tales of Suchita

“Guys this doesn’t change anything.”

“But she’s a girl,” said Mayur with such horror in his voice that Radha huffed impatiently.

“Yes she’s a girl, not a vampire,” he said with a ridiculous smile on his face.

Mayur and Sagar looked at each other unhappily. They were feeling out of depth that Radha wanted to A. bring in a fourth member to the party and B. who was a girl. They also didn’t understand the need for this new addition. They had been fine – absolutely a hundred percent fine – then why did Radha have to go and change things like this?

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Sagar angrily. Had he been more attuned to his emotions, he would have realized he was actually jealous and nervous because he could sense he was being replaced. “Do you like her?”

Radha scrunched his face in confusion. “Well of course I like her. She’s smart like me but not book-smart, also like me. Besides the thief played a prank on her too. She’s in this game whether we like it or not.”

Sagar wanted to scream his frustration, lash out in some way. Why did Radha have to go and complicate things like this? What was wrong with how they had been doing everything? Radha got to be the hero and Mayur and Sagar were the sidekicks who got to assist. Where Priyanka fitted into all this he could not fathom.

“Well I don’t like it,” said Sagar. He pushed his chair behind, got up, paused for a moment as if to see if either of them would stop him and left the classroom.

Radha looked at his retreating back concernedly. “Did something happen?”

Mayur raised his eyebrows.

“Apart from her I mean. Is everything okay at home?”

Mayur sighed. “I don’t think so. He won’t talk to us and now you bring her into the picture. He is going to feel bad. You know how sensitive he is.”

“Feeling bad is one thing. Sagar got angry. I have never seen him this angry. Are you sure everything is okay?”

“He hasn’t been ‘sick’ lately. But I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.” He said after a pause, “Have you spoken to Chandra?”

Radha started guiltily. It was she he had become friends with first. She was the one he used to have a teeny-tiny crush on when he was younger. She used to always smell of flowers and he had started to associate that with warmth and friendship. Then he had met Sagar and Radha had instantly taken a liking to him. He had taken the boy under his wing and they had been inseparable. Then Mayur had joined school a month later and their little trio had been complete.

Unfortunately this meant that there was no longer a place for Chandra. It didn’t help that when Radha grew older and understood just how much of a fool he had made of himself in front of her because of his silly crush, he had been mortified. When she left school so she could go to an all-girl’s one (her father believed she’d be safer there), Radha had been mightily relieved.

“I haven’t,” he said shortly.

“Me neither,” said Mayur. “Do you think I should go after him?”

“I think we should leave him alone. Are you okay with letting Priyanka into the party?”

Mayur shrugged. As long as he was in the party he didn’t really have an opinion on the matter.

“Great,” he said as he waved her over to where the two of them were sitting. “We can start plotting the next steps then.”

“But what can we do? It’s not like we know who the thief is. We shouldn’t even be calling him a thief anymore. He knows us but we don’t know him.”

“Priyanka has a plan for that,” said Radha enthusiastically. “She thinks we should call him…”

“Or her,” interrupted Mayur.

“Or her,” he amended gracefully. He had learnt that lesson the hard way, “To me.”

“Okay,” said Mayur, rubbing his hands, getting nervously excited. They were going to do this. They were actually going to engage. In the two years of him being Watson, they had never had a thief who had been this difficult to catch. Honestly speaking, he was rather looking forward to this encounter.

*

Sagar may have left in anger but he had actually gone to retrieve the feather he had hidden from Radha when the first note had come. He had placed the feather for safekeeping in the computer lab, behind all the CDs. He thought if he gave Radha this clue, he wouldn’t want Priyanka in the team and thus Sagar’s position would remain secure.

But when he returned, he saw not two but three heads joined together. Feeling hurt and betrayed and furious, Sagar threw away the feather, and ran into the washroom. He locked himself into one of the stalls and started to sob.

And the walls, already used to hearing his woes, stood vigilant to his silent suffering.

---

This is the fourteenth post in the series. To know more about Radha, click here.