had instincts and Radha was quite attuned to his. This was no girl. It had to be a boy, a boy who was desperately looking for attention. And he was going to get the attention…the wrong kind of attention.
This is the fourth post in the series. To know more about Radha, click here.
tales of Suchita 
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