Page 60 of Born in Sin

“Shut up, Ish!” Virat and Amay both snapped at the same time.

“Jha!” Mrinalini Ma’am, the Administrative Manager, glowered at him from the doorway leading to the school corridor. “Chandrashekhar Sir is waiting for you.”

Oh shit. He’d forgotten all about the summons from the Head of School.

“I’ve got to go,” he muttered, leaving his friends to their silent stand off and hustling his sorry ass down the corridor to the Administration Wing where the Head of School’s cabin was located.

He walked past Mrinalini Ma’am’s now empty desk and stopped outside the cabin. He took a moment outside the imposing double paneled wooden doors to brace himself and then knocked.

“Come in,” Chandrashekhar Sir barked.

Virat took another deep breath and entered.

“Sir.” He kept the greeting short and sweet.

“The proof you submitted with regards to Mohan…the ones that got him fired.” Chandrashekhar said without preamble. “What was your source?”

Virat kept his steady gaze on the principal, the man’s bald head shining in the overhead lights.

“Sir, like I told you, I just happened on the information in the music room.”

“Don’t play games with me, Jha.” The man stood, his bulging paunch hanging over the belt that valiantly struggled to stay in place.

“I never play games Sir.”

“No?” Chandrashekhar smiled, a thin smile devoid of all humour. “Only the ones you can win then?”

I always win, Virat thought, but he kept that to himself and continued to watch the principal with a bland expression.

“What’s your plan after school and college, Jha?” The principal asked abruptly, shifting tracks without notice. “Politics?”

“No, Sir.”

“You would make an excellent politician,” he mused.

Virat said nothing, just waited for the older man to get to the point.

“The school board is looking to make some changes. Maria Fernandez’s role in the Mohan scandal has not gone unnoticed. We had a deal. I keep Ms. Fernandez’s job safe thereby ensuring her daughter’s continued education at Crestwood and you bring me information on the going ons on campus. That was our deal, wasn’t it?”

“Yes Sir.”

“The night watchman has seen light coming every night from the grove at the north end of campus. He says that it’s haunted. A strange laughter floats across the breeze.”

“Did he check it out Sir?”

“He tried. He says when he gets too close, the lights and the laughter disappear. When he walks away, they reappear.”

The bloody idiots. Couldn’t they get up to their shit without the unnecessary theatrics?

“What do you know Jha?”

Virat chose his words carefully. “I don’t believe that you would want to know the names of the parties involved.”

“Why not?”

“It might prove expensive for the school.”

In other words, they were the kids of some of the largest donors at the school and Chandrashekhar wouldn’t be able to punish them anyway.

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