LOCKED IN A CLOSET

LOCKED IN A CLOSET
By : Anish Mishra- Winning entry in the age category 12- 14 years

It's getting stuffy. Sweat drops from my face. My pants are starting to get wet due to the humidity. But,"Do I dare go out???", I ask myself. And an irritating voice replies from the back of my brain, saying,"You exactly know what will happen", and even goes on further to ask me -"What will happen if you stay in here???". Let me first tell you all why, and how, I am stuck in such a stupid situation, battling my own stupid conscience. You must be thinking what a stupid person I am to be in such a stupid spot. But let me tell you that, if you have passed out of middle school without such an experience (unless you were a bully), I salute you! and if you are yet to reach middle school, I have only one sentence of warning for you,that is,"Beware of the bullies!!!" Because, if you are not prepared then you might find yourself in my shoes very soon.

Well let me continue about how I ended up in this spot. It was a lovely spring morning. But I was in no mood to go to school. I had come up with a number of amazingly convincing excuses, but as usual, Mom had looked through everyone of them. She tells me,"Don't worry hon, today will be no worse than the others". "As if all the other days had been marvellous", I had thought. Little did I know that this day would be "Way worse than worse". Well let me tell you how my day "rattled"on from then.I arrived late at school , as usual. And got the same speech from our Vice"Annoying"Principal. While he went on to say something like "Is this your....blah blah....", I just wondered how I would get through the rest of the day. My lunch break was no better, with a huge boy thrashing me, because apparently he dropped his lunch box because I passed him."Well, there's another three bruises to show mum", I think. Of course the teachers never spared me because someone had reported me bullying the same huge boy from lunch. Now isn't that news!

Well all these are my usual troubles. It will be at the dismissals, when my luck would get really bad. As always, the bullies were going to pick at me. So I thought of turning the table on them for once. So I used a tiny organ of mine which I rarely use called 'brain'. I knew their hangout, or the 'den', of the 'Big Bad Bosses', commonly known as bullies. I also knew, that it would be very easy to get to the roof, which is above their heads and dump a whole garbage can on them from above. So, when the school bell rang, I put my plan into action, woth out any second thoughts. Little did I know, what trouble it would bring me. So I went to the roof and with my hopes sky high of seeing the BBB's tormented, emptied the can of rubbish over their heads.

But my plan backfired. They spotted me while I was doing this. They still got covered with garbage, but the main problem was the chase I got. Let me tell you all, outrunning the BBBs is not at all easy. First I tried to lose them in the crowd, but nothing seem to stand in their way! May be the fact that they were covered with garbage helped, because the crowd created an instinctive aisle for them.  I even waded through a pond to throw them off my scent, but even then, they continued, like police dogs chasing a prisoner who had broken out of jail! My last refuse was the school building, incidentally the only building within my sight. That was where I took asylum.

And I hid at the first place I came across which was a closet, which is exactly where I am right now, telling you this story.  Even though an hour or two has passed, I am still here, due to the fear of mine for the BBBs. I hope against hope, that some one, any one open the door of the closet and lead me from my fear for even though the door is locked I am mentally confined, in a small area, in a closet. I can hear footsteps now, but I do not rejoice. They come nearer – the footsteps and I know they will open the closet. And the door springs open and the person I stand facing is …..