Us │✔

32│Friends On The Other Side

Jivika~

"Children, who all are absent today?"

She pushed her spectacles further up her nose, expecting the answer of none. However, with our class tenth public exams approaching sooner than my liking, it was an obvious fact that many would not turn up at school; preferring to sit and study in the peace of their homes and not to waste the meaning of their parents taking childcare leaves.

"Ma'am Nehal, Maahi and Cristina," I answered. The duty of a responsible class monitor.

Responsible.

Well, not really. After all, I did want my teachers to give me full marks for internals. Sucking up seemed to be a good start, even if it was towards the end of the academic year. While all the private schools willingly gave their students full in internals, there exited ours, taking out all the vengeance they held against us on our poor internals.

Who says marks don't matter? Of course they do. The deserving get it, others don't.

"Okay. I'll call their parents and ask to send them. They cannot miss this PISA test!"

Rushing outside the class, she started making the calls. Somehow teachers have this understanding that parents don't pick up their calls because they don't want to hear complaints against their children. And so, they always kept two phones with them. Each phone having two sim cards.

Vodafone, Jio, Airtel, MTNL, you name it!

Who could tell them that it was not the fault of the parents, rather the children. Once they got hold of a teacher's number, it was bound to get blocked and marked as spam in Truecaller.

As for our school's obsession with the PISA test. Programme for International Student Assessment. Here, students were forced to attend those baseless exams; but it was completely fine to miss the school's internal exams.

Barging inside the classroom, Sonika ma'am announced to no one, "Maahi and Nehal are being sent. Cristina's parents are not reachable."

Honestly, I pitied her.

Any day if you would ask, she would be one of those teachers who would definitely agree that children should sit and study at home, doing something productive. But when the orders are from our Principal, all the teachers, the brave and cowards, the inspiring and useless, everyone turns spineless.

But just like Chemistry, even the aforesaid fact was based on exceptions.

Our coach. The right hand of the Lady Hitler, but someone with a sense of identity.

Anyways, that was not my problem. What was Maahi doing at home? That was my problem.

Pakka bol rahi hoo, betke padh rahi hogi.
[I can bet on it, she would be studying.]

"Ma'am!" spoke up a determined voice.

Huh.

Shreyansh?

"Yes? What happened?" she asked, filing away the reports. Clearly she was not up for a small talk. But then, favourite student benefits, you get away with almost everything.

"Ma'am I don't want to continue as the monitor."

Now, that was a shocker.

The guy who has been doing this job since the moment he set a foot into this school, all of a sudden just giving it up? Not to mention the fact that the academic year was ending in about a month.