Not So Innocent Children

One second please…Let me just introspect. I am in an attempt to recollect something. I can get easily disturbed from my thoughts if you people keep on talking and chattering like this. I am trying to write some of my past experiences in order to make my blog alive. Yes, I remember, it was in my childhood days, more exactly, during my school days, and to be precise, I was then a fourth standard kid wearing knickers and backpack, which was full of text books, and additional story books, usually borrowed from classmates, and with a water bottle in hand. 

Water bottle! Yes! Water bottle is my today’s subject. I hope you also are well familiar with water bottles. My water bottle was a light green coloured one with a dumbest shape. Dumbest is the word immediately came to my mind when I attempt to describe it, because I don’t exactly remember its shape. 

One usual day with repetitive lessons, teacher’s punishment stick, orations, writing exercises, and yawns. The time is some more minutes to 4 PM. We are all set to respond to the final bell, to pick up bags, umbrellas, and water bottles.  I have already done with packing my text books in my bag. And the water bottle? Yes, it is there next to my right hand, so that I can pick it up easily in the process of running outside with enthusiasm. 

Someone sitting in my row suddenly complained, “teacher, I am not seeing my water bottle. It was here till a few minutes ago.”

Everybody’s attention turned to our side.  Teacher came and asked him to search everywhere, “You might have misplaced it somewhere accidentally,” she said.

“No teacher, I just have put it here itself. I remember it very much”, with a pathetic expression, he said.

His friend, M, suddenly poked his nose into the water bottle affair. “Let’s have a search through everybody’s bags. What if someone has stolen it? Let us start it with my own bag,” saying so, he undid his neatly packed bag, and showed us all that there is nothing suspicious.

He then checked the bag of the one who lost his water bottle, “Perhaps, you might have put it in the bag and then forgot,” he said, “but here either is not your bottle”. He finished checking that bag also.

“A water bottle? Where could it have gone? It must be somewhere beneath the seats”, I thought. Suddenly, M turned to me and said smiling mysteriously, “Now, let us check your bag. Show it me!”

I objected. ‘Why? I haven’t taken anyone’s bottle. Why Should I? I have my own one”. As one of the academically highly performing ones in the class, I cannot even be suspected for such a theft case, or that is my ego. But, M compellingly grabbed my bag, undid its straps carefully, and dramatically pulled out a colourful water bottle, the same one which was reported to be missing a few minutes before. 

I opened my mouth while shockingly staring at the water bottle. “Strange!” I thought. “How could have that water bottle came into my bag?” It was true that I had noticed an unusual bulge in my bag while waiting for the final bell. 

“You have stolen it,” M blamed me. Scared, I looked at the teacher seeking help. Here goes the dignity of the teacher’s pet. “Teacher, it was not me who put it there in my bag,” I was about to break into tears.

The teacher, who was a catholic nun, said with a smile. “God will reveal the truth one day”. She then left our row.

Years after, I heard about my friend M, that he was arrested by police, for trying to harm a small kid. When that little boy, knocked his door step seeking some water, M served him with a glassful of kerosene. Hearing that news, I suddenly thought about the old water bottle affair, and though with no proof, made some speculations on how that bottle came into my bag without my knowledge.