A Teddy Bear Love Story Chapter-1

"May I come in madam?” An 8^th grader was standing at the door, with a cute smile on his lips, shed of hair on his forehead, a bag pack on his shoulder, and an apple in his hand. He was the most notorious student of 8^th C. He never completed his homework on time. All he had thought at this age was to become a footballer.

“You are too early for the next class my boy,” Teacher cracked the joke and irony of it was that nobody laughed. He was the star student of class. Be it his extra height among all, or the fights he picked, or be it his friendly nature. He took control over the students of class.

“I was bringing an apple for you.” He said with an ear-to-ear smile pasted on his face.He knew if he won’t flatter her, he won’t be sitting in the class today. 

“This apple is your breakfast. Which, apparently, you skipped,” She smiled leniently and told the fact. “So, stop lying and tell me what your excuse is for today?” She closed the book she was holding and bookmarked it with her index finger.

“I was doing homework,” He lied confidently. He knew that the lie was lame. He must have had used a better excuse. He never did homework and everyone knew it. 

She bowed her eyebrows and looked at him, “Homework, really?” She caught him.

He smiled. He wanted to say yes but he didn’t. He kept mum and plastered a fake smile on his face.

“Do you know what subject I teach?” She asked a simple question. However, it left him clean bold. He wasn’t attending the classes regularly because of the league matches of football. He was playing for a local club.

He tried to be smart. He looked at the book she was holding. The attractive cover of it proclaimed ‘English Grammar’ with red color. He laughed within himself and thought “Dumb teacher.”

“Are you gonna answer me today?” She folded her hands and asked.

“Its English ma’am,” He smiled and said flirtatiously. He adjusted his backpack on his shoulder and started walking in, without even asking for her permission. He knew he had cracked the punishment thing well and now he would be sitting on last bench, eating his apple and apparently, building clouds of success in his mind as a football champion.

“Wait there,” The teacher interrupted. He stopped and turned towards her. “You said you are late because you were doing homework. Am I right?”

“Right,” He declared.

“So, class, Sarthak has done his homework for the first time. Let us give him the first chance to read the essay on yesterday’s topic.” She glowed and looked at the class. She knew he had not done his homework.

“What was the topic?” Sarthak asked confused.  He had no idea about this homework thing. 

“You must have known it, if you have done your homework,” She smiled suspiciously. Thanks to his classmates, they hooted and someone shouted loudly “A friend to Remember,”

“A Friend to Remember,” He thought. He had to cook a story quickly; else, he was going to be punished.

“Friend… Friend…Friend… Yes, I have a story to share.” His mind thought. His fingers quickly ran up to unzip his bag pack. He had the messiest bag one can have; just two notebooks and four books. One notebook was for rough work and other was of science, as they had an evil science teacher and she had some psychological problem of checking notebooks every day. 

He pulled out the science notebook and randomly opened a page. Coincidentally it was a blank one. He cleared his throat, looked at the non-inked page, and started reading.

I know everyone has written about his or her best friends. I have best friends too. However, they all have written wrong. A best friend is always with us, so we cannot remember him/her. It was all about the friend we lost, but didn't want to lose. Going against the trend, I have written about a friend. I cannot call her my friend, but yes, there was something special about this particular friend. That girl had left an impact on me, and I guess this is what a friend does.

I met her for the first time in first standard.

My hair was not spiky that time. I was half of my current height or maybe little lesser. I used to reach school on time as my parents used to drop me. It was just another day for me. My parents dropped me outside the school and I walked in the front gate. My class was on the ground floor itself. Students had already put their bags on the seats and were out playing with an aluminum foil ball, before morning assembly.

I walked to my seat and tried to put my bag in. I noticed there were already a blue bag and a brown teddy bear. “Who brought a teddy bear in school?” I mumbled. I pulled out the bag and teddy bear and started putting it on the previous bench.

“They are mine,” A girl appeared from nowhere and shocked me. I looked at the girl. She was not in the school dress, which apparently meant that either she was a new admission or it was her birthday today. She was wearing a yellow fluffy frock. I tried to recognize her, she seemed unknown to me. I eventually concluded that she was a new admission.

Her eyes took my attention; they were more milky than normal, like if she was an alien attacking our school. I watched a show in which aliens attacked Earth and they all changed themselves into cute looking humans. She was also cute.

“It is my seat,” I exclaimed and pointed on the bench with my index finger. I had written my name on it with my disastrous handwriting using a pen. Pen not allowed to us but still I got one anyhow. The sad part was that I made a spelling mistake while writing my name. I tried to rub it and correct it with my rubber but it failed. That was the reason that we were insisted to use pencil, I thought. 

Doesn’t matter that the spelling was correct or incorrect, the seat was still mine. I looked at her and was about to throw her bag and that teddy bear, seeing her numb and motionless looking at me with her weird eyes; cute but scary.

I thought she would fight with me, but she did not. Her eyelashes dropped down with sadness and she uttered “Sorry,” I failed to listen but I read her lips. She put her hair behind her ears and grabbed the bag. She looked helpless. Keeping her head low, she walked on the last bench of classroom and sat down. There was some kind of agony in her eyes.

She did not talk to anyone in the class. She kept sitting like a wax statue and I kept looking at her. Every time I looked into her eyes, I felt guilty. Guilty, maybe I was rude and hurt her. 

I ignored her, but then again our eyes met.

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Author:
Himanshu Appie Chhabra