Flag Hoisting

Couple of day’s back I found an old friend from one of my schools on Orkut (A social N/W site). The moment I found him, I had a broad smile on my face because I could see my childhood flashing in front of my eyes. I tried coming out of it, but I just couldn’t.

I am the most notorious amongst the siblings and was worst in my childhood. I would leave no gaps for pushing myself into really deep troubles. The main reason for getting into deep troubles was because I am kind heartened person, and hence cannot see others suffer because of my evil plots, and if such occasions occurred, I used to fall into the shit and eat the fruits of my own tree, and believe me it needed lots of courage to do that, because no one appreciated it and being responsible for the mess, I could not justify it to elders.

This particular incidence takes me back to 1993, when I was staying in H.A Colony, Pune. I was a grade 3 student and studying in H.A School. Our school was all made of stones and used to look spooky especially after school hours. In our school was a Biology Lab and this lab had a human skeleton enclosed in a glass enclosure. This setup was kept near the lab entrance. Unfortunately the lab was on the way to our class after the morning prayers. Every morning we guys used to peep into the lab, just to ensure that the skeleton was still in the chamber, because an empty chamber simply meant that the skeleton was on prowl and we must be extra cautious else we can be his meal.

There were rumors about this skeleton and every member of my peer group was afraid of it, probably we could have pissed in our pants if left in the lab alone even for 1 minute. The rumors were very strong and wide spread, even friends going to different schools were aware of it. The rumor was that there is a Periwinkle flower always kept in front of the skeleton, the skeleton remains in the enclosure till the flower was fresh, but as the flower wilted, the skeleton comes out of the enclosure and haunts the school premises till dawn. Early in the morning someone replaced the wilted flower with a fresh one and hence skeleton had to return back. It was assumed that the skeleton can come any time after 6 in the evening.

Next to the school was a playground with all the slides and swings a kid could ever think of. We all friends used to play there till 6 after school hours. One fine evening a couple managed to escape into the school premises and it appeared as if they were up to something as they were hunting for a private location. I told my friends that it will be fun watching them doing something, and everyone was exited with this idea. We all quickly climbed up the huge school gate, this gate had sharp arrow kind of structure uniformly placed on top, but we managed to enter the school premises unhurt. In this process and excitement, we forgotten about the time, happily we hid ourselves to get a clear view of everything the couple was up to.

Before any action could start, an asshole shouted "Run, its S I X and skeleton will kill us all". Hearing this everyone screamed and we ran towards the main gate, as I was running, I thought if skeleton eats someone, I’ll be dead because it was my idea to enter the school and the reason for doing this was stupid. I suddenly stopped near the gate and helped everyone to climb the gate. I started climbing only once the last guy in the group reached half way up the gate, we climbed it the fastest we could and the moment I reached the top of the gate, someone shouted he could see the skeleton approaching the gate. Believe me, I turned cold in an instant and could not think of what to do, so I just jumped off the gate. While doing that, I my pant got stuck in one of the pointed arrow like structure on the gate. I couldn't balance my fall because of my pant and fell bad on ground, obviously with no pants on. Everyone started laughing, and I was really ashamed (luckily I had already started wearing undies), as I was laying on the ground, I looked at my torn pants and it fluttered like a flag. Few guys climbed the gate and de-hoisted the flag, and I wrapped it as a towel and went home only in the late evening hours.

Reaching home, my papa was already furious because I was late for studies and on top of it, I had torn my pants. My ears were pulled (with all the force my dad could gather) till tears crumbled off my cheek and was asked to justify for the torn pants. With tears in my eye, I looked at my mom and said, I threw stone at a stray dog and the dog attacked me and in the process of saving myself, I climbed the school gate and while jumping from it, my pant got stuck in the arrow and I tore my pant. If my mom gets satisfied with the explanations, it doesn’t matter whether my father is satisfied or not. Luckily tears helped me to save my sole for more mischief.

I wish to know whether this rumor still resides in the hearts of students studying in grade 3/4 of my school, and is it the same skeleton in the lab or have they got a new one or have they removed it after this incident of mine?