Charmed

Somesh Nanda

December 2010

                                                                        Charmed

His pencil was in pretty bad shape. Even then, it would not be spared. All morning, it had its rear end brushed from one end of his teeth to the other. Every now and then, Hanni would pause to feel his enamel with the tip of his tongue and wonder, whatever kept our superior brains from using this thing instead of a toothbrush. “Shiny…” he’d observe, every time his tongue ran the entire length of his jaw.

“Hanni ! Hanni !”

“Eh? A’ Yes ma’am, I’m listening…”

“This is probably the third time I'm having to scream out your name! The next time I see you loosing your attention, be sure you’re moving to the principal’s office!”

“But ma’am I was paying attention!”

Now, Miss Larveen had had it.

“Alright Hanni. You come over to the board and show us all how very attentive you really were.”

Hanni Durpeet Siddhu had a little trouble sliding his chair back under his weight (there was a lot of it). The six year old then squeezed his tummy out of that little gap and wobbled across the room to the board.

7+3=?

Hanni looked at the board, then at Miss Larveen, then at the rows of cavorting devils(some flashed all of their fingers at him) and then back at the board. He scratched his turban and looked again. No difference. He scratched again, this time, his buttocks.

Then he remembered. They all said- where there is a will, there is some kind of a way. So, he’d somehow gather all of it-will. Thus Hanni clenched his fists, tightened his brows and puffed so hard that he turned red and squeezed a tiny droplet of mucus down his nostrils. And Lo! There it was! Will! It worked! He heard the answer ringing clearly  in his ears.

“wow..” he thought “will is cool”

Then presenting his sensei a triumphant smirk, he pulled out a full piece of chalk, brushed off the tiny droplet and etched on the board, large and clear, so that even Richu at the back could note it down, the numeral 5.

“Oh Jesus…” Miss Larveen breathed. With that, she caught hold of Hanni’s ear and gave it her tightest twist. “All this time I babble, babble and babble and this is what you learn! Now get back and for heaven’s sake… concentrate!”

Thus Hanni walked back and squeezed himself into his char. His ear cupped in his palm, he eventually concluded that- Will sucks. Sure, from now on, he was a topper. He would concentrate. All those figures and shapes on the board, they  made no sense to him, but he was concentrating, for his brows were tightened and he understood every bit of it, he told himself. Hardly a minute after his serious reincarnation, those large pupils wandered off to the window and rested there.

When they finally revisited the room, the teacher had finished her lesson and all around Hanni, first graders manaced. Ratul and Raghu had covered an entire desk with crosses. The two at the back, stood on their chairs, holding their ears. Hanni thoughtfully turned to Rajan and said…

“You know this, don’t you?”

“what?”

“That Mrs. Vassupalli is a child kidnapper. She kidnaps little kids for a day , makes them do a week’s homework and lets them go only when they are finished.”

“Ooo..” Rajan remarked.

“That’s nonsense  Hanni !” Heena said, peeking from behind.

“Aek! You shut up…girls know nothing! Where else do you think Rajul had been  the last two days!”

“He was sick”

“So how’d he get his homework done!”

“He did it last night. His parents helped him do it.”

“ Shut up!His  parents are criminals! All of them are! They’re all into it…”

Heena quietly went back to her work.

“And you know, Miss Larveen…”

“Yeah? What about her? Shez a kidnapper too?” Rajan had already put down his pencil.

“No. She’s a  witch”

“She is?”

“You bet!” He leaned closer to Rajan and cupped his palms round his mouth.”Last night, I walked out of my bed for a glass of water, I looked out of the window and there she was! Flying with a broomstick! She din’t notice me…but I saw her. She was flying close.”

“With a broomstick?”

“With a broomstick.”

“Gosh…”

        Finally, Miss Larveeen’s class was winding up. Kids stood on desks, the crossing game had been a tie. Miss Larveen had one last announcement to make before she left the class.

“All right students. Settle down a while. For tomorrow, you all need to get the second exercise done neatly on your notebooks. And I want no excuses. For those of you who don’t, you’ll be spending the whole day here. We’ll lock you up after school and see to it you do your assignment here in class. Principal sir will get you your dinner and lunch and dinner and you’ll be let out the next day only if you finish your work. And mind you, this place is full of creatures. So you better get your homework done.”

 Suddenly, all play stopped. The boys on the desks got down. In a minute the teacher had gone and a little cluster of three feet tall devils cumulated outside the door.  

 “See! I told You! She’s a witch! She’s gonna keep us here and practice her spells over us! She’s gonna turn us into insects! That explains why we have so many insects here. Now don’t you believe me Heena?!”

“Go away idiot. She wont hold us back.”

“Aek! Don’t call me an idiot! You’ll know when you’re an insect! I’ll squash you under my shoes. And don’t anyone of you worry. I’ll get all of us out before she can work her spells on us.”

**************

“Ma'? Whats that thing in the garage daddy uses to break the car?”

“Break it?” Mrs Siddhu was setting Hanni’s lunch.

“Yah…you know, he puts it in the front and breaks the car open…”

“Oh…That’s the crowbar dear. Why? What about it?”

Hanni waited till the roasted chicken had slid down his food pipe.

“Well, can it be used to break a lock?”

“Hanni! What are you up to!” Mrs Siddhu froze at the middle of serving thinned curd.

“Me? No Ma'. Its Larveen ma’am. She’s gonna lock us up in the school tomorrow if we don’t get our assignment done.”

Mrs Siddhu sighed in relief. Smiling back, she said ”Oh, In that case, you’d better get your work done dear… You don’t want to get locked up do you?” She reclined on the chair and for a moment smiled over the thought of what other threats they’d been given back in their times at school.

“Ah, you don’t worry a bit about that Ma'. I’ve got it all planned up. I take the crowbar and when she locks us up and leaves , I break the lock open, then I run to the school gates and yeah, ill have a tough time climbing it, but I’ll guess ill manage it. And then I’ll…”

“Hanni! You will get your Homework done! And don’t you dare touch the crowbar! Do you understand!”

“Yes Mom.” Said Hanni. His eyes thinned down, still chalking that ingenious plan at the back of his mind. While a gulp of curd ran all the way down his throat, he chuckled. Maybe he wont need the crowbar anyway, he’ll manage with that abandoned shaft down the slide.

                        ***********************

That evening, Hanni sat over his chair, all set to finish the assignment. He flipped open the page, put his pencil between his fingers and ofcourse, tightened his brows.

6+6=?... umm…well… he’d better try the next one.

3+2=?

The pencil left the paper and stuck into the mouth. Then the large pupils left the page and wandered off to the ceiling. The next moment, he was Robin Hood and in the next, he was chasing thugs. Up above, he could hear Mr.Yadav’s stereo playing a tune of the 80’s . He hated it, sincerely hated every bit of it. Downstairs, the sound of Mrs Siddhu hasting around was getting louder.

“Hanni…Father and I are going out. You be nice and finish your homework.” Mrs Siddhu called downstairs.

“I wanna come too Ma'.”

“Is your homework done?”

“Yes Mom”

                ***************

“You havn’t finsished the assignment..ya?”

“Well,I have. There wasn’t much. So I finished it.”

So there it was. This was the last of the lot, Hanni had enquired and it turned out that he, Palak and Nandan were the only culprits. The rear end of his pencil still navigated his dental innards.No crowbar, no shaft, nothing. Hanni looked around the ceiling for some opening other students might have carved out for a getaway. He turned to Rajan.

“What do I do now?”

“ I don't know. You'll have to stay.”

 A while later, Hanni’s face fell. Right in front of him,  Mrs Larveen’s face wandered among the pages between two  columns of notebooks. The one which belonged to copies remaining to be checked was sky high and the other was gradually growing. Hanni looked at his watch. 45 minutes to go. Yeah, she’ll never get to the end of it before that.

        Ten minutes later, the taller stack had halved down. At this pace, Mrs Larveen killed Hanni’s hopes of getting away.

“That witch!”

 Hanni ran short of all options and clasped his hands and shut tight his eyes. Sure, God would help him now. Maybe she’ll get a call from principal and would get fired the next minute or maybe shed’ just have an attack of fits.God is really wonderful..He helps all those who bestow their faiths upon him..he lends out his hand unconditionally..He……

“Hanni! Where’s your copy!”

Hanni stood up. Everything was quiet now. His mind stopped wandering . He stood there quietly, and swallowed a gulp of spit.

“Hanni! Are you telling me you haven’t done your homework!?”

“Ma’m   I…”

“Hanni, get over here”

Hanni squeezed himself out and walked to Miss larveen’s table. He wasn’t thinking of anything now, and that was for the simple reason that…he was afraid.

“Now turn around, face the class and tell them all why you haven’t done it. And then we’ll think of what to do with you.”

Hanni turned to face the class. All eyes were stuck upon him. No one jumped on chairs, no one threw papers, no one shouted…all were gaping at the show.

It’s a strange thing about kids..When all hopes fail, when there’s nowhere to go, no direction to turn,matured intellect advocates suicide. But for kids, its always the same resort. Push them to the edge and they all  end up with the same surrender. Hanni's eye brows constricted, his eyes closed and two tiny streams ran all the way down his porky cheeks tracing their path with a moist trail. Immediately, a few more droplets retraced the path. And in  a moment out came that low , high pitched noise that drove the process to completion. He stood beside Miss Larveen weeping all he could. His cheek puffed violently , his clenched fists in a perpetual motion around his eyes, by now his voice had assumed the harmonious tune characteristic to a  weeping child.

        Immediately, Miss Larveen left her seat , held the boy to herself and softly spoke” There,there,what went wrong with our mighty young man...quite down baby, quite down”.

“I don't  want to stay back...” these words flew out with flawless synchronization to the sobbing tune.

“Oh, my baby, no one's holding you back dear. You can still finish your homework tomorrow. Now quite down. Here, take this and you can go back and sit in your place... calm down baby,calm down.”  

She reached into her handbag and drew out a candy bar, probably a one she'd received from a birthday boy and held it out to Hanni. Still sobbing, Hanni took it. With a tender kiss on the cheek, Miss Larveen sent him back.

 Fumbling all the way, Hanni finally pushed himself back into the chair. The stream lines below his eyes had began drying and his sob was eventually dying down. He folded his hands, placed them on the desk and gently placed his head over them. With wide eyes he looked at Miss Larveen who had now taken her seat and had busied herself in checking the assignments again.

Maybe she wasn't  a witch after all. Maybe it was someone else he'd seen on the flying broomstick. No,he was sure it was someone else, Mrs Tyagi definitely. Whoever Miss Larveen was, her charm however, had worked well.