You And I

5. Caught!

Shivani’s POV

1:50 PM.

I looked at the time on my watch as Arjit parked the car outside the school campus. There were a good ten minutes left before the day ended in school for eleventh graders.

“So, what do we do now?” I asked, breaking the silence. No one seemed to be ready to move a muscle.

“What now? We wait until the final bell rings. And then go to the front and board our buses like everyone else,” Sonali answered me.

“So we need to keep sitting inside here till then?” I asked. Of course, silly, my brain told me but oh well.

“I think we should get back in now guys. Princi comes out by this gate...and if he spots us all sitting in your car, he’d be suspicious,” Shivam said.

“And what makes you think Princi will come out before we all disappear?” Satwik asked.

“Because I know he leaves some five minutes before the bell,” Shivam stated.

“I think Shivam’s right  guys... We should get it and take shelter elsewhere...” Shahina said.

“And where is this ‘elsewhere’ that we’ll take shelter?” Arjit asked.

“Well guys, our last lecture was a free one... So we could just hang out in the canteen or something,” Kia suggested. Everyone agreed to this and soon we were again crawling up the gate, and down on the other side before walking boldly towards the school canteen like nothing had happened. And that’s when it happened. It sounds all like a dream now.

“Hey, you kids, yes you, come here!” Someone called out of nowhere. I looked around and found out that voice belonged to no one, but... PRINCI? No, no! We couldn’t get caught! But the sight of the person standing beside Princi proved me wrong. We could get caught after all. If not for that bitch.

The rest of the day still seems to be a blur. Apparently, Miss Poorvi the great felt that we should’ve included her in our plans and since we hadn’t, she wanted to take revenge. So she went straight to Princi and told him she’d seen us all crawling out of the classroom during the first period. Isn’t that so mature of her? Now I know why everyone in my friends’ group hates her.

Princi made sure we got a good punishment, we had to serve detention alright, but the whole group was divided. Sonali, Kia and Sarthak had to clean the blackboards of all the classes. Shahina and Shivam had to arrange the desks and chairs in all the classrooms. Arjit’s punishment was to teach kindergarten kids for a whole week. Satwik and I had the worst punishment ever... Clean the toilets! Yes, you heard me right, I had to clean the fucking toilets of the whole darn school!  It was too much for me to do... I had never done it before in my entire life!

I grudgingly, entered the first washroom. It was the girl's washroom of the ground floor. I and Satwik had divided the work, he was supposed to clean all boys' washroom and I was going to clean all girls' washrooms, and we were going to clean the staff's washroom together. I was wearing gloves, and had a mask on my face to save myself from the horrible smell. 

It took me half an hour to clean it, and I cleaned all the girls' washrooms and it was already 3:30. I had informed dad that I was going to be late, coz I had some extra classes. Of course, I couldn't tell him that I was detained on the third day of school. He'd kill me! Then finally I made my way to the staff's washroom. And at the same time, Satwik also entered. And we started our work, without saying a word. Finally, the great work was over!