Short Story School – “Ping Ping”
© Anand Vishnu Prakash, YourStoryClub.com
“You spoilt brat…….!!!” shouted Naina on the face of Nalini. Nalini stood numb, her face turning pale, she was humiliated (why shouldn’t she? It was in front of all her classmates that she was called “a spoilt brat”) yet she didn’t respond and quietly walked away along with Reena, trying to hide all her emotions, to the same coaching classroom of Xth Standard Class where Naina and Lisa were also attending from the last one and half months. The first bench where the four girls used to sit together were occupied by others. Like Naina four days before, Lisa was also avoiding Nalini and Reena. They sat in opposite corner of the classroom ever since a cold war had erupted between them like two opposite blocs of the Americans and the Russians. The classroom which was humming like bees had a pin drop silence after Mrs. Jayanthi Madam was opening a new page to start a new lesson on “Genetics”.
Later that morning, Pinky was waiting for her little cousin Naina with an umbrella at a bus stop. Naina along with Lisa stepped down from the van where all the girls had returned from the coaching class. They walked carefully not to slip in the rain with Pinky in the middle of them holding umbrella little high to adjust the drops of rain which rolled steadily from the sky and the umbrella alike. Lisa’s house came first and just another four steps was Naina’s house. They were immediate neighbours. Pinky broke the silence as soon as they left Lisa, “You look upset, did you had a fight with her again?”
Naina couldn’t hide anything from her cousin, “Yes that spoilt brat!”
Before they could continue their conversation, they were already inside the house with Mrs. Mamta serving green tea bringing in a big tray. Naina had lost her dad four years back in a car accident and was living with her mom Mrs. Mamta, an elder brother, a younger sister and Pinky, the daughter of her maternal uncle. Pinky was six years older yet they get along so well, they share every little secrets, they were best friends.
Pinky remembered that day very clearly, the day her aunt Mrs. Mamta, a teacher who always cared about quality education had proposed her neighbour Mrs. Shalini to send her daughter Nalini to the Coaching class where Naina was also to join. From that day the life of her little cousin was never the same again.
Nalini was a carefree girl. She was the only daughter and was treated like a princess in her family. At school she was very notorious and was the leader of her school’s secret society called “Girls Rulez Society: GRS”, which denounced the superiority of Boys over Girls. She got quite a good number of girls followers. The members of GRS were strictly against any intimate relationship with boys. They vowed never to have affairs with any boy at least until they complete their college. Nalini loved her school, her friends and her followers in school. She was against the thought of waking up early in the morning by 4 am and going to coaching class with boys and girls from different schools but she couldn’t go against her mom.
On the first day of her coaching class Nalini made the van waited for more than five minutes. “Good Morning”, Reena greeted her inside the van and they reached the coaching centre exactly at 4.30 am. Naina, Lisa, Nalini and Reena, they all sat together at the first bench. The class began with the History teacher asking the students to tell the oldest Veda. None of them could answer it except for Naina who stood up and replied, “The Rigveda”. They had two more classes of Geography and Chemistry for one hour each.
Nalini had never felt so bored in her entire schooling life. She cursed her mom to let her join the coaching class.
***
**to be continued**
