The Zeroth Law

CHAPTER 3: THE PREFERENTIAL MAJORITY

Half an hour into the trial when Wanshika hadn't been able to control wrath of Shayoni's bat, she decided to include rest of the girls in the team too.

"I did good", Shayoni, who had now joined us at the bleachers for a five minutes break said but immediately her age old self-doubt came back, "didn't I? I wonder if Wanshika was going easy on me."

"Are you really that naive or just plain stupid?" Kritika asked and I gave her a formidable glance. This really wasn't a time for her prickly bitch talk. "That girl is doing all she can to make you fail", she continued oblivious to my silent reprimand.

"But why is Wanshika being so hard? She has agreed on the retrial then why so much antagonism?" my other painfully-blind-to-my-tough-looks friend (Arpita, in case you are slow) replied and I sneaked a glance at Shayoni's grave face. Uh oh! I hoped she wouldn't spiral down in her doom.

"She mustn't have figured beforehand that Adira would be here too", Kritika said with a smug smile and I snapped out of my silent scrutinization of Shayoni's face for any sign of mental breakdown.

"Me? What's that got to do with me?" I asked Kritika and Arpita, recalling the promise Karan had taken from me before the trial.

"Meaning Wanshika didn't know I am your friend, seeing very few people in our hostel are aware that I am a visible, walking, talking and fully functional person", Shayoni said with a sigh and I knitted my eyebrows together.

"Or rather Karan skilfully forgot to mention that you are the reason for this retrial", a booming voice said from behind me. I had completely forgotten that my all time favourite enemy had come running to the playground few minutes ago to catch the trials too. All four of us turned around to look at him to see him engrossed in clicking photographs with his DSLR.

"Why would he do that?" I asked in spite of myself and received a shrug as a reply. "Oye, telephone tower, if you don't have explanations, don't go around making statements", I snapped at him and he sniggered silently with his eyes still stuck to the lens of his camera. Huffing, I turned back to continue my conversation with my friends.

"Telephone tower?" Arpita said with a hook in her eyebrow at my choice of insulting nick name for Rudraansh.

"He is very tall", I mumbled my explanation to her and turned to Shayoni, "You don't need to worry about Wanshika, you are doing great."

"Don't worry", Shayoni said to me with a smile, "it's not Wanshika that I am worried about."

And to my immense surprise, I saw Shayoni and Rudraansh exchange a tiny glance at this statement. I don't think anyone had caught on this exchange except me, because being overly perceptive and observing is my hidden talent. A very useless talent, I know, but I do tend to notice such tiny things, which aren't useful in any way. Why, you ask? Because I am a girl and have an inherent tendency to over analyse even tiniest of gestures. Probably the reason why I cannot stay out of other people's business because despite anyone not sharing anything, I end up knowing things.

"Shayoni", Karan called out from the field and she waved in reply.

"Well, wish me luck", Shayoni turned to us holding her bat on her shoulder like Hanuman's mace. And I noticed for first time how charismatic that stance looked on her.

"Good luck", me, Arpita and Kritika said in unison.

"Knock 'em out", Rudraansh added with a wink.

With a grin big enough to stretch from ear to ear, Shayoni waltzed back to the pitch with a confidence I had never seen in her eyes before. I wondered what had changed in last half an hour that she was showing so much courage when click of a camera broke my musings.