Dark Variations

"I'm not talking about spit balls or jelly in the teacher's desk or shit like that. We have to do something big!" said Saleem, glancing at the other three.

They were sitting on the brown benches next to the school football field, sheltered by the fir trees nearby. A traditional hang-out place.

"Yeah, something all the bachchaas remember for a long, long time. Some ground-breaking spectacular stuff that will rattle everyone." replied James.

"Hmmm, we don't have much time, do we? It is Monday today. Only one week left for our farewell." Ankit added.

"Yeah, we have to come up with something quick! Anyone got any new ideas after our last meeting?" Rahul asked.

Everyone pondered for a while. Saleem spoke first.

"Hmmm...let's see. At what time during school should we do this to have the maximum impact?"

"If we do it during class hours, we will have to do something loud enough for the whole school to hear. Or..." Ankit's face suddenly lit up "...we could use the intercom! Then we can make some sort of false alarm, get school cancelled or something."

"No, that won't be possible." Rahul said, shaking his head. "It is in a crowded section of the office, it would be impossible for us to get in without being seen. No, I think it would be more efficient to do something during the assembly when everyone is together."

Saleem suddenly sprung up. "Hey, that reminds me. Remember reading something like this on the internet. Why not cause a huge disruption during the assembly? Create enough chaos and pandemonium to get school postponed or something."

"Seems like a nice plan. But how do you propose we do that?" asked Rahul.

"Rats. Lots of rats. There is a pet store close to my house. We can pool together a bit of cash and get enough of those furry critters to give the bachchaas a proper shock."

"Nice! If well-orchestrated, it can cause some serious disruption, especially amongst the fifth and sixth grade students." James stated.

Rahul jumped up from the bench with some new-found purpose. "Right! Let's do it then! Saleem, go today and find out the prices. We will meet again here tomorrow and finalise the date and method."

Saleem, James, Rahul and Ankit were four tenth grade students of St. Teresas High School. Every school has some students who are more famous than the rest, the ones getting good marks, the ones in the teacher's good books, the ones having lots of friends and getting hooked up and indulging in vices first. These four fitted that bill pretty well. They also had a reputation for being mischievous, playing gags and joking around with others but never in a bad way. When school came to an end, they naturally took it upon themselves to do something big, to go out with a bang.

They met the next day and finalised the plan. It would be done the next morning, on Wednesday. On the big day, all of them got into place. While the mike was being adjusted and the speaker was preparing to start, they released the vermin from their bags.

It went like clockwork. Surrounded by the large crowd, the rats got confused and ended up going in circles, scaring a big chunk of the students. Within a minute, the hall was filled with screams and confusion. People fought with one another to reach the exits, dropping their bags and water-bottles which spilt water everywhere. People slipped and fell, creating even more chaos. The prefects tried to restore some order but it was futile. Half of them were scared themselves. Once the rats found their way to the exit the people standing there got petrified and started running away. A lot of people were laughing as well, enjoying the absolute anarchy which was created. After everyone was sure that all the rats had exited the school building, they went to class directly. A lot of them were still scared to go up, thinking some rats may be left over. It took hours for things to get back to normal.

That evening, after the school got over, the four of them met to celebrate a job well done, partying well into the night. Rahul barely made it to the assembly the next day on time. All the students were getting ready for the national anthem when their principal, Michael De Silva came on the stage. He wasn't looking pleased. He spoke in a stern voice,

"I am extremely saddened and disappointed with yesterday's events. This is an institute of learning. Here you are supposed to inculcate values that you will carry towards your adult life like discipline and a sense of civic duty. Yesterday's prank was in stark contrast to the very principles the school stands for and what I expect you to follow. I know the seniors are behind this, the smaller students could not have pulled off something of this magnitude. I am not going to let this go unpunished. Certain people need to be a taught a lesson in correct social behaviour."

He paused a little for emphasis, letting them know tacitly that the worst was yet to come.

"The farewell party for the tenth grade students, scheduled on Sunday is, as of now, suspended. It will continue to be till the perpetrators come to my office and admit their ill-behaved act. If that does not happen, then Saturday will be the last working day for the batch passing out. That will be all. The assembly will now continue."

"I don't fucking believe it!" said Rahul "Has anyone ever seen De Silva so fucking pissed?"

The four of them met at the regular hang-out place the next morning.

"I can't believe we didn't consider something like this happening. We so calmly went forward with the whole charade, not thinking about any backlash we may face from authorities." Ankit said with some distress.

"No, you idiot, we did! You think we would do something like this without making sure that there are no loose ends? On the very first time that we talked about doing a big prank we all agreed De Silva is cool enough to not do anything about it. He has laughed off such incidents in the past. Fine, maybe our prank was a little more impudent but we all expected him to not do anything serious." James reminded him.

"Yeah, but nice guys have a breaking point too. And nice guys are the ones who get pissed off the most when they do get pissed off." Saleem endeavoured to explain.

"That is true, he must have thought we took him for granted or something and all the anger of the past few years must have come out at once." James added.

"Well, he was really angry during the assembly. He is not going to let this one go easily." Rahul observed.

"He won't be satisfied unless someone gets punished." Saleem replied.

"If we don't come up with something we very well might have to. The other students of our batch are all extremely angry at what happened. If they somehow get wind that we've done this, we are all going to be in a lot of trouble. We will be antagonised by them for a long time, we will be remembered as the ones who got the farewell cancelled. And we know all what a big school tradition it is. We'd been looking forward to it for months." said Rahul.

Saleem hesitated for a while after Rahul finished before replying.

"Actually I was thinking that we get someone else punished, not us. A scapegoat. We tell his name, the principal maybe gives him detention or something but allows the rest of us to attend the farewell."

"And just who would be our scapegoat? Who can we pin this on without feeling guilty and without seeming like we're lying?" Ankit spoke up.

They all exchanged glances. It was very obvious who. Ankit took the initiative to speak what they were thinking.

"Naresh."

Every school has its share of unpopular pupils as well, and they didn't come as notorious as Naresh, a person it was cool to hate. He did not talk much with the other students, would mostly keep to himself. He was very petulant and contemptuous of others. He also liked to get other people in trouble but he never kept his pranks within limits and would always get into fights. He did not have the good looks and the charm that the other four possessed. He had often been involved in spats with the other four. He wasn't on good terms with the teachers either despite getting really good marks.

"Well, I guess we will have to do it. We have no other way. If we don't do anything in the next two days, it's all over. Anything worth trying should be tried immediately. We are in a crisis situation." Rahul said.

"So you are suggesting that the four of us walk into the principal's office and lie to his face?" Ankit asked.

"It is worth a shot actually. No one likes him that much, including De Silva. He has run into trouble with the principal before. It will be his word against ours and they have ample reason to trust us. I'm sure the principal would also want to settle off the matter as soon as possible, I don't think he would want the farewell to get scrapped himself, it would make him very unpopular amongst us, and he has usually taken care to make sure he is well-liked and thought of as cool. We should go as soon as possible." James said.

"Or maybe only you should go Saleem. Your father's good friends with the principal, isn't he? He comes to your house once in a while and all." Rahul suggested.

"No, no I don't think that is a good idea." Saleem replied, a little uncomfortable at the thought. "I hardly talk to him when he comes, and even if I do, it is very formal. And anyway, the problem I have is, if any one of us goes alone, he may feel that we have some sort of personal grudge against Naresh and are looking for revenge. It would look much stronger if we all go, he knows all of us as it is and has very good impressions of us as well. He will have very good reason to trust us if we all go."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Fine, let us meet up immediately after school gets over outside his office." Rahul instructed.

Just then the bell for the assembly rang and they gathered their bags and went. They did not have to wait till the end of school that day to meet the principal. They were summoned into his office by some prefects who had come into their divisions half an hour after the lunch break. Rahul, confused at this new development, was the last to walk in. The other three were already there. The principal wasted no time after he entered.

"I am extremely disappointed with the four of you. You used to be model students. Looks like all those praises went to your head and made you think you were invincible enough to pull off something so insolent."

Rahul felt numb. He had difficulty in finding the feet he was standing on. He could see where this was going, and yet he could not believe it.

"It is a good thing that at least Saleem felt the pricking of his conscience and came to me and confessed your crime. Otherwise, God knows, you would have escaped scot-free after such a bold act of utter indiscipline in school."

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that ensued. The three of them were absolutely stunned. James' jaw visibly dropped for a couple of seconds. Saleem shifted uncomfortably, staring fixedly at a point somewhere between his shoes. Slowly, the three of them turned their faces to look at his, which betrayed no emotion, looking calm yet a little jittery.

"Saleem, why don't you go back to class? I want to talk to the three of them in private."

"No Sir! Any punishment, any scathing words of anger you wish to slap on them, I will face it too. We are all in this together. And more than that, we are best friends. So I will stay right here no matter what you say and let me just tell you..."

"SALEEM!" De Silva roared, cutting his monologue short. "Out, NOW!"

"But Sir...

"Don't you dare ignore a direct order from me! If you do, you will be in worse trouble than you can imagine. Now OUT!"

Saleem quickly put his right hand inside his trouser pocket and produced a white sheet of paper folded up a number of times. He looked left to Rahul, who was standing immediately next to him, and said,

"Please take this. Read it before you do anything."

"I'm not taking anything from you, you rat-faced backstabbing bastard."

"SILENCE! I will not tolerate such filthy language in my office."

Saleem quickly put the piece of paper on the principal's table and walked out. De Silva continued after he left.

"So, you thought you could take part in such a big act of insubordination and just walk away from it? Well, I'm going to make sure you remember the importance and worth of discipline. You will be coming to my office for detention for a month for 5 hours, from 4 to 9, starting tomorrow."

"But Sir, our exams..."

"I don't care how soon your exams are. You should have thought of that before getting the gall to commit such a fiendish act, shouldn't you? And no compunctions even after it has been committed! Walking around like honest, law-abiding citizens. I pray for the future of this country. Go out and kneel in front of my office. And you will be kneeling a good distance away from each other, I don't want you to pass each other's time with entertaining banter. You can leave when the final bell rings, but after the other students have left. I expect you to be here at 4 sharp tomorrow. That will be all."

He dismissed them with a wave of his hand, his expression and demeanour making it clear that he wasn't in any mood for pleas or justifications.

Slowly, still reeling from the shock, the three of them dragged themselves outside and got on their knees. They stayed there till school got over, each lost in his own thoughts. After the other students had left, they picked up their bags from class. Rahul picked up Saleem's crumpled piece of paper from the table before leaving.

"I don't believe it! He betrayed us! He fucking betrayed us! Just wait till I get my hands on him!" Rahul spoke.

The three of them were walking back home with slow dejected strides. James reminded him of the letter. Rahul unfolded it, his hands shaking with fury and began reading.

"I know that right now more than anything else you three would want to tear me apart with your bare hands. But listen to me please. I was forced to do whatever I did. I had no choice.

"Naresh knew. He knew we were behind the whole thing. He had seen me go to the pet store after school. After the prank, he understood why. He went to the pet store and asked the guy at the counter what I asked for and was reassured that he was right.

"He accosted me during the lunch break today. He said that if I didn't go right there and then and confess everything to the principal, he would. He said he even got a testimony from the guy at the pet store. You know how much he hates all of us. He would go to any lengths to screw us up. I had to tell De Silva myself, if I let him go he would have made the whole thing sound ten times worse, and would have tried to get us expelled or something. And he had proof. And the fact that we hid the whole thing would have made it worse.

"I fought our case properly, appealed to him emotionally and told him we only did it because we enjoyed our school years so much and wanted to do something big in the end. He was very obstinate at first, then he agreed that the only punishment he would give was banning us from the farewell.

"I wanted to tell you three all this after the lunch break but didn't get a chance. So I wrote this down because I realised we would be summoned before school got over."

Rahul crumpled the note after he had finished reading. Nobody spoke for a while.

"Son of a bitch! Naresh found out everything!" Ankit finally said.

"Why didn't he call us when Naresh caught him? He could have at least signalled to us or something that Naresh was blackmailing him before directly going to De Silva." Rahul asked.

"Obviously Naresh wouldn't have given him that sort of liberty with time. He would have told him to go to the principal immediately or he would go himself. And obviously, Saleem couldn't allow that. It would have been a lot worse for us then, like he rightly says." James replied.

"Fine, but why didn't he tell us immediately after that then? He could have found us before the break got over."

"Well, it would have been difficult for him to get all four of us, we are in different divisions and all. Plus it wasn't exactly something he could have explained in a hurry, and he must have been in shock as well."

"I don't know. I still feel something is fishy. I don't see why he would have to....wait a minute! We're so fucking stupid! There is a very simple way to determine if he is lying or not."

Rahul put his hand in his pocket and removed his cell phone. He dialled a number, signalled the two of them to remain silent and walked away from them speaking into the phone in a hushed voice.

"What is he doing?" Ankit asked James.

"I don't know. But from the looks of it, something unpleasant. He doesn't seem to be very pleased to hear what he is hearing."

He was right. Rahul's face was contorted in a grimace of outrage. After a short while, he kept the phone back in his pocket and almost shouted,

"That two-faced bastard! He lied to us again! I was on the phone with Naresh, and he says he did not even meet Saleem during the lunch break today. In fact, he had gone with his friends to eat outside."

Ankit and James' faces went blank as they comprehended this, not knowing how many more such shocks they would have to take today. Rahul continued, seeing they were too jarred to reply.

"Just wait till I get my hands on that fucker. He is going to be real sorry he ratted out on us."

"Maybe he's lying about meeting Saleem." James finally spoke up, still not able to believe what he heard.

"Why would he lie? If that thing that Saleem wrote about actually happened, Naresh would be gloating about it right now, he would be putting up fucking posters everywhere proclaiming that he got the four of us barred from the farewell. You know that we've been sworn rivals for years. He would absolutely jump at getting such an opportunity. He would go to the principal immediately, he would tell the others in school immediately, he would stop at nothing to make sure we get the maximum punishment. He wouldn't give us a chance to mitigate our predicament on a golden platter by telling us that he knows and allowing us to come clean to the principal, thereby getting a shorter sentence. I know him. I'm telling you, Saleem is lying. That son of a bitch screwed us over properly." Rahul said, he voice increasing steadily. He continued after catching his breath.

"It was him. He was the one who came up with the scapegoat idea, wasn't he? He must have realised that the principal wouldn't believe his story about Naresh because we have always been enemies with him. And he had no proof. So he decided to make us the scapegoats behind our backs and got himself excused from detention by being the honest one who confessed. He was the one who bought the rats. He could have very easily proved the whole thing to the principal. Plus why would De Silva suspect him if he was incriminating himself and his friends? That Saleem was always two steps ahead of us. What a clever cover-up, writing a note and all! I'm very impressed." said Rahul with disgust.

"He always used to talk about how awesome it is to pull pranks on those who love pulling them on others, didn't he?" Ankit remembered.

There was a pause again. They continued walking, trying to comprehend what was happening and what they were feeling. Then Rahul spoke, his angry voice shattering the silence.

"No! We are not going to let this one go away just like that. Forget the detention we have to do, the fact that he lied to us, his best friends about such a big thing is unpardonable. We are going to get back at him big. Make sure he doesn't forget crossing paths with us. Follow me."

He took a left turn towards an alley and increased his strides. There was a telephone booth at the end of it.

"No, no, no wait!" James shouted, hurrying after him. "We haven't thought this through. Naresh does have some reason to lie. He'd know that we would fight against each other if he did, that by lying he can create rifts in our friendship. That's exactly the sort of thing he would want. Don't you think we should at least talk to Saleem about this first? What are you going to do?"

Rahul didn't reply. He entered the booth, quickly put in a rupee coin and dialled a number. Through the open door, James could hear him.

"Hello Mrs. Aziz" he spoke in a fake baritone voice, "Look in the middle compartment at the bottom of Saleem's cupboard. Search for a small green notebook. Inside it you will find a CD he should not possess. I am someone who wants to save your son from decadence."

He quickly put the phone down.

"There! Now he will get a nice little shock when he reaches home."

At around the same time, Saleem, having left earlier than the other three, had almost reached home. Everything had gone perfectly, like a dream. He had always wanted to pull a con on the other three before school ended. No sweeter thing in the world than fooling seasoned pranksters, he thought. He was afraid about De Silva's reaction when he went to him with the whole story, but surprisingly there were no problems. He would meet them tomorrow, after he was sure that they had gone through his letter.

He checked his watch and walked up the steps to his door. He rang the bell and his mother answered.

"Someone is here to see you." she said, before going to answer the phone that had just started ringing.

Saleem walked into the hall, and saw him watching television. He had come fifteen minutes earlier than he said he would. Must have come on his scooter, Saleem thought. He sat next to him and said,

"I loved the speech you gave today Sir! It was every bit as impressive and dramatic as the one you gave during the assembly yesterday. I did not know you were so good at this! Also, I must admit, I did not think that you would agree to do this and would enjoy doing it so much."

Laughing, the principal turned to face him.

"Haha, well I was a student too once wasn't I? We used to tear up the campus with our pranks back in the good old days. I was very impressed with your elaborate plan, indeed, we wouldn't have done anything less intricate in our school days!"

He laughed lightly again and then paused, casting a nostalgic look towards the window.

"I've been around students more than half my life you know. You could say I find vestiges of my childhood watching them. That is why I am usually lenient with them, why I am usually 'cool' to use your lingo. Because I can understand them. I was more than happy to do this Saleem. Made me think of my golden years."

Saleem smiled.

They wanted to do something that would be immortalised in the annals of the school. They wanted to do something before passing out that all their juniors would not forget. He did a one up on them.

He pulled off a caper that even they would remember.