When Saksham reached home, it was already 3:00 PM. As he entered his home, his mother asked him, "Where were you till now? The school gets over at 2:00 PM and it has been a whole hour."Saksham playfully hugged his mother like a koala and said, "I was just talking with my friends about the upcoming exams. That"s why I was a little late. And sorry, I took Rs70 from your purse today and forgot to tell you about it."
Saksham"s mother, Savitri, pulled his cheeks a little and said with a smile, "And here I was wondering where I could have lost those. It"s good that you told me about it or else I would have been thinking about this the whole day."
"Now, go hang around some other tree. I have to make lunch." Savitri said this and turned around and entered the kitchen.
Seeing this, Saksham was surprised. He said hesitatingly, "Actually, I took it for-"
Before Saksham could complete his sentence, his mother cut him off and said, "Don"t worry. I won"t scold you for how you use them until you do something bad with them. And this is also the first time that you have asked for money for something other than studying, so it doesn"t matter."
Hearing this, the guilt and shame that Saksham was feeling earlier also lessened a lot. He now felt a warm current rising in his heart. His eyes also became a little red. He sneakily went inside the kitchen and kissed his mother"s cheeks quickly and then ran off to his room.
Inside the kitchen, Savitri was left, shaking her head and smiling wryly. She wiped her cheeks and then once again busied herself in making lunch.
.....
Night
Saksham was studying quietly when suddenly he heard his someone knocking on his door. He stood up and opened up the door. Outside the door, it was his father who had just come home after a long day at work. His father"s name was Arjun Nayak. He was 5"9, rough-looking, middle-aged man. He was an honest person who valued morals and manners. He also taught this to Saksham ever since he was a little kid.
As Arjun entered the home, Savitri also stood up to get a gla.s.s of water for the tired Arjun. Arjun quietly sat on a sofa and drank water. Saksham"s inherited his quiet att.i.tude from his father. When he drank up the whole gla.s.s of water, he looked up at Saksham and said in a weird tone, "Today when I was coming home from work, I saw there was huge crowd on the road. When I got near the crowd to see what was going on, I heard people talking about 4 young boys wearing your school"s uniform, got into an accident just a little earlier and none survived. At first I was just going to pa.s.s, suddenly I felt that it"d be better if I see who those four poor souls were."
"When I got a little near to the scene of accident, I saw four boys" bodies who"s face, arms, legs and other bones were bent at a weird angle. The whole road was red with their blood. It smelled quite horrible so I just thought about getting out of there when I caught a glimpse of one of the face. It was...your friend, the one who had met us in the Parents Teacher Meeting last time. And if I"m not wrong, the other 3 boys were also your friends. One of them even had Rs200 caught tightly in his hands which were later received by the police who came by just a few moments later."
As Saksham heard this, his heart almost jumped out of his throat. He suddenly felt a little cool in his back. He couldn"t decide whether he should be happy about this news or creeped out.