In through the Window

                                                         

It was yet another blistering hot afternoon as I rode back home on my scooter. Today, I was coming home 30 minutes late as my chemistry teacher had extended the class to finish the chapter. I rode through the lanes of my sleepy colony. Such afternoons are indeed meant to sleep off. 

Reaching my home, I sighed hearing all the ruckus from our neighbours. The machines whirred and hammers came down as construction workers built a new home for our neighbours. I don’t know why they were building such a big mansion. 

Anyways, I rushed into the coolness of my home. After freshening up, the first thing me, my brother and my mother decided was to take a power nap. So, we lay in the master bedroom with the air conditioner making it feel like winter had come early. But the banging noise coming from the house next door was highly annoying and was making it difficult for us to sleep. 

Nevertheless, we lay just to rest our eyes and body. Suddenly, we heard the sound of breaking glass. I opened my eyes to see a big stone laying on the floor. Pieces of glass were being shattered around it. I looked at the gaping hole in the window. In through the window came a dark skinned boy, with ruffled hair and tattered clothes. The boy who looked barely eleven, stared at all three of us on the bed and we stared back at him stupidly thinking if it was just our hallucination or not. 

My mother reacted first and tried to grab the boy who was still in his landing position, he looked pale and unsure. My brother went to help my mother. But somehow my subconscious told me to move outside. I crossed the hall and stood in front of the front door. In less than a minute the boy was out of the room and was running towards me. In his hand he was clutching something now, it was my Iron Man’s keychain onto which was also attached my mother’s car keys.

But the boy had the nerve to swipe MY IRON MAN KEYCHAIN. 

In our entire house he found only that. I know that it was mom’s car that he was after but my sole concern was the keychain. 

He stood ten steps away from me. My mother and brother had him cornered at the back and I was in front. The ruffigan looked both ways, came to a decision and ran towards me. I tried to hold him but he was incredibly skinny and slipped right through my hands and unbolted the door and ran out. 

I followed quickly behind him. We crossed the porch. He opened the main gate and yelped as I had just slapped hard on his back but he ran. And turned left, I followed him. 

I had forgotten my slippers by the bedside and was now running barefoot on the hot gravel road. But I paid no heed to physical discomfort. On the ramp of my house I can hear a man calling out to the boy to run back so that they could escape in the car. But the boy didn’t answer his cries. He knew if he turned back this time, he would run straight into my waiting claws. 

We kept running, the boy was swift and I was kind of an average runner. With so many months of no running I was happy to see that my stamina was still present, even though my heart was beating rapidly and my back was covered in sweat yet my legs were not cramping over and moving onwards swiftly. 

Then suddenly my subconscious gave me another advice, 'You can’t catch up with him, but you can trap him.’ Then using all my knowledge from Bollywood films I opened my mouth to scream, “Chor, chor, pakdo pakdo.” “Thief, thief, catch him.” 

I had a vision of a dark room but it passed away quickly and I saw that now we were reaching the temple on the end of the lane and my cries had indeed called the attention of the passers by. 

It was now 4:00 pm and mostly everyone was up from their naps. The people seeing me point at the tramp stopped him. I reached the newly gathered crowd and took in deep gulps of air.

In the crowd, I saw Mr. Sethi, who was my father’s friend. He was at the temple today to look over the arrangements for the “bhandara” to be organised the next day. 

He asked me, “What happened?” and I huffed (still out of breadth), “the boy has car keys.” 

Mr. Sethi snatched the car keys and gave them back to me with a puzzled look on his face. He spoke, “Beta, you ran this whole way for the keys? Shouldn’t you have stayed near the car so that they would have been unable to steal it and then used the spare keys to get the car locks changed.” 

I sighed, “I know but the keychain.”

Now Mr. Sethi looked amused, “You wanted to save this stupid keychain?” I was shocked, Iron Man was anything but stupid. Seriously, how can people live without watching a single Avengers movie. I wanted to tell Mr. Sethi to watch Avengers Endgame to realise the importance of Iron Man or better still he should start watching all the movies from Iron Man 1 to gain the real idea. 

But I was too tired to argue. We turned back home. All this time my mother and brother were standing outside near the car wondering why that scoundrel had run the other way and why had I followed him in the mad goose chase. 

I showed the keychain and a look of understanding passed through their faces. My brother was even nodding at me proudly.

The police came and questioned the boy about the man who had run away on seeing my mother and brother. He turned out to be the boy’s father who worked on the construction site. 

And after a slight scuffle the police brought out the truth from his mouth. That guy was a fired car mechanic as he had allegedly done some petty theft in the garage. He was not getting a decent job and ended up being a labourer in the next door construction site. He observed our moments for the entire week and realised that by 4 pm – My brother was in his room studying and mother was helping and I was upstairs in my room. 

That left the master bedroom empty and owing to all the ruckus at the construction site and the sound of AC, no one would notice his son breaking and cleaning the house of costly things and leaving silently with the car keys for them to run away on. 

It was really scary to think of the consequences had their plan succeeded and they ran away. 

Guess I have to be thankful to my chemistry sir for leaving us late to delay our nap session and foil their plan. 

The police officer praised me for running after the boy and nabbing him. Finally, someone to appreciate my efforts, instead of being amused. 

They were even thinking of giving me a bravery award but now everything around me was getting black. 

I woke up to find my nose inches away from the floor. I was suspended midair by my entangled blanket. Carefully I pulled myself upon the bed and lay back feeling hot as I guess the electricity went out some time ago leaving the room stuffy and sweat on my back. 

No doubt, my legs were not tired as dreaming rarely gives physical exertion.

In the morning, I rushed to my mother and told her my dream excitedly and told her how it was going to turn into my new blog. She laughed it off and declared it lame. But I was adamant to pen it down because:-

A.      I was a hero in it.

B.      I saved Iron Man.

So, here is this blog. Do let me know in the comments section below whether you hold the same views as me or my mother.

P.S. My mother has already read this blog 2-3 times and will go for re-reads cause this is how moms are. They end up loving our every action.