Neel Dervin and the Dark Angel (15 page)

His audience seemed disappointed with his narrative, and most of them returned to their
seats. In any case, the first period was due to begin in minutes, and their class teacher, Mrs.
Khurana, believed strongly in absolute discipline in the classroom.

“You didn‟t miss much.”
Sonaliinformed him as the others left. “It‟s been a slow week.
And the teachers will probably go easy on you because you‟ve just returned from the
hospital.” she made a face. “Except Ticolo, of course.”

“Yeah, well. I wasn‟t expecting much from him.” Neel said.

“Good thing you‟re not.” Aryan said darkly. “
Last Friday he made a student stand
outside the classroom for two periods because he forgot to do his work.Didn‟t matter that the
he‟d sprained his wrist.”

Mrs. Khurana entered the classroom, a tall, forbidding looking woman with graying hair
and a pair of chain spectacles. The class rose to greet her, with a chanting of„Good morning,
Ma‟am‟. She looked the entire class over once and nodded.“Good morning, class. Sit down.”
The class resumed their seats, and Mrs. Khurana‟s gaze settled on Neel.

“So you‟re feeling well enough to attend classes again, Neelanchan?” she said. “I was
very sorry to hear about youraccident.”

 

“Thank you, Ma‟am.” Neel stood up. “I‟m feeling fine now.”

“Well, welcome back to class.” Mrs.
Khuranasaid. “You can ask your classmates to
bring you up to speed on whatever you have missed, and I expect you to have caught up on
everything by tomorrow.”

“Yes, Ma‟am.” Neel sat down
again. Mrs. Rai opened the attendance register, and began
the roll call. The class rummaged in their bags and took out their English books. The rest of
the class passed relatively peacefully. Mrs. Rai was a good teacher, kind but strict, and able to
get her point across to the students.

Then the bell rang, and Mrs. Khurana left the class to a
chorus of „Thank you, Mam‟.
Neel barely had time to ask Aryan about the math work when Mr. Pannikar, their history
teacher entered the classroom. The class stood again, and another chorus of „Good morning.‟
rang through the classroom.

“Good morning. Sit down, everyone.” Mr.
Pannikar called out in his calm, deep voice,
with a nod to the entireclass. “I hope everyone had a good weekend. Open your books at
page thirty one. Shilpa, start reading from where we left off last week.”

The class took out their history books and Shilpa rose to read. There was complete
silence in the room except for her voice. Mr. Pannikar had the ability to silence most students
with a glance. He walked slowly up and down the classroom, making sure thateveryone‟s
heads were bent over their books. Mr. Pannikar was from Kerala and had joined the school
five years ago. He was well over six feet tall, and made most students feel tiny when he stood
next to them. He was always dressed simply and neatly, and very rarely smiled, which
somehow made him appear all the more impressive. The students held him in awe, and the
temper he had exhibited in the past once or twice in connection with some excessively unruly
students had given the students a healthy amount of respect for him.

He walked up Neel‟s row, and stopped at his desk. Neel looked up and was about to
stand.

“No, no, keep sitting.” Mr.
Pannikar said quietly. A few of the students looked up from
their books. He gave them a look. They all hastily turned back to their books. He turned again
to Neel. “I heard that you had been admitted to the hospital after an accident. How do you
feel now?”

“I‟m fine, sir.” Neel said. “I recovered completely last week.” Mr. Pannikar nodded,
then continued up the row.

“Thank you,
Shilpa, that‟s enough.” he said. Shilpa sat down, and he gazed around the
class. “So what do these three paragraphs tell us about the Asian silk roads?” The class
hastily startedreading the paragraphs again. “Anand?”

Anand rose self consciously from his seat and looked at Mr. Pannikar
. “Er… it tells us
that they were roads that were used to travel overAsia … and silk was one of the major
products that were transported…”

Mr. Pannikar stared at him for a long moment. Several of the students tittered. But then
Mr. Pannikar nodded, and Anand sat down with relief. Mr. Pannikar turned to the other side
of the room. “Arvind?”

Arvind
rose. “The Silk Routes were important paths for cultural, commercial, and
technological exchange between merchants, pilgrims, missionaries, soldiers, and urban
dwellers from Ancient China, Ancient India, Ancient Tibet, Persian Empire...” His voice
droned on. His answer was almost word for word the same as in the book. He absent
mindedly pushed his spectacles, two sizes too big for him, up his nose as he gazed solemnly
at Mr. Pannikar.

Mr. Pannikarnodded to him as well. “Yes, sit down, Arvind.” He gazed around the class
room as Arvind sat down, making sure they were all listening. The class sat up straighter.

“
The silk road was of primary importance for communication between Asian territories
in the fifth century.” Mr. Pannikar said. “We will be dealing with their role in the spreading
of the cultures of different countries. Take out your copies and start taking notes.”

The rest of the classes passed in much the same fashion as they always had. It had only
taken the first two periods for Neel to lose the sense of newness he had experienced the day
before while contemplating returning to school. By the third period he felt as though he had
never been away at all. Indeed, sitting in the classroom, arguing with Karan and Aryan over
whether Enter the Dragon or Chachi 420 was worth watching on television that day, it was
the part ofNeel‟s time spent at Swan Labs that felt distant and unreal.

The biggest difference was in the sound level. It had not been so bad when the teachers
were present, but in between periods the discipline broke, and students gossiped and joked
together happily. Neel found himself listening unwillingly to Vijay describing how a
particularly spicy dish at a party had upset his stomach for a week, and Suman telling
Sweccha that her friend from another section had a crush on Aryan and wanted to meet him,
while Parthak complained bitterly to his best friend Mani about the itchy underwear that his
mother made him wear. Neel tried his best to ignore the chatter, and was glad when recess
finally came. The students scattered all over the campus to eat their lunches, and sitting with
Aryan and Nitin and the other boys in the open field made the sound level diminish
considerably.

Then they had a math class with Mr. Mathur, whom students had long ago nicknamed
Ticolo. He was a tiny, fussy man with round glasses and a receding hairline plastered
carefully over the large empty dome on top of his head. It took him eight minutes to pick out
Neel and start in on him. Why hadn‟t he completed the homework? Why had he wasted a
week of school work? What did he mean he was unwell? A leave of absence was no excuse.
Had he been able to sit up and read? Then he should have studied at home during his absence.
Students were required to hand in their assignments on the exact date. Why was he so
careless? Why did he insist on wasting the money his parents put into his education?

Neel tried his best to explain the situation, but arguments only increased Ticolo
‟s fussy
irritation. Aryan attempted gallantly to defend him, pointing out that students on sick leave
were allowed some time to readjust to school, and that Neel had been on leave in order to rest
from a serious injury, and that the other teachers had given him a few days to catch up on
schoolwork. It was a well reasoned and sensible argument, and the upshot was both of them
standing at the back of the class with their arms raised over their heads for the rest of the
period.

“If I didn‟t say it before, welcome back.” Aryan muttered to Neel as Mani and Shekhar
threw paper pellets at thembehind Ticolo‟s back.

Almost as bad was Ms. Awasthi
‟s class, their physics teacher. She was a relatively
younger addition to the school with a sugary sweet temperament, who had a heartily disliked
habit of treating all the students, from the juniors to the seniors, as though they were still in
the nursery. She swooped down on Neel at once and dragged him unwillingly to her desk at
the front.

“Does it still hurt, dear?” she asked anxiously, prodding his arm and shoulder.

 

“It‟s fine, Ma‟am.” Neel said politely, trying to back away without appearing to.

“Oh, you poor
thing, how you must have suffered.” she sighed, straightening his tie.
Aryan and the others sniggered in the back.“If you ever want to talk about what happened
that day, you come to my office straight away, all right? These awful memories can have a
terrible effect on the mind. You can talk to me
anytime
, all right, dear?”

“Thank you, Ma‟am.” Neel said, making a mental note to avoid her staff room in the
future.

“You should all learn a lesson from Neelanchan.” She told the rest of the class, seizing
his arm and turning him to face them. “Look how bravely he‟s standing there after having
gone throughsuch a terrible accident.” She pointed helpfully at Neel, and forty two pairs of
eyes were trained on his blushing countenance.

“It happened a week ago, Ma‟am.” Neel said, again trying to wriggle free.“And it
wasn‟t that terrible. Just my shoulder-”

“I know dear, but I‟m sure the memory is sti
ll
haunting
you.” Mrs. Awasthi persisted,
finally letting go of his arm.“It does you credit to try to put a brave face on things, but the
accident must have affected you
terribly.
”

“Not really.” Neel said politely but firmly. He
was anxious to discourage any future
conversations onthe topic. “I was unconscious after the first few minutes. And I woke up the
next day. So it really wasn‟t that bad. I really feel better than I ever have before.”

“So brave.” Mrs. Awasthi sighed. “
And I am
so
happy to hear you have grown stronger
from the experience.It‟s like the story of the caterpillar, children.” She turned to the class.
“Remember the one I told you all? One day, a sweet little caterpillar was chewing on a leaf
and having a wonderful time. But then
suddenly
he felt very sick.” She lowered her voice and
gazed around the class impressively. “He asked all his friends to cure him, but his health just
kept getting worse. Finally the sad, dear little caterpillar curled into a ball and fell into a deep
sleep. When he woke up, he was
amazed
to find himself in a cocoon. But the biggest surprise
was yet to come. When he finally managed to get out of the cocoon, he found the
most
beautiful pair
of colorful wings attached to his back. The little caterpillar had become a
lovely butterfly.” She gripped Neel‟s arm againand steered him closer to her desk. “Dear
Neelanchan passed through a very sad experience as well, but he feels much stronger now
that it is over. So you see, he is just like the dear,
brave
little caterpillar.” Applause and
shouts of agreement greeted the last statement, and the modestly bashful caterpillar carefully
avoided making eye contact with any of his classmates.

Finally she released Neel, and he walked rapidly back to his seat, restraining with
difficulty the urge to use his full speed. Mrs. Awasthi began the class and students rummaged
in their bags for pen and paper.

Aryan turned to Neel with a worried expression on his face
. “Dude, if you ever get the
urgeto suddenly sprout wings and start flapping around the classroom, you‟ll warn me first,
right?” The students seated nearby giggled loudly.

“Shut up.” Neel muttered, taking out his textbook.

Two periods later they had a physical training class. Now had come the part of school
that Neel had been anxious about the most. The boys assembled in the field with the soccer
ball. They trooped over to the goalpost and prepared to choose sides.

The field lay under them trimmed and marked neatly. A cool breeze was blowing around
them, causing their hair to whip around their faces. Students were talking and laughing as
they prepared to play. Even though he was nervous, Neel could not stop a grin from
appearing on his face as he stepped onto the field. He was only now conscious of how much
he had missed playing soccer. He had spent a week cooped up in his house, and even though
his visits to Swan Labs provided him with plenty of excitement and exercise, the atmosphere
there was usually very serious and earnest, and not nearly as much fun as playing with his
friends.Neel‟s spirits now rose as he strode through the familiar grounds.

Aryan and Vipin were declared captains, and the teams were chosen quickly. Everyone
paused when Neel‟s turn came.

 

Aryan looked at him. “You sure you‟re well enough to play?”

 

Neel nodded, his heart beating faster. It wasn‟t being well enough that he was worried
about. “Yeah, I can play.”

 

“Okay, Neel ison our side.” Aryan said. The remaining players were chosen, and the
teams moved to their places on the field.

Neel walked over to assume the defense position. It was the one he always played in.
Aryan had gone to the centre with Dev. The ball was passed between them, and the game
began.

Neel felt a rush as his mind automatically started tracing the path of the ball as fast as he
could. It wasn‟t long before his mind had started to speed up again.

Neel closed his eyes, trying not to panic. Now was not the time to get accelerated brain
speed. He couldn‟t risk moving faster than everyone else on the field. He took deep breaths
and concentrated on his heartbeat like he had been taught.He was in control… he was in
control….he was in-

“Neel!” The agonized yell of his teammates made him open his eyes abruptly. The ball
had passed within inches of his feet and was on its way towards the goalpost, where it was
barely caught in time by Haider.

“Come on, man, focus!” Haider shouted to Neel as he threw the ball back into play.
Neel‟s other teammates were also staring at him.