Home >> Articles >> Thisa - The story>>Chapter 1.1

Chapter 1.1

From a far distance, the little girl eyed
A little purring creature
But alas, fate had else in store
Ultimately in great pain it died…

She brought it home
With great delight
Days of joy followed despite
The fate it faced, yet unknown

As the days flew by
The furry cat lay forgotten
The initial joy now rotten
Then came its time to die

The girl mourned
She cried and wept
For a whole night she had not slept
With guilt she was adorned

"A dead cat! You wrote a poem on a dead cat?"
Jeena looked up from her note book to her best friend Morticia.
"I really don't have anything else to do." Jeena said as she closed her notebook; and I guess that she was right because what else do you do in a class room infected by forty-five wild students and a snoring teacher?

Oh, sorry. I almost forgot to introduce the two of them!

Well, Jeena Sharma was a 14 year old 9th standard student soon to be 15 years old in exactly a week. She was about 5 feet and 5 inches tall, which meant the last row of the class photograph that now lay under the dirty pile of books on her study table. She had long silky, jet-black and atrociously straight hair which she was forced to tie up in a high pony held by the oldest thing that she ever possessed, her half-a-month old hair-band. And presently, she slumped on her desk in her winter uniform - an oversized grey sweater and a grey pleated knee-length woollen skirt, which was probably the only thing that could be considered neat around her as her mother would not have her daughter wearing rags to school, or for that matter, anywhere.

Coming to Moira Seraphim (christened Morticia in the 5th standard), she was the same height as Jeena, and was exactly the same age as her. (I guess having the same birthday does bring two people close!) Her hair was what she found most interesting about herself because it had the habit of constantly changing. The only thing that never changed was the fact that it was shoulder length. It was sometimes straight all over except curly at the edges or sometimes completely curly or suddenly bouncy and shiny, sometimes black, sometimes the colour of chestnut… Really, if I started on that, it would take me ages to describe it. But if you want all the information, Morticia here would gladly get into each and every detail for you, the reason being that her love for her hair was something that no one that I have ever met could compete with. She wore the same woollen skirt, half an inch above her knee, and a white shirt whose sleeves were rolled up to her elbows; as a part of her winter uniform. And at that moment, she was stooping into Jeena's notebook and making weird faces at her poem.

Like every other day, this day was as mundane as the other…well, until the end of break anyway.

The class teacher, Mrs. Kumari entered the class room as usual to take the afternoon attendance. But following her was (music please) the most gorgeous boy Morticia had ever laid her eyes on. He was tall, about 6 feet tall, had broad shoulders that looked highly impressive in the blue blazer, which was a part of the Alasar Public School (the school Morticia and Jeena attended) uniform, and had the cutest face ever. As he walked with the class teacher, Morticia could not help noticing the way his straight, slightly on the longish side, brownish-black hair fell into his intense dark brown eyes and the way his mouth just slightly curled at the edge with confidence. She had to be dreaming.

The boy, whoever he was, was carrying his bag with him. The class teacher announced him to be Zarif Hussain from Tamil Nadu and had just got transferred to Alasar, a Union Territory in India, between the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, generally mistaken to be a part of Delhi; and that he was to be their new class mate. Then she asked him to take a seat, pointing, of all places, to the empty seat next to Leena and diagonal to Morticia.

Morticia stopped breathing as her eyes followed each and every step he took towards her. He then coolly slung his bag off his shoulder, dumped it on the ground and dropped himself onto the seat next to a fidgeting Leena. Morticia could not believe her luck. The cutest boy in the world was sitting right next to her, well almost right next to her, and she was speechless.

Next