The runaway raquet

Kavitha Mandana shares the story of a fun English assignment.

Vrinda had her own ‘Mood-metre’ to gauge what Ms Sundaram was planning for her various English classes. Whenever the bespectacled teacher arrived at Grade 6 D in a flurry of flying papers, flapping slippers and trailing dupatta, it usually meant that she had something super interesting up the sleeve of her crisp cotton kurta.

Last week’s surprise homework had been to write a limerick on any one character from ‘Rusty: the Boy from the Hills’. Vrinda’s favourite assignment was when they had come close to the end of reading aloud from the prescribed reader, Ms Sundaram dramatically stopped just before the last chapter. She then personally collected everybody’s textbook, and told them to write their own ‘Last chapter’ over the next two English periods! What fun that had been…, particularly when they compared their own concluding chapters with the original author’s version.

Today, Vrinda felt a frisson of excitement run up her spine. At lunch break, she’d overheard her friends from Grade 6 A whispering about something new. She couldn’t bear waiting for Ms Sundaram’s class, and sure enough, she arrived, dupatta trailing on the ground, spectacles almost falling off the tip of her nose and a frown of concentration on her face.

The class was silent. Each one waiting breathlessly for Ms Sundaram’s latest surprise. Nobody needed to be told to ‘Be quiet!’. Ms Sundaram turned her back to the class, picked up a broken piece of chalk and wrote in large letters — ‘CO-AUTHORS’ across the broad.

Over the next few minutes, she explained the assignment. Each student could pair up with anyone from class (even a Grade 6-er from another section) and jointly write a short story set in any place other than Bengaluru. The best part was that there was no time limit, but those who submitted early, got points for their respective houses and book vouchers for the annual book fair.

Right away, Vrinda knew who her writing partner or co-author would be — none other than her tennis buddy Mithun. Considering they spent hours at the Cubbon Park tennis courts every evening, doing their homework as they waited for their turn at practice, co-authoring a short story would be easiest with Mithun.

Since Mithun was a legendary homework-avoider, using his tennis practice shamelessly as an excuse for EVERYTHING, Vrinda was surprised how excited he was about writing a story. He’d wanted to write a tennis thriller, but they finally decided that the episode of the stray dog who disrupted a match for Under 12s would be more fun.

They wrote it out, taking care to relocate all that they’d witnessed live at the Cubbon Park tennis courts, to the Chennai Gymkhana courts, where they’d both played tournaments.

In fact, they submitted the story so early, they each got a Rs 250 book voucher. And then they forgot about it till their story, ‘The Runaway Raquet’ was awardedthe Best Story in Mithun’s class, Grade 6 A.

In Vrinda’s class of Gr 6 D, the story didn’t win 1st, 2nd or 3rd. While one half of her was thrilled that their story had ranked
No 1 at least in one of their classes, another side of her felt miserable! Everyone would now think it was Mithun’s idea. And God knows what fancy prize he’d get in Section A. So while she sent him a fake cheerful message full of celebratory emojis, she couldn’t bear the thought of faking happiness face-to-face. She skipped Wednesday’s tennis practice.

Thursday morning she woke up in a dark mood — hating herself for hating Mithun only because the story they’d co-authored had won a prize in his class and not hers! During lunch break, while she was once again wondering whether to skip tennis practice, Mithun barged into Section D.

“Hurry! They’re giving out our prize!” As she followed him back to his class, there was Ms Sundaram, beaming away with certificates in hand. And when the First Prize was called out, both she and Mithun walked to the front together and collected individual certificates.

Vrinda was relieved she hadn’t cancelled tennis practice again. Because at the courts that evening, before Coach arrived, Mithun wanted to co-author another tennis story!