Soothing the Heart of the Sea

Chapter Four

"\Well, that was fun , wasn't it class?,"said Chitu, breaking the silence.

Nobody said anything

Karu rolled her eyes.

"Okay, shall we get going?",asked Chitu

"Yes please!", said Yamuna suddenly, wanting to get on the farm as soon as as possible.

The children climbed onto the island

Yamuna sighed as her bare feet touched the sand,life at sea was great but there was nothing like walking on hot sand.

"What did you think about that Miss Chameli lady Yamuna?",said a voice from behind her.

She turned around and found Rajan standing behind her

"I wasn't really paying attention much", said Yamuna, shrugging her shoulders

Rajan smiled,"Typical Yamuna!", he said straightening his shorts.

Yamuna blushed," Do you believe that the sea has feelings?"

Rajan hesitated and then said " My parents always told me stories about it when I was young but I think it's just a myth. And that lady gave me the creeps"

Yamuna was about to say that she agreed when Chitu called the children to go to the farm.

The class was divided into two groups.Both groups worked in different parts of the fields.Yamuna was part of the group that worked in Western part of the island.The day was spent mostly in weeding and watering since it was far from sowing season.

 Yamuna was pulling out weeds when Robin swooped up next to her.

"Hey Yam, I think is for you",she said handing Yamuna a old book which...had her name on it.

Robin was 15years old, the oldest in the boat. Next year, she would move on to college boats. Yamuna was going to miss here a lot, since she was the nicest senior she had ever had. The other 15 year old in the boat was Balaji and she really was not going to miss him.

"Thanks Robin,"she replied, "But I've never seen this in my life"

Robin believed in magic and secrets and mysterious things and superstitions. "Maybe it was meant for you to have it, maybe it was left for you by somebody",she said.

Yamuna scratched her head with her muddy hands. She looked at the book with curiosity.She run her hands along the smooth hard bound cover.

"Yamuna put that book away and do your work please"

She looked up sharply. It was Miss Komal, the scary island lady who was creepily always there when the children were farming. Maybe she was some secret spy or something. She was really old, in fact, the children believed that she was more than 500 years old, she looked to them as though she could collapse any second and Ganesh had often expressed a desire to give her nice poke and she if she crumbled. Rumour had it that she had lived even during the time when Quile had equal land and water.

Yamuna quickly hid the book behind her back "Sorry Miss Komal"

They worked through the day and Yamuna had no chance to look at the book again. She soon forgot abot it and did not even look at it when they had free play and instead she ran around the fields jumping and rolling the mud. 

Then the classes started and Yamuna went into her world of day dream again only half paying attention to the class on Quile History, easily the most boring part of the day.

At the end of the day, the boats would go to the C.A.S.T.A - the Central Arts and Skills Training Academy. 

This was another favorite part of Yamuna''s day. Here, you could take drawing, singing , dancing, music lessons and also learn skills like carpentry and weaving and basic medicine.

Yamuna usually went for carpentry. Though she learned the violin, she never wanted to perform with the music groups because she had a bad case of stage fright when it came to performing in front of large crowds.

But today something drew her towards one of the music rooms. She pushed the door open and went inside. A tall boy who looked around her age was playing the viola, an instrument similar to the violin.

She had seen viola players before but she had never seen anyone play the way this boy was playing. He played with all of his heart and his soul. He playing as though he could not live unless he played.

HIs fingers danced on the finger board and his bow moved swiftly. Yamuna watched him until he finished playing, aware that she was awfully late for her carpentry session.

As he put down his instrument she looked at him carefully. He had untidy dark hair and ears with attached ear lobes. Yamuna thought he looked....nice (oh no...this novels turning into romance! stop!)       

She was just thinking about how funny his nose looked when he turned and looked at her.He had NICE cow eyes, she thought to herself.

After a moment he smiled and said,"Hi, I'm Arjun, whats your name?"

"Yamuna", she said,"You play the viola beatifully Arjun"

"Thank you!"'replied Arjun,"You can call me Jun actually. Do you play any instrument?"

"Yea.. I play the violin"

"Cool! We"ll play together sometime. I would love to hear you. Anyway, I got to go now, bye!"

"Bye"

Arjun took his viola case and left the practice room.

Yamuna kept standing there. I think she was frozen in love. 

"So beautiful. so sweet , so full of emotion and that bow!", she whispered to herself.

Wait a minute. Did you think that she was in love with Jun?!? No way! Yamuna was in love with Jun''s viola and the way he had played it. 

About Jun, she only thought about how nice his cow eyes would look on a tree.Nothing more.

Typical Yamuna.

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