vagary

"My curly fry fell down!"

It is freezing cold (it is December) but that doesn't stop Eli from sweating profusely as the white polyester t-shirt he is wearing clings to his body.

He decided to play a tennis match with a ninth- grader today, that too the junior sports captain, and he is already regretting his decision.

He curses under his breath as his shot hits the net.

"Ooh, someone's getting his ass kicked." Tariq, Eli's friend, laughs.

"Chup kar Tariq, I'm trying to play here." he says.

"You are failing miserably at it, then." mocks the eighth-grader, Arya.

Eli just scowls and tries to hit the ball harder. It hits the net again.

He ends up losing in straight sets.

Arya pats his back after the match. "Don't be a sore loser, Das. You are good enough for your age, just keep playing. I can give you practice lessons when I'm free, if you are willing." he says.

Eli finds himself grinning uncontrollably. "Really?! Thank you!"

When he exits the court, Tariq is standing impatiently. "Took you long enough" he grumbles.

Tariq and his infamous mood swings.

Eli still has no idea how he ended up being friends with Tariq Ahsan.

He remembers the day he met Tariq.

It had been almost more than a month since he had joined the school and he still did not have any friends. It was the week after he had finally gathered the courage to talk to Shiloh before she had practically run away from him. He had not tried talking to her since, he was afraid she would run away again and Eli wasn't sure he could suffer the embarrassment twice.

He was sitting on the first seat, head buried in his French textbook (he loved French) when someone had hit him with a paper plane.

He had immediately glanced back.

A boy with a curly light-brown mess for hair, a lopsided smile and green-brown eyes framed by thick black glasses stared back at him.

"Uh, sorry. Wrong target." He had smiled nervously, his cheeks red.

"No, it's fine." Eli had said, giving the paper plane back to him.

"I'm Tariq, by the way." He had smiled again. Eli thought he had a nervous smile.

"Eli" he had said.

"Yeah, I know." Tariq had grinned. Eli had decided he liked his grins better.

"Oh, yeah. Of course, the class introduction. I forgot, sorry." he had laughed.

That day in the lunch break, Tariq had asked Eli if he wanted to have lunch with him.

"Okay, cool" Eli had said.

They had ended up ranting about the crappy veg sandwiches and the sickly sweet lemonade in the school canteen and arguing about who was better Federer or Nadal ("Djokovic, duh" Tariq had said) and who could eat the most tabasco and garlic fajitas which Tariq had brought for lunch. Afterwards, both had ended up blessing Eli's mom for giving him Nutella sandwiches and had chugged down half of the class' water by the end of the lunch break.

Somehow, Tariq is still stuck with Eli, and for that, Eli couldn't be more thankful.

Due to some weird stroke of luck, he had not one, but two friends by the end of that week, all thanks to Tariq of course.