Acquaintance.........

The Bookworm Club

*Beware Of Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, they weigh over 5 kilograms and may cause severe sketelal damage if one falls on your head. Please maintain the decorum of the club room and keep silence*

Sid's arrival in front of this rather nerdy and cornered club house of the school is as significant as man stepping on Mars.

But as the old saying goes, courageous people call the doctor, when the patient dies - I am not sure if that's courage or negligence, but it took me a great courage to reach here, so that's a great achievement altogether.

The sign board read -
"Le Club Livre"
I don’t understand that fascination behind French but its quite evident that those bunch of highly critical and intellectual population hate simplicity.

(When I was pretty new to school, I once thought that they have live specimens of human liver,  but later, someone told me that it means "The book club")

So, here I was, standing in a very unwelcoming environment but since my head was already in a stake, I pushed the door.

I didn’t open.......

I pushed again, it crancked a little but returned to its original position and held firm....

Oh! Such an arrogant door!

I pushed again with all of my might and drained out my last bit of strength but couldn’t open it for even a handful of space...

There is no point of it being closed as the worms stay here even after the school ends, perhaps till the evening.

Then I noticed the board,
"Tirer le Porte"

I didn't have any idea of what it meant, but it did lit an idea in my head.

I pulled the door and it opened like a scoop of butter sliding over a smooth surface,  effortless crap😑....

A creepy and stagnant smell of cranky old books entered my nose...
They have hardly cleaned the, so big room and tonnes of books flooded the floor.

One guy was actually sitting on top of the big heap of knowledge and going through a journal. Hardly a single window was open... I wondered why they didn’t die of suffocation after staying here for so long...
A big centre table, mahogany one, surely and undoubtedly a century old, stood at the middle..... Six chairs,  all having a person atop them were spread around the table..
The room had no walls, well, it had, ofcourse,  but they were not visible.  Books of different size, shape and colours were stacked there and the others lying on the floor....

"Since you have come here, it very much seems, you have a purpose, so, rather than wasting our time, spit out the reason of your unprecedented arrival."

I don’t think if, I would even be able to say those lines by reading from somewhere.. What's the bloody problem with a simple "What do you want"!!!

" Well, I am Siddharth Batliwala, I-"

"Don't need names, we need reason."

"Ohh ok! Well, so, I came to study with you guys, since we have our unit tests from the next week. I would be grateful if you all could help me.."

"What's the factorial of 100?"

"I don't know,  sorry."

"Then get lost."

"Well, please tell the answer atleast.. I mean,so that atleast I can answer one question in the exam.."

"Answer of that!" the guy with big, round spectacles who was conversing with me, seemed hesitated and confused...

"Answer of factorial of 100,  you want oh, er, its, its - we don’t give answers to our own questions,  get lost."

This was my chance and I took it.
"No, I am not going as long as I don’t get the answer. "

"What! Oh! Ok, fine stay, I take my question back,  that answer is impossible.."

Such is  Sid Batliwala's condition that even some creepy bookworms have started playing jokes on him. I felt like laughing on myself, but nevertheless,  atleast it was great that they let me stay.