The 7 Signs

Chapter 1

     Present Day

It was the 13th day at my day school and I was sitting on my bench. My classroom was in a real chaos, but it was no ordinary chaos. Everyone's triangular pencils which were a fashion for each student that time suddenly started disappearing from their bags. Every student was discussing about this, and their so called serious matter, and their culprit (My opinion).....was no other than I, Aditya Tripathi.

'Well what happened is that, on 4th of April and the fourth day of my day school called Vidayamandir Public School and so called V.P.D. I was sitting at the back seat of my class room doing my Math homework. Next period was games and this was lunch break. My partner was not sitting with me. As, I was writing the answers I noticed that that the pencil I was holding was not mine. "Oh, I must have accidently taken it from Rakesh." Rakesh Rao was the partner of mine and unfortunately the most daring and naughty boy in the class, and I the most unfortunate boy in the school.'

'Just then I saw Rakesh coming smiling with two of his friends. He said to me "Hey, you foolish!! How can you do math when the teacher is absent today." I ignored his question and told him "I accidently took your pencil yesterday, take it here!" He took the pencil from my hands and paused. A weird smiled shaped his lips. I looked onto his eyes and understood everything, next moment he went up to the whole class and Shouted "Hey! Hey! I finally found the real Pencil thief! It's Aditya Tari-Potty". The whole class laughed in hilariously. I hid my face in shame and cried noiselessly it was the worst day of school.'

That word 'Pencil thief' still continued today, everyone looked at me with suspicious eyes. I saw Rakesh coming towards me with his two friends and grabbed my collar and shaked me vigorously. "Hey Pencil thief! You are the one who took all the pencils!" and hit me on the head I saw the other boy laugh at me. One of his servant friends Pukul grabbed my bag and poured all the contents out of it. "It's not here!" He said and threw it away. "He must have hidden it!" said Rakesh. Fortunately the bell rang; other children mocked me and went for P.T. Rakesh threw me to the table and went away with his friends.

As I was crying and collecting all the things which had fallen then I saw a boy coming towards me. He was not laughing at me just silently he came and helped me pick up my books and other contents; his name I remember was Nikhil. But everyone mockingly called him 'Charboda'...as he was fatter than most boys. Speaking of his character especially brain, he was the most intelligent boy in our class but, because of his obesity he was sidelined.

He said "I know how it feels like, but what can you do about it? I know you haven't stolen the pencils, and you are innocent." That sentence hurt me like a thousand flowers tinkling me. He patted my shoulder and I looked at him with some curiousness in eyes and showed him that from now we are the best buds.

After that I said to my class teacher to change my seat from Rakesh to Charboda. He pitied me and agreed to change. We had shared each other a lot of things. He told me that he has a crush on one of the girls in the class called Ritika Chatterjee. Well she was the most beautiful and intelligent girl in the class. Everyone wanted a setting with her but no one dared, as she was the daughter of the commissioner.

Next day, in the break time I told him to go to the bathroom. He agreed but said "I am not on pressure." I laughed.

In the bathroom when I was removing my pressure. I saw Charboda noticing something. "Look at that strange drawing over there!" he said and pointed towards the wall. I looked at the wall. It was just an ordinary sketch made by a student with crayon.

I said "I must be drawn by someone of our section, so what! See there!" I pointed towards the writing where it was written F$%k. Charboda laughed and told me "But it's somewhat different!" "It's not different!" I shouted. The bathroom was empty except us two. "Ok!" and we went outside. That day too some pencils disappeared in our class.

And that sign on the wall didn't escape Charboda's mind. He kept thinking about it. I said "You are not a detective Charboda!" "I know that, but it seems that I have seen that sign." "I don't know about signs." I answered "But I do!" said Charboda. As bus stopped Charboda stepped out.

The sign too somehow was inside my mind. Then I asked myself -

'How can pencil disappearance relate with signs on bathroom wall'

Well it did, next day few more pencils disappeared. Some students complained that I did that, but after checking my bag it was found out that I was not the culprit. The bags of whole class were checked out by my class teacher but no one was keeping the stolen pencils.

After break, I got tremendous pressure. It was English period so I asked teacher, and she agreed. I ran towards the bathroom. As I was losing my pressure on the toilet, I noticed that there was another sign on the wall with the yesterday one. "I should tell it to Charboda!" and ran back to the class.

Next period he too went to see the sign and after sometime came back to me. "There is some relation with pencil disappearance and the signs!".

"Yes, I was thinking about that too! Yesterday...do you know what do they tell?" "No! But we will find out!" he replied.

........