4– After school

Arjun

“June exams are starting on Monday guys. You're writing maths first. Study and study hard. If you are good with maths now, you shouldn't struggle next year in grade 12. And if you ace your grade 12, your life is sorted for life.” Mr Kapoor was telling us. 

I've been sitting in this same seat for exactly one hour forty minutes now. Mr Kapoor is our admin teacher and maths teacher. We had a double maths period as the last two periods of the day which is 45 minutes each. And now we were 10 minutes into our admin period and then the bell would ring for us to go home.

What I liked about Mr Kapoor is that he respected time. Whenever this happens, we have to stay in his classroom because of two periods for maths and admin, he stopped teaching when the maths period was over. He didn't try to steal some extra time. But what Mr Kapoor was telling us now about studying, I already knew. I heard it almost every day from my father. Besides, my study timetable was ready from the day we received our exam timetables. And of course father made a few changes to it. But I have been studying already, from the day I made the timetable. Well, I study everyday but the kind of study where you put in hours is the one I mean.

I frowned slightly as I felt a soft touch on my shoulder. I looked back. It was Rahul. I've never spoken to him, except the time they put us in groups in physics class for an assignment. I looked at him, waiting for him to speak. He passed me a small, folded piece of paper. I took it from his hands and faced the front. I opened the piece of paper slowly, making sure Mr Kapoor wasn't seeing me.

It read: Can we walk home together after school? P.

I folded the paper back as it had come and then quickly dumped it in the inside pocket of my school blazer. Without even overthinking it, I knew who it was. There were four people whose name started with a 'P' in our class, but I knew exactly which one of the four Ps it was. By now, my classmates had given up on trying to befriend me. Some of them even refer to me as weird or boring and the rest just allow me to co-exist and ignore me. Except Preetah and her friend. They always made silly attempts to try and have conversations with me. But at the end of every attempt, they always returned empty, with nothing. After eleven years of school, I've built enough experience of ignoring people and getting them to ignore me.

I slowly looked over at where Preetah's seat was. She was looking at me. Waiting for some type of response. She looked so nervous, like she looked whenever she was giving a speech or explaining how she solved a math equation on the board. I looked away, facing Mr Kapoor.

I knew Roshni was crazy and kept pushing Preetah to talk to me. Yes, I am quiet but that doesn't mean I don't notice things. Even though I hadn't given her an answer and wasn't planning to, I knew that Roshni would try to force her to walk with me anyway. I had to make sure to disappear before that. I have no idea how, since there was only one door, but I was sure it would work out since it always did.

As the last few seconds ticked before the bell rang, my palms started sweating and my heart started racing. I didn't like being in awkward situations, especially with girls. And when I mean girls, particularly them two. They were the only ones that wouldn't leave me alone after almost two terms of trying to show them I was not one of them. I was here with a purpose.

The school bell rang for home time.

I quickly looked over at Roshni just to see if she had forgotten. No, she was packing her books in her backpack but had her eyes on me. When I looked, she quickly looked down at the stuff she was packing.

As if the universe knew I needed help, it made a way for me. “Mr Korana. You're sweeping the classroom today. The rest of you, see you on Monday.” Mr Kapoor told us.

This was the very first time he was asking me to clean the classroom. Even though I didn't like the idea of getting dust all over my school shoes, I felt relieved! I began packing my books away as the other classmates rushed to leave the class as if there was a ticking time bomb under their desks. I saw Roshni and Preetah whispering to each other. I knew they were trying to come up with another plan, but it was too late. I stood up to get the broom in the corner of the classroom.

“Thank you, Mister Korana.” Mr Kapoor told me as I went to the back of the class to start sweeping. He was busy marking our maths assignment we handed in yesterday morning.

I saw Roshni and Preetah lingering but it didn't bother me anymore because Mr Kapoor was there. All I had to do was take my time sweeping until they both had no choice but to leave. I smiled to myself when I gave them my back.

★★★

Preetah

“Mr Kapoor though!” Roshni snapped-whispered at me. “How about I go act like I'm asking him to explain a math problem to me and then you can go over there and talk to Arjun?”

“Sounds good.” I told her even though I didn't think so. I mean I wanted to talk to Arjun so badly, but I was nervous too. Too nervous. I already knew he didn't like me, and I was just pushing it. Trying to find a way in.

“Okay.” Roshni said, taking my maths textbook from my desk and opening it to a random page. “I'm gonna go to him.”

“Angles, really? Go to trigonometry or something.” I told her.

“Okay, relax.” She began walking towards Mr Kapoor as she paged through the textbook looking for something a little more difficult that would convince Mr Kapoor she really needed help with.

I took a deep breath in, waiting for her to start talking to him so I could go speak to Arjun.

“Sir, I've been struggling with—”

“Miss Roshni Riaz, it's home time. I won't get paid extra time.” Mr. Kapoor said, taking his batch of assignments and getting up. “Mr Korana, when you're done, lock the door and bring the keys to the staff room.”

Arjun looked nervous, waiting for Mr Kapoor to finish talking.

“You hear me?”

“Yes, sir.” Arjun answered hesitantly.

“Here's the key on the table.” All three of us watched Mr Kapoor leave the class.

When he left, we all exchanged awkward looks. Only Roshni had a small smile on her face. She quickly walked towards me and grabbed her bag.

“This is your chance. I'll wait at the school gate.”

“What?” I felt like I would have a panic attack. “Are you gonna leave me here alone?”

“Of course, he'll only let loose if he's not feeling a second pair of eyes.” Roshni said, walking away before I could beg her to stay. The worst thing she did was shut the door when she left.

I quickly sat in my chair, opening up a random textbook and pretended to be interested in it. I could hear the sweesh sweesh of Arjun's sweeping which only seemed to be getting faster. All this while I spent nights when I was supposed to be studying, thinking about how it'd be to be alone with Arjun and here I was wasting it. I slowly looked over at him and he was sweeping the middle of the classroom, I had never seen anyone sweep so fast. Oh God! I'm so embarrassed. He's obviously trying to get away from me as quickly as he can.

He huddled the dust from the one corner of the class to the middle of the class and scooped it up. He rushed to take his backpack and was going to throw the dirt in the dustbin so he could leave. I knew I had lost the only chance I would ever get. Roshni would be so disappointed in me.

I watched Arjun throw away the dirt and place the scoop and broom where it belonged. He quickly went for the door handle, and I heard the squeaking sound of the handle.

“Arjun!” I heard my voice call louder than I intended to. Embarrassing, embarrassing.

He froze when he heard me call his name. I got up from my desk. And then called again, this time like a lady. “Arjun.”

He slowly looked towards me and then he was waiting for me to say something.

“Can you come here?” I asked him. If he said no, I'd wish for the ground to swallow me up.

He didn't say anything, just looked down at the ground.

I guess it was time to take matters into my own hands. I began walking towards him, my hands shaking. When I got to him, he just stood there, eyes glued to the floor, dreading me to come any closer. But I did. I took a step closer than was necessary and there was no more turning back now.

“Arjun, look at me.”

He slowly lifted his head, and I waited for his eyes to meet mine. It finally did. Arjun and I were now eye to eye with nobody looking away.

He had beautiful small eyes. A little narrower and they would be shaped like a Chinese person's eyes. He had bright brown eyes and long eyelashes. I did something crazy; I smiled at him. I couldn't help noticing his pink lips begin curling up into a smile. But my memory of him smiling back at me was short lived when the classroom door burst open. I turned to look. It was Arjun's father standing at the door. My smile faded too. Oh, he looked upset! I turned back to Arjun and his smile was replaced with a look I couldn't interpret. It was something like fear, no, worse. Terror.