The Leopard Of The Moon..

Chapter1 : Once upon a day

The annual cricket match between his school and the rival school has once again begun this year. However most of the students were playing rather than watching the match and cheering their players. This was one of the few chances they got to be free, With so little teachers to manhandle all of the students that surrounded the stadium like ants, the boys were mostly free to do what they like. Some of them were playing tag while most seniors, actually watched the game and cheered on. Some were binge eating the snacks they've brought from their houses to share with others. The teachers ofcourse, all sat under their seats, shaded by the makeshift tents, ice boxes filled with water bottles were gleaming far away. But the drinks were fir the teachers. Not for the students. They would every now and then yell at the students to behave but most of the time let them be. They only get a few chances to play.

To get water the kids have to walk up the sloped road as the school was built on a mountain forest, the large tanks of water with a tap attached to it were up the road , about a 700 meters up the road. No one used this water for drinking, although the purpose of the tanks were exactly that, the tap was used to clean dusty school shoes or water the plants in the school gardens most of the time. No one drank it because the monkeys in the forest have learned to open tap and suckle on it to quench their thirst, however, on scorching summer days the kids had a little choice they always run out if the water in matter of hours, the only option was to use the tap however the trip itself can be exhausting as they had to climb up stairs and go up sloaped roads to finally get there and wait in line to fill up the water or barge through to get it. So the kids would take turns in bringing water, one would go and fill the bottles of all his friends and bring them back, they took turns in going so that no one was over exhausted
The mountains was the home to wild boars , porcupine and monkeys and snakes. The students had to co exist with most forest mountain animals near the school. Most of the trees were preserved when making the school and since the school is Buddhist school, no one harmed the animals but either ignored them or chased them away if it came to that. Most of the animals knew to mind their business and the kids and the teachers knew to mind theirs. The only nuisance were the monkeys.
Holding 4 bottles of water Daimin walked down the stairs and to the stadium, his friends at the far other end were waving at him seeing the filled water bottles he smiled and nodded at them, after he filled all the bottles he had hugged down gallons of water to the point he didn't feel as tired or as thirsty as they were, he loved seeing his friend friends relieved faces, he felt like a proud big brother thing they were all the sane age. Once he got to where they were the gang took their own bottles and he stared smiling as they hugged the cool liquid. One of his friends, named Sadmithahe was very find of, he was smaller and skinnier than Daimin but had a big heart. The others were Oshan, Tharuke, And Supun. Who were all friends with him since grade 6. He never had friends because of his introverted and somewhat assertive personality.
Ofcourse Daimin was never popular among the kids,his name was itself considered to be wier. He was a loner with a few close friends and others who he really didn't consider as friends but people he know. That is just how he always was.

Daimin and the others laughed bit seeing Oshan acting as if he was drinking liquor and being drunk. He smiled and looked at the scorching sun, a high up in the sky, about 100 feet or so,a Bird was flying in circles, slowly without flapping it's wings for a few moments, itches an eagle, daimin thought of walking to the centre of the circle it was flying around, he felt like jumping up so high that he went all the way up there and see his friends cheer and teachers and everyone cheer at him. Then he imagined about flying down super fast, the wind roaring in his ears as he went all the way down to it and the quickly fly horizontally, parallel against the dusty stadium floor , gliding like the eagle,.. he closed his eyes and went to day dreaming mode.

Suddenly felt the prescence of a couple of kids approaching them, they had seen the water, "bullies" muttered Oshan quickly to alert the others. Being that the only water supply was on the top of the mountain, Meant that one had to go far to get water if he was in the stadium. Daimin knew that the older kids would be too lazy to get their own water and that they would want to steal the younger one's.