Sharanya Shyamdas

5.0  

Sharanya Shyamdas

Maths Homework Made Us Friends

Maths Homework Made Us Friends

4 mins
16.9K


“Yeww! Ananya, I hate the smell of this fish. Will you please throw it away??”

“Throw?? This is my lunch Ayan. I can’t have the rice without fish. My amma made this early in the morning just like your umma made chicken pathiri for you”

“Aaahhh, I don’t know all that. It stinks! Never ever bring this again”

“But I never tell you don’t bring mutton or chicken. This is not fair”

“Fish stinks. Chicken doesn’t.”

“I’m not talking to you”

“As if I care”

If it not were for the attendance order, Ananya and Ayan would have never sat together. Ananya had only recently joined the school and was yet to make some friends. Ayan had been in the same school for 3 years now. Not a single day passes by without them fighting.

“Can I borrow your eraser Ayan?”

“NO!”

“I made a calculation error. Mercy miss is taking her rounds. She would be here soon. Please give me your eraser or else she will shout at me”

“You should have thought that before eating fish for lunch. I’m not giving it to you”

Ananya grabbed the eraser and started erasing her mistake. Before she could finish erasing it, Ayan pulled her hair. She let out a loud cry. Mercy miss lost her temper. She screamed “Out of my class! Both of you!”

Both of them stood outside the class and leaned to the wall.

“It’s all because of you fish-eating-girl. Now Mercy miss is going to write this in our diaries”

“It’s because of you. You could have lent me your eraser.”

“My uppa brought that from gulf. I don’t want anybody else to use it, it’s my favourite eraser. I want to save it until he comes back for Ramadan next year”

“I’m sorry. But your eraser is not going to wear out if I use it once”

“You’ll make it a habit. Everybody else would too. Last time, Rahul took my eraser and never returned it. “

The long bell rang and the blue and white army swarmed towards the school bus. Ayan got into the bus and threw his bag to his favourite penultimate window seat.

“Ufff Ayan! You threw it onto my head!”

“Oh My God! Why is this girl everywhere?”

“My mom got me enrolled for the school bus from today.

Driver Uncle said this is my bus”

“Out of all the routes and buses, you had to be in my bus. Impossible!”

So now Ayan had to bear Ananya not only in classes, but also in the school bus. Week after week he kept ranting about Ananya to his umma. Ananya had the same old story to tell her mom. She hasn’t made any friends. But she has an enemy now.

Almost three weeks passed by and it was another scary mathematics class. Just when miss Mercy started taking rounds, Ayan realised that he had not done his homework. He was really scared. Mercy miss was nothing like her name sounded. Ayan was getting himself ready for some ear twisting and twirling. Ananya quickly grabbed his notebook and started writing on it.

“What are you doing Ananya?!”

“I have done the homework. I’ll quickly copy it into for you before she reaches our desk”

“Don’t do it. You know how much she hates copying homework. We’ll both get 100 times impositions and she’ll also call our parents”

“But if I can quickly finish it, she will not twist your ears”

Ananya was quick. She managed to copy all answers into his book before Mercy miss came to their desk. Ayan just sat there closing his eyes. She glanced through their notebooks and made sure they have all done their home-works. She then moved to the next row.

“She’s gone Ayan” “Allah! You saved me today. Thank You Ananya.”

The 4 pm bell rang and the army ran to the bus once again. Ananya settled down onto one of those empty seats.

“Ananya! Come here” Ayan had blocked a seat for her, with his bag, in his favourite penultimate seat. “Why?”

“Because I saved this seat for you”

Ananya smiled and ran towards her new seat.

Ayan extended his left hand towards her and asked with a

grin “Friends?”

“Friends” blushed Ananya.

P.S: This is a real story from my schooldays. We became good friends after the homework incident and he never complained about fishes anymore. He left the school within a couple of years and moved to Middle East. A year ago, we met on Facebook and we were both reminiscing bits and bytes of how we became friends, ROFL over our fish and eraser stories


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