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Samarth frowned, glancing over his shoulder as that backbenchers’ group got together again to share whatever precious chatter they had missed through the period.

“Isn’t that why you got placed here?” He asked, eyes still on them.

“No. Didn’t you hear Ms. Veda?”

“What?” He turned. And she was looking at him like he had grown a second head.

“I said, didn’t you hear Ms. Veda?”

“No.”

She gave him a look. A second of silence. Then shrugged — “You are not as bright as everybody thinks, Samarth.”

“Sorry?”

“Ms. Veda woke up today chanting Ava-the-chatterbox, walked into the class with that same rant and you didn’t hear her?”

Samarth definitely hadn’t heard that . He turned to Jai — “Did Ms. Veda enter the class out for Ava?”

“No,” Jai laughed. ‘Stop exaggerating, Ava!”

“What exaggerating? Didn’t you see how she singled me out first and then the entire last row?

!” Her lips rounded in some angry indignation.

Her wide eyes widened even more. Samarth sat down in his place, resigned now that she wasn’t planning to get out anytime soon.

As she went on chattering about what Ms. Veda had said or done to her, he leaned up to see if the horses had been let out.

It was Monday, which meant the foals would be brought out first.

“…and do you think we will have… oh, you didn’t tell me what this is, Samarth?” She held his horse charm up again, turning it from side to side.

“A horse,” he answered distractedly, hoping she would shut up.

“He is bright, huh?” She spoke to somebody behind them, probably Jai. His sputter signalled it was him.

“Is he so lost all the time?” She asked again.

“He topped last term, you think he would if he was lost?”

Silence prevailed. Relative silence. The class kept chattering around him.

But she was silent, finally. And the foals were let out.

Like a hurricane of tiny horses they galloped into the pen.

Samarth eyed them, all eight of them, at different ages.

He wanted to run down and nuzzle their soft coats.

He wasn’t as young to climb and ride one of them but baby foals were the sweetest things in the world.

He could spend hours holding their necks and rubbing their coats with a…

His body jerked. She was pushing him.

“Hey? Wha…”

Samarth was shocked at how easily she bodily nudged him out of his seat, slipped out of the bench, then again pushed him back. He resisted but she was strong for a girl so tiny in height. Back, back, back he went until his bum had bounced down on his window seat.

He stared at her incredulously as she sat down beside him, took his head and turned it to the window. “Keep staring, a unicorn might fly from those horses.”

“Foals,” he corrected, but happily kept his eyes on them.

“Same shit.”

Samarth smiled. She wasn’t so bad.

“I’ll explain the difference to you in a minute.”

“You are not allowed to talk to me.”

The tiniest baby foal ran between her elder sibling’s legs and got smacked in the tail by the sibling. Samarth laughed.

“Good moooorning, Ms. Nandini…” the whole class chimed and his shirt was again pinched and nudged until he was standing up too like everybody else, tearing his gaze from the foals.

“I will talk to you during the breaks,” Samarth announced as Ms. Nandini started setting up her collection of whiteboard markers.

She carried a whole box of those in rainbow colours, thinking Math sums in different colours made the subject more attractive.

It didn’t. But he was good at Math anyway.

Jai winced behind him as she wrote Trig-ono-metry in three different inks — blue, red and green.

“The word Trigonometry comes from the Sanskrit word trikon. One that has three corners…”

“Why do you like horses, Samarth?” His bench partner nudged. He ignored her.

“Hello? I am talking to you!”

He ignored her again, concentrating on Ms. Nandini’s history of Trigonometry as she wrote down a simple sum on the board.

She had this great way about her to unearth the sleeping past of Indian knowledge.

The Ved, Shastra and Puran studies had so much science and mathematics.

She would often veer from Math sums to the philosophy behind them, telling stories of sages who had set out to attain answers for a philosophical question and stumbled upon an equation.

Samarth’s favourite story was the discovery of the number zero…

“Eeeee!” His horse charm trotted on the open page of his notebook and he glanced sideways at the girl making neighing whispers.

“Finish the sum…” he tried to push her away.

“It’s done. Take, copy it.”

Samarth peeped into her book and it was done. He sat up, impressed.

“Avantika Kumari Raje,” she pointed to her chest. "I calculate here,” she tapped the side of her head. His mouth dropped open. Ms. Nandini was still explaining how to apply the identities to the sum. He knew them of course. But this… backbencher?

Samarth narrowed his eyes, she narrowed hers back.

He plucked his horse charm from her fingers, set it between them and leaned into her notebook to add another variation. Then raised one brow at her.

She read it, her eyebrows rose. And then she met his eyes with a smirk as big and as smug as her eyes and solved it before he had capped his pen.

Then she reached out and grabbed his horse charm back, running it over her solved answer. Samarth snorted. Couldn’t help but be impressed.

“Why do you sit with the backbenchers then?” He asked.

“They are fun to talk to.”

“But they are not your friends, you said.”

“Do you only talk to your friends or what?”

“Usually.”

She made a face. “Wait, you are talking to me in-between class.”

He blinked, realising he was.

“You didn’t tell me why you like horses.”

“No reason…” Samarth glanced back out of the window and the sun was streaming brilliantly on the mountains. All the horses had been let out, running freely around the round pen. “Look at them, how can you not like them!”

“Do you ride them in… Gujarat, right?”

“Yes, Nawanagar in Gujarat. I ride.”

“I am terrified of horses.”

“Why?!” He turned fully towards her. “They don’t do anything. You feed them before you start and they become your best friends… unless they have a temper. Then you don’t start on day 1 but slowly break them in.”

“See, that’s why I don’t like them. With humans you can make out who is normal and who is not. With horses… or any animal… how do you make out?”

“Next sum,” Ms. Nandini intoned, and began writing the question in red. They both copied it and solved it down in the next minute, individually.

“See,” Samarth explained to her. “With humans you use words, eyes, and some instinct, no? With horses also you use those three. My Rawal — my king and father, he doesn’t ride as much but he taught me this. And then Maan bhai… Kunwar of Devgadh?”

She nodded.

“You know him?”

“I have seen his photos in polo magazines. My cousin plays.”

“Exactly, so Maan bhai says this — “If you listen closely, a horse will tell you everything you need to know.”

“Too deep.”

“You’ll know it when you listen to a horse,” he smirked.

“Good thing I will never go near one!” She showed him her all-white teeth.

“Third one,” Ms. Nandini erased the whiteboard and started on a new sum, this one in blue. They started to copy the question.

“So you don’t like any animals?”

“My sister,” she responded, making him laugh softly. He glanced at her book and she was going wrong.

“Sin 2 theta is 2 sin theta into cos theta, Avantika,” he nudged.

She stopped, went back to her original formula and made a hissing sound.

“Shit, yes…”

“This is slow then,” he tapped the back of his pen to her temple.

“Oh yeah? Give me my window seat back then.”

“Ok, ok… you are anyway getting it back in Ms. Veda’s period.”

“Yeah but I want it back now.”

Samarth exhaled.

“Avantika,” he tapped his pen into her bicep which was pretty hard. He forgot what he was about to say — “This is… do you play a sport?”

“Cricket.”

“Are you serious?”

“If you say girls can’t play cricket I’ll push you out of this window right now.”

He laughed quietly — “No, no… I was just surprised. I never see you on the field.”

“Girls’ practise happens after boys’. I have never seen you playing either.”

“I played in the first term because my Papa wanted me to try. He is a master player by the way.”

“Siddharth Solanki, right?”

Samarth nodded, proud of his father for playing and winning championships after championships in county cricket across India and even abroad.

“Ooooh! He was so good in that Nawanagar VS Devgadh Bhattacharya Trophy game…”

The period bell rang. Samarth didn’t even realise it.

————————————————————

The second time Samarth noticed her was on the first day of the first term of standard eighth.

She walked into Class 8-E after the summer vacation, her straight hair cut shorter and skimming her shoulders, some shorter hair in her eyes.

It was a new year, new class, new class teacher. And new seating arrangements.

She waved at him and was about to move to the back of the class.

“I’m claiming the window seat for all periods this year,” he called out to her. The last year had been him taking the seat for all periods except Ms. Veda’s.

“Your horses are not visible from here,” she pointed.

Samarth noted with disdain that this new classroom did not overlook the stables.

But he still liked the window seat. The air was fresh on one side and he could easily let his posture relax between periods, lounging back on the window as Ava kept yapping.

“This or nothing,” he gallantly negotiated.

“Half and half,” she negotiated back, as he knew she would.

“Fine,” he clicked his tongue and got to his feet, pushing out of the bench to let her slide in.

“So, how was vacation…” she started, and before he could answer, began to answer her own question.

Samarth just sat down, pulled his bag from near her knee, and listened to her tell him all about the new heated swimming pool her uncle had installed in their winter palace’s bougainvillea garden — only for the kids.

————————————————————

The third time Samarth noticed her was on the first day of the first term of standard ninth. He walked in late, and their new class teacher — Ms. Shanaya, was already there, directing everybody to their designated seats. Samarth’s heart sank. Avantika was already assigned a place next to Tulika.

“Samarth, roll no. 36,” Ms. Shanaya called out. “Right there, in the corner seat.” His eyes fell on the window seat he had always coveted. It was again his. This classroom even had a sliver of the stables-view. But Avantika was on the other side of the class.

He glanced at her. She glanced at him.

He felt glum. She waved.

He waved back, unable to look away from her. Her hair was again up in a ponytail, pieces of them falling down the sides of her face. Her eyes were shiny and big, her mouth the colour of the insides of cherries… he glanced away. What was he looking at?!

Samarth shook his head, hitched his bag higher on his shoulder, and walked into Class 9-A.