08: About the Fun Trip

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It was now confirmed. Class ND06C, or in simpler words, our buddies' class had a quiz. And the interesting part is that the quiz winners were to be taken for a 'fun' trip. Though initially everyone hesitated to participate, because they had not been told where they were going to be taken. But then as the hype built up, many of them took part.

"What?" exclaimed Antara, expressing her shock through every part of her body she could use for that purpose.
"Uh, I didn't know when I was saying that 'either all of us go, or none of us does', I was mentioning about the ghost of the dead cleaning boy on the third floor." joked Rishab.
"WHATTTT?" screamed Antara and stood up, now using every 'cell' of her body to express her shock.
Smiti agreed (not with Rishab; with what he said, as she clearly expressed).
So it was official. Either all of them were going or none of them was. And to keep their standards at the same level, they all went to the Library, and Rishab and Armaan were told to keep out. Yeah, he did talk like an idiot, but Armaan sure was an Encyclopedia.
Anyway, so our wise men (and girls, dare we call them women, even in a joke!) were busy with their wonderful studying in the library. Let's cut to their Library session.

[In the library]
"Now what made them conclude that matter is made of atom?" Sunidhi raised her doubt.
"They saw it... Under 'microscopes'!" bluntly replied Kanishk.
"What are you? A geek?" said Sunidhi.
"Try Nerd!" taunted Smiti, and went back to her reading.
"Anyway, I don't understand why they should conclude that if we somehow see around the time dimension, we could see our future? Future obviously depends on the present, and the present is changing every nanosecond. See, it changed.. It changed... Again.. Again.." Everyone stared with a "Yes! We got it. Do murder us with any further of it". That helped. Kanishk left this and started with the next statement which had some semantic significance.
"So the future should be all messed up when seen from the present!" Kanishk said, coming out of the book that he had virtually entered before he began with this unusually abnormal doubt.
"Kanishk!" said Smiti, keeping her hand on his shoulder, as though stopping him from something. "Today, it will be just questions from the books that 'Normal' people read-"
"Well, normal people do read these-" started Kanishk with a shrug.
"-and" continued Smiti, "for definition of my 'Normal' refer to the 'Normal' Oxford Dictionary. I don't care how 'Normal' is defined in your dictionary"
Kanishk didn't appreciate that, but he had no choice. He smiled and shut up.
Finally Antara spoke up, and she had real big news.
"Hey guys! Does it mean something if you have just found a major flaw in a research work?"
"Ofcourse!" everyone said.
"What did you find a flaw in?" said Anish, coming from his seat, where by the way under one Science book, a number of "Fashion and Trends" magazines were piled up for his reading.
"Look, they have mentioned the timings, but they did not use their brains." said Antara, pointing at her head with her index finger. "Now, how would I know whether it is morning or evening?"
When they read what she was talking about they did not know whether to kill her or kill themselves. All logic had suddenly disappeared from this Universe and they forgot all about the Life and Death. Gaining some consciousness, Anish replied. "I understand it is a lot of complex mathematics, but if you subtract 12 from any value of time going beyond 12, you will get the time in regular values we studied in Elementary school."
As if she had not butchered the whole concept already, she blasted everybody's heads off with her doubt unaffected by the explanations.
"So how did that solve the problem? You just changed the numbers. I still don't know whether it was morning or evening! Crazy people...!"

[Outside the library]
"So how was your date?" said Armaan, trying to pull Rishab's leg.
"Yeah, it was good. We ended up kissing!" said Rishab, blushed and took a sip of his coffee.
"Ohkay!" said Armaan, pretending to feel happy for him. He was feeling jealous, however, which he expressed when he turned his head away from Rishab.
Rishab was smiling and celebrating inside. "This works! This works!"
"So when do you have 'your' date?" asked Rishab, cunningly smiling.
"Oh, me? I have already had two dates. We 'started' with a kiss." replied Armaan and went to the food counter.
Rishab's eyes (and his mouth) were wide open. And Armaan was standing at a distance with the same expressions. Poor guys! They were getting jealous for a reason that they had both just made up.

[Time lapse. It was finally the time. The quiz was beginning]
"So, Andecians ('NDEC'ians), today is the quiz which will give the few lucky ones of you a chance to go for the so much sought after 'Fun trip'!" declared an enthusiastic anchor, and the crowd applauded for no reason. Apparently they were just clapping because of the way the anchor declared the beginning. It was pretty obvious that applaud should follow.
"HU HU HU HU HU" Armaan celebrated.
"Did someone tell him the trip is to the African jungles?" whispered Sunidhi to Smiti and Antara.
Antara giggled. Smiti, however, didn't find it entertaining. "Competition.. is.. a.. COMPETITION! And Competition spirit should not be made fun of!"
"Ohkay! Goddess of Competing." taunted Antara.
"Dude!" said Anish, trying to stop Armaan. "We are still waiting for the competition to start. Are you with us?"
Armaan brushed Anish's hand off his shoulder and firmly replied, with index finger raised upright like a hero, "If we are here, we'll clear the rounds, and then we'll be the winners too."
"Are you playing Blindfold? Or you are pretending to be unable to see so many competitors sitting with us in this hall?" taunted Vineet. Rishab was busy with an eBook he had secretly downloaded, because he had been commanded to not touch any book at all.
"Touching an eBook is virtually touching a book!" loudly said Kanishk. Well, it was loud, but with the noisy crowd in the hall, only the eight of these and probably some others sitting nearby could hear it. The others looked at Kanishk, gave him a "Don't keep proving that you're jerk" look, and got back to their talking. Rishab immediately closed the eBook, and started looking at the book in a guy's hand, who was sitting in the next row.
"And reading a book in someone else's hand is-" began Vineet.
"No! That clause had not been mentioned!" interrupted Rishab, smiled and got back to reading that book.
"Shame on you! Now you don't even read a book that a 'girl' is holding!" giggled Armaan. This finally stopped Rishab.

[Few minutes later, in that hall]
"So, all our contestants have been eliminated! One round to go. Sunidhi and Antara, are you ready?" said the anchor. They nodded in affirmation.
"Now, since atleast one of you 'has' to clear this round, we have greatly reduced the difficulty level of questions." said the anchor very seriously, but clearly he was telling them that they were idiots.
"Do anything! We won't win." whispered Antara to herself and Sunidhi.
"So," started the anchor. "if you were standing under Eiffel Tower, where would you be?"
"FR-FR-French" shouted Antara.
"You mean 'France'?" corrected Sunidhi.
"Absolutely!" celebrated the anchor. "You said it! It's France. Sunidhi, you get the ticket to the Herbert Park. Have a 'fun' trip!" he said and handed the ticket over to Sunidhi. All of them were dumbstruck. No one moved. Well, actually the rest of the crowd did.
"How could you do that?" screamed Smiti.
"I DON'T KNOW!" replied Sunidhi, holding her head, as if this was her worst loss.
"None of us is going!" drawled Rishab.
"THAT I KNOW!" said Sunidhi, angrily repeating Rishab's tone.

[That afternoon, they were all sitting in the cafeteria]
Kanishk had left for some work. He had told them that a girl would come to that table. That would be 'Pratigya' and that they should keep her engaged till he returns.
"He told Pratigya how we look. Would it have been wiser had he told her the table where we invariably, 'always', sit?" commented Vineet.
Anish put his bag on the table (trying to show everyone the new designer bag he had just got, err, just been gifted). Rishab replied to Vineet, "Yes! But then everyone has a signature style. This is his."
Everyone became quiet. Anish wanted people to see his bag, and so he started tapping on it.
"Stop it!" screamed Smiti. Anish stopped at once.
"May be you guys wanna have something?" said Sunidhi, trying to cheer everyone up.
"NAW NEY NO NAY NANNA NAY NONTHIN" angrily gibbered Smiti.
"Come on! Don't be rude." said Antara. "When you are with us, speak in our language only!"
Unknowingly, Antara had cracked a real joke. 'Unknowingly' because she thought Smiti was actually using a language.
"What's the matter? You guys don't think it was my mistake, do you?" said Sunidhi, smiling, but clearly aware that everybody was upset with her.
"Yeah!" loudly agreed Antara.
"Hadn't we decided that we won't give the right answer?" said Armaan in a little break he took from drinking the third glass of Milk. He had been drinking milk like a heart-broken lover consumes alcohol in a bar.
Sunidhi began with her explanation. “What? I was out of my mind, I admit. I was not even thinking at that time. And that was the plan. I was not going to think, so the answer would never come to my mind. But then Antara said French, and since I was NOT thinking, I didn't know that I was actually answering the question. I just tried to correct her."
"Have you forgotten the rule? Never correct her!" shouted Smiti, and immediately turned to Antara and said "No offence intended!"
"Oh, okay!" replied Antara.
"Yeah! You answered the question right over there, do you know? Eiffel tower is in France and nothing can change the fact now unless continental drifts speed up and take Eiffel Tower out of France before the End of Day!" complained Rishab.
Armaan smiled and said, "You and Kanishk never let people realize the absence of each other!" Rishab stared at him, and started to read the pamphlet he had just got from a junior.
"France was the RIGHT ANSWER? Oh My God!" said Antara, and covered her face as if she had just been declared the Miss Universe for the rest of the years of existence of the Universe.

[At the gate]
A girl with big glasses and messed up hair had just entered the cafeteria. She had hit a guy and was apologizing to him for causing him the trouble.
"Oh, I am so sorry!" she said.
"You just caused me a loss of Twenty Five bucks!" screamed the guy.
"Here" she said, gently pulling a Twenty and a five out of her purse. "I did not want to cause any kind of loss."
While this was all happening, these seven could not hear the discussion. They could see a girl and a guy discussing something, and the guy screaming at the girl.
"Is that-" started Armaan.
"Let's wait! Don't jinx the moment!" said Antara. They were all waiting for the girl to move expecting her to reach their table.
[TO BE CONTINUED...]