Civilization Beyond the Stars - discontinued

1

I groaned in frustration as I realised that I had worn my trousers the wrong way again. This had happened twice this week. I know that I am 15 years old but ughh... with your eyes barely half open it's complicated to put on your clothes the correct way. Today was Monday, the dullest day of the week and coach had cancelled soccer practice which just made the day a lot worse. Soccer was my passion, and it always made the dullest days interesting and encouraged me to actually take part in freaconomics discussions (economics, if you were wondering), basically making school bearable.

"DANIEL VENTUS! You'll miss the bus if you spend all the time wearing the school uniform," shouted Mom. Yes! We had a school uniform, and I commuted with a school bus. Usually mom's awfully sweet, it's just the morning frenzy getting to her. With our track record of missing the bus five times in 25 days which is 20%, I can imagine. We were supposed to wake up at 6:30 but our lazy butts rarely get up from bed for another 15 minutes (technically I don't wake until much later) and we have a bus to catch at 7:05 sharp. My little sister usually gets ready before me so the fury's always directed on me.

I stared out of the window of the bus which was blurry with rain, sitting on the last second seat (with the whole seat to myself, I might add). My sister had taken a leave with the pretext of a stomachache so there was no one trying to squeeze on the last seats with the seniors to show off to their buddies. Though, I think that the last seat of the school bus is overrated.

The bus smelled of rotting food and I could feel the vibrations of the engine under my feet. There were sounds of chatter and laughter in the air. The seats of the occupants of route 49 were fixed with an unwritten rule and a single violation sparked a war. I didn't have any great friends, so I rarely minded anyone sitting beside me till they left my window seat alone.

The bus stopped with a jolt in front of the school. The driveway was packed with yellow buses which meant we were late for assembly, again. Amity International school had over 70 routes running which picked up students from all over Gurgaon and a part of Delhi too. But this was only two-thirds of the student population which used buses, the rest came from vans or with their parents. So yes, school was huge, my batch of tenth-grade students boasted a population of over 400.

Both freshman and sophomores have the same fixed list of subjects and curriculum by the Indian board. Everyone considers tenth grade as a benchmark as we take the Board examinations this year. And every time you tell someone that you are giving the boards this year they acted all supportive and pitiful and pat my back saying "Oh! Boards this year, huh. Get a good rank kid."

Frankly, every time someone has said that to me I felt like smacking a cardboard on their goddamn faces as if they need to remind us that a good rank is the one and only expectation from us students this year.

Today's timetable radiated no sort of excitement and the only hope was an unaccounted-for workshop or a substitution period. History went in a blur, especially because I was sitting in the last seat. And the physics and Hindi teachers exchanged their periods which meant that just when I was starting to look forward to one of my favourite subjects the Hindi teacher shattered my hopes with her plastered smile and raging brown eyes. Well, she is one of a kind. Stay in her good books and she would seem as the politest and the most helpful teacher, but your award-winning answer sheet comes out with red marks in every other line and the total score way below expectation. but when you are in the bad books, a single mistake will unleash the ultimate fury and the bravest of kids scurried around with tails between their legs.

In math, the only things I noticed were that the fan above me was creaking on every third rotation, someone had switched off the cooling, so the class was getting stuffy and that from the bag of the person sitting in front of me, was wafting the sweet smell of an occasional delicacy which made my stomach rumble loudly.

And finally, the lunch bell rang, my classmates literally shooed the math teacher out of the classroom.

For lunch, everyone brings tiffin boxes back from home. The school has a canteen, which is usually crowded and expensive with nowhere to sit. Lunch is basically when we can freely mingle with all the high schoolers and it is when everyone exchanges gossip and execute carefully planned raids on lunch boxes. Arya, Rahul and I eat lunch together in our protective circle around her seat.

I was just enjoying the heavenly taste of chocolate when Rahul snatched it and asked "Have you heard of the Jatt strikes? I had hoped that they would cancel school, the strikes was the only story all the news channels covered today because they are getting violent, or so I heard." this was spoke with eyes enormuosly wide and a terribly serious expression he looked almost comical. "Dad insisted I take a leave, but you guys were coming so I came," replied Ayra as I took my chocolate back. I must admit, it was the most intriguing piece of information I had heard since morning.

Physics passed in a daze and so did English. I was daydreaming about soccer in chemistry when the teacher very angrily reminded me that she was teaching. So, I sat up a little straighter and tried to look remotely interested in organic chemistry. To all the chemistry lovers reading this, no offence, but it sucks.

After freaconomics and 7 long hours of studying, I was free! Monday was all wrapped up, 4 more days to go now. I searched for my bus in the sea of yellow transport vehicles billowing smoke on my calves under the beating sun with hundreds of other students with heavy bags on their shoulders.

Am I boring you? Well, let me describe an interesting incident that happened that day because of which I never experienced a normal (boring) school day again.

And, it wasn't when Arya mistakenly ran into her crush on the stairwell (I don't think it was by mistake) and got the stink eye from his girlfriend (Ha! You don't go running into other's boyfriends, girl).