Sailing Forever

Part 1: The End?

On this day, everyone in the school believed that their friendship was the cause of their own downfall. They thought it would soon meet its end. Was it really their fault? Or were they framed by their enemies and were falsely accused for an act, which they never did? Until today, no one knows the truth except them. Only nature knows. O birds! I wish you could speak! You know what was written on those papers, don't you? They were the symbol of friendship, which that school has ever seen.

Ms. Monca, who was one of the invigilators of the final exam of class 10 was seen holding Emre's ears and Cara's arm and dragging them to the head examiner's office. The exam had just ended 10 minutes ago. Others were shocked to witness that sad sight. Rumours and whispers already started circulating and it was clearly audible to these two.

"Hey! Do you know what happened in room 42?"

"Oh yeah, I just heard from my friend that two students cheated and got caught red-handed."

"Oh, look over there! Ms. Monca is taking them somewhere!"

"Probably to the head examiner's office. Their life is doomed."

"They got guts to cheat in the 10th final exam. They deserve this!"

"Yeah, are we foolish to study hard every day? And these two come and cheat to score high."

Ms. Monca pushed them both inside Ms. Freda's office and Cara fell on the floor, while Emre managed to stand. He rushed to her aid and rubbed her arms as it was hurt. He looked up at Ms. Monca and gritted his teeth in frustration.

"You dare to stare at me like that even after what you did? You piece of trash!" Ms. Monca slapped him hard on his cheek.

"Calm down, Monca. What happened?" Freda asked with concern.

"These two cheated in front of me. I witnessed it with my own eyes. We have no choice but to debar them both from taking this exam for the next three years." Monca said.

"No! We didn't cheat Ms. Freda. We would never do that! I would rather die than obtain my score by cheating!" Emre shouted.

"As usual, students pulling out their trump card. We have seen thousands of students like you. As if we would believe that!" Monca said rolling her eyes.

"Please trust us, I swear that we didn't do anything wrong." Cara coughs and stands in front of Freda.

"Can you both prove to me that you didn't cheat?" Freda asked

"But how can we prove? Can't you trust us because we are your students?" Cara questioned.

"I know that I am the school principal. But I was given the responsibility of head examiner for this exam. I cannot show any bias towards the students. There is an eye witness, who is the invigilator of your room. If there is no further evidence that you didn't cheat, I can only take Ms. Monca's word for it." Freda said while looking down.

"I can prove it Ms. Freda! But we need to hurry before someone tampers the evidence." Emre said while rubbing his cheek.

"Emre, but how?" Cara asked with tears in her eyes.

"Don't cry, Cara. Everything will be alright!" Emre stood up determined.

"Where should we go to check the evidence?" Freda asked.

"The place where Ms. Monca kept our answer sheets." Emre said.

They walked out of the office to decide their fate. Monca had kept those two papers separately to report on malpractice. They were almost close to the staff room, where she had kept the answer sheets. A strong wind, which was strong enough to shake trees from left to right and sand in the ground, blew heavily to a point, where no one could see anything; It's as if the heavens were rejecting the idea of them checking their answer sheets. Cara, being very slim, couldn't stand her ground; got blown straight to a pillar and hurt her back.

"Cara!!!!!! Are you alright? We need some help! Someone please!" Emre rushed to her aid, holding her in his arms.

The first aid crew arrived shortly and treated her wounds. It had finally settled down. Wind stopped and there was sudden silence in the school. Emre told her to sit there and he left with teachers to check their answer sheets. They entered the staff room and searched for their answer sheets. To their surprise, the answer sheets were nowhere to be seen.

"I am sure that I kept their answer sheets here! I think Emre told any of his friends to steal their papers! That's why he was so confident that he could prove us otherwise! If papers weren't here, even we cannot prove that they cheated. Ms. Freda, you should take my words into consideration. I will give a written statement about this!"

"No! We don't have any friends in this school. Please trust me, Ms. Freda. I have no idea about this! Please enquire Ms. Monca about this. She is purposefully trying to frame us. Now it's clearly proven that she hid our answer sheets!" Emre shouted.

"You dare to blame me for this! How dare you? I saw with my own eyes! You were signalling Cara by showing your fingers and she signalled back." Monca raised her hand to slap him again.

"That's enough, Ms. Monca. I'm sorry, Emre. I have no choice but to debar both of you. You couldn't prove me otherwise. Both of you have been debarred for three years with immediate effect."

"No! No! This can't be! At least let Cara take the exam. She has sacrificed a lot to get this far. Please! I beg you!"

"I'm sorry, Emre. Nothing can be done." Freda said firmly.

Emre walked out of the room with complete shock. There was no life in his eyes. All his senses had gone numb. He couldn't even see Cara getting treated while he walked in front of her. He was walking towards the school gate. He couldn't even hear Cara screaming his name from behind. She cried to a point where there was no water left to come out of her eyes. Was this their end? Was this the last time, when they saw each other?

"Oh! The window was open. Thank goodness I kept paper weight for the answer sheets. They would have been blown away outside the window with that strong wind. Did I keep weights for their papers, which I kept aside? Who cares, they cheated anyway." Monca frowned.

Two sets of papers were flying and sailing along the wind. Couple of birds flew past those papers. Finally, the papers fell on an empty ground beside each other and facing upwards. The blue sky gazed at the papers from above and had a clear look on what was written.

'The left paper had Emre's name written on it. There were only two answers written. An elaborate answer for question 1, which seemed to be correct; but it was struck off. A blunt answer for question 2, which seemed to be incorrect and it wasn't struck off.'

'The right paper had Cara's name written on it. In this paper also, there were only two answers written. A blunt answer for question 1, which seemed to be incorrect and it wasn't struck off. An elaborate answer for question 2, which seemed to be correct; but it was struck off.'

By seeing it, even the mighty sky couldn't tolerate it. A sudden loud thunder was heard along with colourful lightning. It was like the sky was controlling itself from crying. In the end, it couldn't hold its tears. It saw the kind of friendship, which they shared. Immediately it started to rain as droplets fell on those papers, which smudged the ink and the truth was lost forever.