Those Bonafide Teens

20. Havoc In The Show Camp

Just when I had been feeling things couldn't get worse, the most horrible thing I could have imagined happened, that night. But we didn't know about till the next morning.

We were standing in front of the store room, or what had been the store room last evening. One side of the wall was now completely covered with soot marks. All the costumes and props lay in a misshapen heap, colourless and shapeless. The other side of the room was less damaged but it bore the dark signs of the aftermath of a fire breakout.

It was barely seconds into the first period when we had learnt the news. A short circuit fault current had caused an outbreak of fire in the store room late the previous evening. Very few staff had still been working at that time and it had taken too long to realise something was wrong.

When the fire brigade had finally been called and they had put out the fire, they had realised that all the stuff had been damaged and the laptop was missing. Our school's security cameras were switched off after five in the evening and so there was no footage! Just great!

Principal Rajvansh had hushed down the whole affair. He had apparently told the staff that he wanted the school to be on the papers only for multiple interschool tournament trophy wins, not fire in the store room. He didn't want people to think our school had security issues.

How lame is that?

"Who do you think did it?" Zoya asked me for the thousandth time that day. We were in class and it was a free period. Some time back, I had gone with Omkara to the Principal's office to speak to him. He wanted us to start arrangements to rent out costumes and props. We also had to rent out a music system.

Thankfully the orchestra instruments had been taken home by the players and so no damage was done. It had cost a great deal but many students had generously contributed. Omkara's laptop however was gone. Just gone. Nobody could do anything about it.

"It could be anybody", I said.

"How do you know it was intentional?" asked Mishti.

"Because the laptop is missing. Whoever did it has taken it away. It's not an accident." I said sharply.

"I hate to think that someone actually inside the school, wants the festival so badly sabotaged. This is terrible." Zoya shook her head.

"How do you know it's an insider?" Mishti asked again.

"Well, who else was here last evening except a few students and the staff members?" I asked.

"Could it have been a student or a staff?" Zoya asked.

"It could be either. Maybe Loukya did it to create some drama".

"Oh puh-leese Ri." said Mishti "Loukya is incharge of the show now. If something goes wrong, it's her headache more than anybody else's. Why would she do it?"

"Dunno", I said dully "Then maybe it was a student. It could have been Aaliyah".

Mishti was about to retort when we heard a voive behind us, "I think it's Aaliyah too".

We turned around and saw Reyansh standing behind our bench.

"That is definitely a possibility" he added.

"How do you say that?" asked Zoya.

"Well" said Reyansh, "Riya I found out Aaliyah was hanging around here after the rehearsal was over. She could have easily slipped into the office, found the spare store room key and done the damage."

"But was she the only high schooler inside the campus at that time?"

"Well I don't know about that" Reyansh said. "But the original keys were with me anyway. So someone had to go to the office to get the spare keys. And there's a huge possibility that it was her." he shrugged.

"In that case we have to trap Aaliyah" said Mishti seriously.

"Yeah we should" Reyansh agreed. I was a little surprised. I didn't think he would be the kind of person who did all this detective work. "I mean it's also for us, isn't it?"

"And it might clear your criminal record, I suppose?" Zoya suddenly shot at him. I was taken aback. It wasn't like Zoya at all to talk like this. That too, to Reyansh.

"Uh no. That's not what I meant" Reyansh said hurriedly. "But Zoya if you had been expelled once too you'd know how annoying it would be to be known for that. I don't think it's wrong to want to do some good work", he said wistfully and shrugged.

I felt slightly sorry for him.

I looked at my BFF'S. Mishti looked thoughtful but Zoya was looking unconvinced and she cast an oddly suspicious look at Reyansh.

Suddenly I heard someone call out my name, "Riya! Loukya ma'am is asking for you. Come." It was Lisa. I wearily got up and walked out. Meeting Loukya ma'am when she was in a foul mood was worse than being fed to a group of vultures - alive!

And sure enough, the meeting didn't go well. I felt dead sick as I walked back to class. It was break time now.

Loukya ma'am had got an attitude about the whole thing and was behaving like the Fine Arts Club had burnt down the store room on purpose. She had vented out all her fury on all of us, nice and clean.

But she'd at least refrained from taunting me in particular. She'd been pretending like I was non existant, since she'd taken away my Fine Arts Badge the previous day. And that was actually fine with me.

As I came back from the meeting, I saw Abeer, Varun and Zoya huddled in a corner outside our class. I didn't feel like talking to them and didn't stop.

But just then Zoya called out for me, "Riya, come here. I have to tell you something important".

"About what?" I asked dully and kept walking.

"About the store room fire" she said gravely. That stopped me, "What?".

"Yeah. Come. I think I know who it is" she said and led me into the next classroom which was empty.

A/N : I hope you guys enjoyed this one. Thank you so much for all the reads so far. I'm really glad. Please do leave your vote before going ahead. See you in the next chapter.

Lots of love!