tales of Suchita

It had taken them two days to plan Operation Assembly. Sagar had come on board – not because he wanted to but technically he hadn’t been left with much of a choice. Though Mayur and Radha had shown their excitement at having him back (and even Priyanka had been warm enough in her greeting) Sagar wasn’t necessarily sharing the same levels of excitement. But the speed with which they had oriented him with the plan had done wonders to mollify him.

The plan was simple – Radha would make a public apology speech during the assembly and in it they had carefully woven a message for the prankster – a word they had learnt thanks to Gayatri miss who had used up 10 minutes from her precious 40 minute period, a hitherto unknown event, to opine on the sad state of affairs and how students had started to treat school like a joke. They had stopped believing in the sanctity…

Radha had stopped listening after that fixated as he was by the word prankster. It perfectly encapsulated what this girl or boy was up to and he had been happily involved in a daydream when miss started to talk about class tests and that had brought an abrupt halt to them.

Coming back to the simple plan, the four wanted to hold peace meetings at the end of the school. They had been truly inspired and even decided to be present for a week following the date of the assembly, giving the prankster plenty of time to pluck up the courage and show his or her face.

In their cleverness of cracking this rather difficult scenario of contacting someone they didn’t know; they had completely forgotten they would need Ameen miss’s permission to make said speech.

The operation thus had to be postponed for another day. It was Priyanka and Radha of course who went to take permission. They thought and Mayur agreed that if the two showed a united and apologetic front, it might help them win brownie points. The difficult bit would be selling the idea to her but Radha was confident he could talk his way around her.

Mayur and Sagar had just about sat down at their desks after finishing lunch when the two returned. “That was quick,” said Sagar. He was content right now, thanks to the chicken biryani Mayur had got for him. If his parents ever came to know…he shivered to even think about it. But the happy daze of good food returned and he settled himself into its soothing embrace.

“Yes, we got permission for tomorrow. It was tricky…”

“Oh don’t be so modest. It doesn’t suit you,” squealed Priyanka. “You should have seen him! He talked her ear off! I am sure the only reason she said yes was to get you out of her cabin.”

Radha and Priyanka guffawed.

“What do we have to do?” asked Mayur straightening up a little. He had to admit that Priyanka’s plan to flush out the prankster was quite brilliant. He could see, though his friend could not, just why Radha liked her so much. And in a moment of rare epiphany, as it is with thirteen year olds, it suddenly occurred to him that they were no longer children; they were growing up and girls were a part of that grown up world.

Everyone sobered up immediately. They knew what they were doing was not going to be easy. “We all agree that it has to be someone in the seventh grade or older,” asked Radha and waited for everyone to nod.

“While I’m giving my speech, I want each of you to look around. Look for any guilty faces, anyone who is shifting too much or not able to meet your eyes, look for anyone who is looking at the door or is looking at their shoes. This prankster has been bold in sending me notes, in attacking Priyanka, in misleading me to believe she was the thief, but I don’t think she or he has to the courage to face me alone. So look for anyone who looks scared or worried. He won’t be expecting a public response like this so be alert. We need to make sure we get a sense of who it could be.”

“Exactly, even if we can get 2-3 people, it’s fine. But we need those to begin with so we can narrow down our search.”

Mayur and Sagar nodded, feeling suddenly anxious. They knew they were going to do this but thinking about doing something and actually doing something were two very different things. What they were most worried about was disappointing Radha or missing the clues. So much depended on them reading their classmates’ expression; that both of them felt a little ill in the stomach just thinking about it. The travesty of the situation was, what Radha wanted them to focus on were such universal bored-student-expressions-looking out the door-daydreaming-and the end of the assembly, they didn’t know if they’d be able to differentiate a bored student from the prankster.

They needn’t have worried though. Before Radha and co could make a move, it turned out the prankster had already made several moves.

…to be continued.

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