Bhola Saves The Day – Part V

“A hundred lashes?” Miss Geeta exclaimed. She was shocked but not surprised.

“Fifty from each parent,” Bhola added. “Do you think this is right?”

“I don’t know,” Miss Geeta contemplated. “But there is one place I go to whenever I am in doubt.”

“The temple?” Bhola asked.

“The library,” Miss Geeta answered. “Come, let me take you there.”

Bhola walked behind Miss Geeta as she led him to the school library. Bhola was a little sceptical about this plan. He was not sure how reading books would help Shyam get rid of the evil spirit inside of him. He began to doubt if approaching Miss Geeta for a solution was that bright an idea. Nevertheless, he followed her into the little, insufficiently-lit room with shelves and shelves of books.

He had never been inside the library before. No student had. The first thing he observed as he stepped in was the deplorable condition of the books there. Nearly all the books were old and rotting with heavy dust piled upon them.

“Do you come here often?” Bhola asked.

Miss Geeta smiled. “I try and keep the books in proper condition. As you can see it is not a one-woman job.”

“There are so many books here. How will we read them all?”

“You, not we,” Miss Geeta replied. “I have a class to teach but I am sure you will be able to find some help here on your own.”

Bhola was annoyed. If he wanted to read books, he would have picked up his school books. At least that would fetch him better grades. He was not impressed with Miss Geeta’s suggestion. He hated it, in fact.

She left him in the library alone with the spiders. Bhola walked around, careful not to catch any dust on his clothes or in his hair. He skimmed through the titles of the book but he didn’t find anything interesting until…

“Ghost stories,” Bhola said, picking up the book. “This should be of some help.” He picked up other books with similar titles lying next to it and helped himself to a seat. He picked up the first book and puffed with great force to clear the dust.

Bhola coughed a few times but that did not deter him from reading. The title of the books had him hooked. The first tale was about a haunted house. He spent nearly an hour reading it, imagining it and wondering if his village also had a haunted house.

The next tale was about a spirit who loved to eat little boys and girls. He was thankful that Shyam’s ghost was of the whistling and not of the devouring kind. He began to think how Shyam must feel to have a ghost inside his body; whether Shyam weighed a little heavier now than before.

If he had known Shyam’s weight before the spirit entered his body, he could have weighed Shyam now and found out how much the ghost weighed by calculating the difference between the two. Perhaps that would have helped him find a solution somehow.

“Eeek,” Bhola realised the objective of his visit when he glanced at the non-functioning wallclock in front of him. He wasn’t there to read ghoulish tales. He was there to find a way to help his friend. A lot of time had been wasted already. If he didn’t act fast then his friend might have to bear a hundred lashes soon.

He skimmed through the rest of the book hoping to find something useful. He was in a state of panic; the kind of panic he had only felt on the eve of an examination day in school. He opened other books and merely flipped through the pages before leaving them on the table and regretting how he had spent his time.

He walked around the shelves hurriedly, hoping to find some book that would help him. Some of the books on the top shelves were beyond his reach and he hoped that the answer didn’t lie in any of them. The day began to darken and Bhola decided that there was no point in wasting any more time in the library.

He was about to leave the library when his eyes fixed upon a giant book with a plain white cover resting upon an old, wooden table near the door. Unlike the other books, this one was dust-free.