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Ava put her head down on the table and turned it towards him, letting out a silent sputter. He laughed quietly.

You look like my horse when you do that

Her hand stretched out, head still down, and in broken words she wrote —

Which one?

Cherry

He is a boy

A pretty one

Samarth eyed her from his vantage above her, and again felt his heart gallop faster than Cherry on a heated polo ground at the sight of a red, smiling Ava.

But then she went silent again. Samarth just observed her.

Once upon a time she used to be a chatterbox.

Still was, no doubt. But now, with him, there was something soft inside her.

He had begun to observe it only now, but something had shifted inside her when he was around.

He couldn’t pinpoint when that had happened.

But she was more… mellowed, girly, bursting with something sweet from in-between her usual rants and kicks to his butt.

And Samarth decided he would take the bull by the horns once and for all.

Ava? He wrote.

Her eyebrows waggled up at him.

Can you give me a 2-mark answer?

She frowned.

Did you dislike me at the match? In the stables? For the whipping thing

She sat up straight. Nothing — no eye contact, no sputter, no smile. Her eyes were on his notebook. And Samarth cursed himself for asking it. It was going so well…

His breath caught in his throat as she pulled his notebook closer and bent over it, her pencil writing in rapid-fire scrawls.

He held that breath, unable to move. If she did dislike him for doing that?

He couldn’t stop doing it of course. That’s how he and his horses dealt with each other. That’s how it worked…

Her hands came in his field of vision, sliding his notebook to him. The words blurred for a moment before Samarth focused on them. She had gone for a 4-marker.

I was shocked when I heard that. But then I thought about it, and maybe it’s something that you really have to do.

I mean I’m not an animal lover, but I don’t like a living being hurt.

But I know you won’t hurt it for fun. You love them so much.

You talk nothing but horses in your free time. So nope, not angry or disliking you.

A long deep breath huffed out of his mouth. As loud as one of his horse’s snorts. Relief nowhere close to explainable coursed through his entire system. He grabbed his pencil and scribbled under it —

So you like me then?

Her hand came back between his, pencil on his notebook.

Do you even remember what I told you after my cricket match last Tuesday?

Yes but you never came back with the answer to my question

Her mouth pursed. A few seconds ticked by. Samarth glanced up at the board and discovered that Ms. Shanaya was standing on the threshold of the class door, talking to somebody outside. God was in his favour today.

Ava dragged his book in-between them and wrote — A ‘ long time’ is a looong time. What if we get bored of each other?

Then added on the side: [2M]

Samarth bit his lower lip, feeling maddening grins burst out of him.

I have sat beside you for two years, the majority of which you’ve spent talking.

I do not like noise. And still I cannot get up when you are talking.

Tell me how will I get bored? As for you — you loooove the sound of your own voice.

I will give you the space to listen to it all day every day.

Tell me now, how will you get bored of me then?

A loud snort. Her hair fell back to her sides and Samarth wished he could push it back, tie it into her ponytail and have her face clear to him again. She pressed closer to him, her arm now sticking to his arm as she wrote —

If we break up, what about our friendship?

What about it?

[4M]

Samarth chuckled.

If we break up, and that is a big IF because we haven’t even started yet and I don’t think we will ever break up, here’s what will happen:

I will still be your friend. I will come to your rescue in every cricket match. We will mingle again in one of the many royal events or parties. And pick up where we left off.

This time she was quick to jot down her next question. And ever-ready to solve a problem or face a challenge, Samarth kept his pencil poised.

What if this goes on for years?

He began to lower his pencil to paper when she added — [2M]

“Alright, now,” Ms. Shanaya’s voice startled him out of the most beautiful world he had ever been in.

“You’ve taken fifteen minutes instead of five. Let’s start defining each term. A Ravine . A Ravine is a small narrow valley with steep sides that is larger than a gully and smaller than a canyon.…”

Before Ms. Shanaya’s definitions could cloak their conversation, Samarth pecked his pencil below her question and scribbled the words without even glancing down.

This will go on beyond that.

He didn’t look at Ava then. He looked straight ahead, trying to make sense of all the terms, their definitions and matching them to their symbols, working on containing his panic. Let these not be there in the term paper…

“Now quickly jot these definitions down before the bell rings.”

Samarth bent his head to copy whatever little he could for the few symbols that he had drawn when the annotation beside his last answer caught his eye.

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