The Green Room

The Resource Room

September, 2008.

Queen Victoria School, Nainital.

It was a starry night. A sweet breeze came through the window as Rohan Agarwal watched the front quadrangle from the Class XI's dormitory. He had been on the watch for over two hours and could now safely assume that the night guards had retired to their rooms. There was no time to waste. He had to go down, break into the Warden's Office and search for the question papers of the Unit Tests starting in two days.

He picked up a book, put on a woolen cap and went down to the first floor. At the end of a dimly lit corridor lined with wooden panels, he saw two students studying under a light. Somewhere, a clock chimed three.

One of them came forward. He was tall and shabby, and like Rohan, he was still in uniform. His blue and black stripped tie of Edward House hung loose about his neck. "The warden is asleep!" said Ayush Roy. "Or watching porn. But either way, he is busy in his house!"

"What's with the guards?" asked Manav Singh. He was in Leopold House and was currently wearing a navy blue jersey to conceal his night-suit in case someone spotted them.

Rohan just nodded. In front of him, a door led to the landing of a staircase which went down to the classrooms and offices. He stood on the landing and studied another door to his right. It was white with the word 'WARDEN' embedded on it. He stood listening for some time. A clock ticked continuously beyond. Slowly and carefully, he walked to the door and latched it.

"Damn it! You'll wake him up!" Rohan whispered as the wooden staircase groaned under the weight of the three boys. But there was nothing they could do to keep that ancient staircase from complaining, so they ran down as swiftly as possible and stepped out into a lobby. Rohan held his breath and listened. He heard footsteps from the dormitories above. They were moving away from them and died eventually. Ayush looked at him, his round face gleaming with excitement. Rohan nodded in return.

Ayush and Manav began strolling up and down a deserted corridor between classrooms, immersed in the books they had been carrying. Though nobody usually took to the corridors at 3:00 AM to study, as leaving the dormitory was prohibited after 11:00 PM, it would not have been much of an issue if they were seen. They were just three studious kids working hard to get good grades.

Rohan went out to the quadrangle and observed a small room at the end of the outer corridor. There was no movement inside. He coughed deliberately. Still nothing. He peeped through a window and saw two men in uniform wrapped in blankets, and he smiled. He latched the door from outside and returned to his friends.

The question papers were usually typed and formatted by some staff in the Warden's Office, which was practically a small cubicle next to the reception of the Principal's Office. Earlier that day, Rohan had walked into the suite when the reception was empty, on the pretext of meeting the warden. The door to his office was dark and old, with a heavy lock dangling from it. There was no point trying to break through as the lock was impossible to pick. He was about to give up and return when he noticed a window behind the chairs in the visitors' lounge. It would certainly be closed at night, but he had worked a way in.