The
clue in the garden
“Wake up, get ready for school!!!’’ My
mother’s voice pierced through my dream.
It was a brilliant morning on the roads of
Keshav Nagar. The cool morning breeze freshened me. The sounds of the chirping
of birds were like music to my ears.
It was a typical day for me. I prepared for
school in less than an hour. I met Ravi and he joined me when I walked
down the asphalt toward my school.
The school was about a mile from our house. It
required 30 minutes to arrive. The school was little and immaterial, yet it was
set in an extensive and delightful open countryside adjacent to an equally beautiful
forest.
“Hello,” Ravi abruptly shouted.
I was blissful as I saw one of my friends Som, headed out to welcome us. “You
are always late. But today you seem punctual,” I remarked as we strolled
together to the entry of our school. We spoke as we journeyed through the colorful
bazaars of our town. “Do you know? Our watchman reported that yesterday,
something strange occurred,” Som informed us. “Really?! What is it?” I was
curious. “Yesterday night, he had left his square shoes outside the school
garden for some strange reason and went away. When he returned, he found his
shoes were missing! He thought some mischief-maker was around and hunting for
him. But he found no one. Our headmaster will not believe him when he hears the
tale.”
We walked towards our school garden. It was
the most gorgeous part of our school. As we walked, I witnessed one of our
teachers, Mr. Ram, bent over a gathering of flower shrubs in a corner. He was
accompanied by our school gardener.
“How can you explain this?” I heard the
gardener ask the professor. “Must be some intruder,” the latter mumbled.
Similarly, as they left, I and Ravi hurried to the spot. “This looks like
footprints!” I exclaimed. When we questioned our teacher, he replied sternly,
“Don’t interfere with such things. It may very well be some intruder who
remembered to jab their nose in our school garden. You needn’t stress.”
But I was interested at once. A mystery!
This thought excited me. I generally wanted to show my detective abilities and
this was the ideal open door!
During recess, I went on an excursion to
the garden. There, I investigated the footprints more thoroughly. They were
presumably brought about by square-formed shoes, I contemplated. While I was
examining, I noticed banana peels near the footprint. I saw a watchman mumbling
while carrying a stick. I enquired what the matter was. He replied he cannot
stay in his cabin during the night because of the monkeys from the nearby
forest. He couldn’t have his dinner because the monkeys stole his banana. I
felt pity for the poor watch who had to remain hungry throughout the night
because of naughty monkeys.
My inquisitive mind began to think, “Is
there any connection between banana peels and footprints?” I shared the same
doubt with my friends they laughed and mocked me by calling me, Junior Sherlock
Holmes.
Bell rang … “Interval finished!” my friend
shouted He was like a villain to me who is disrupting my detective mind. “Next
period is history,” my friend said in a sleepy voice. My history teacher stepped
into my class with a big fat textbook. I was staring at the book, “How can this
textbook enter into my small brain?” As usual, the teacher wrote a topic on the
board ‘Evolution.’ She understood that half of the class consider her class as
a lullaby so the teacher changed her mode of teaching. She asked: “Do you know
why monkeys try to imitate human beings?” One of my brilliant classmates gave a
very good response, “Monkeys have a close connection with human beings and they
are our ancestors.”
Suddenly a thought flashed through my mind.
I yelled, “I got the culprit! I understood whose footprints there are! They are
the watchman’s ancestors!” The whole class turned towards me. My teacher
screamed, “Are you dreaming? Whose ancestor? What are you talking about?” I was
like a comedian to my classmates but I was contended that I have given life to
my History class My headmaster who was hiding behind the window watching the
happenings in the class suddenly entered. All stood up. My headmaster was
having the patience to listen to me. He asked me, “What were you talking about?”
I explained that I found out about the continuation of the incident which
happened in the garden. My teacher was very restless and she was looking at her
watch as she knows my nature very well and it will take one period full for me
to explain her Evolution lesson.
My headmaster’s curious looks
inspired me to explain my findings. Like a hero, I started explaining. All eyes
were staring at me. I felt overwhelmed I began, “A monkey from the forest stole
the banana of our watchman. While moving back from his cabin he saw the watchman’s
shoes and as monkeys have a tendency to imitate humans, he tried to wear the
shoes and was walking through our garden munching bananas.” I heard someone
from the crowd uttering, “Wonderful work! You’ve solved it!”
“Did it happen like
that?” While moving back to my class I was doing self-introspection.
This incident inspired
me to be an actual detective in the future. And indeed, the future did have a
lot of plans for me!! I was soon indulged in many more mysteries and this one
was my very first!!
By Samarth
