Page 26 - FATE & DESTINY

FATE & DESTINY

The next year, Junisa Kawa joined the school. He was African. He traveled in a fancy car and carried a
hundred-ngultrum note every day. It was like five thousand ngultrums for me. He took splendid advantage
of his father’s supremacy. As a friend, he turned out to be the worst nightmare. Everyone despised him.
And there was a weird rumor about his parents’ idyllic style of consummation. I heard his father hung his
mother upside down and laid. I wondered in eagerness how that was possible, even though I was too
young to contemplate such a nasty thing. People said it was the African way or whatever, but I forgot it
after Junisa Kawa became my classmate.
Junisa Kawa had eagle eyes, poking out from their sockets against the dark skin. The bold expression
on his face—sustained by his thin corkscrew hair—evinced he possessed a stony heart.
One day, I saw a boy wailing before him at the gate. Scurrying behind a tree, I watched them. Junisa
Kawa scoffed at the boy. “Take it if you can,” he said.
“Let go,” wailed the boy, trying to pull out the pencil from under his foot. “Please.” When the Apsara
Regal Gold pencil snapped off, he wailed louder. “My pencil! Boohoo! Dad!”
Junisa Kawa expressed no regrets. “Go get your father. I’ll wait here.”
The poor boy flung the broken pencil at him. From behind the tree, I watched the kid slog away.
Junisa flunked and studied in my class, the next year. Right from the beginning, he incited us to
violence and serious troubles.
“It was here,” I said. “How come it disappeared from the shelf?”
“You must be mistaken,” said Lemo, the slenderest girl in the class with a milky face. “Who would steal
such a thing?”
I conducted another fine-tooth comb search of the shelf. “The sketch pens are missing.”
“You sure, buddy?” asked Junisa Kawa.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Double sure.”
“Who would take them away?” said Lemo. “None of us would do that.”
I curled my lips. “Yeah, none of us do that, except one boy.”
Junisa shot me a ferocious glare. “What’s that supposed to mean? Do you doubt me? I would have
asked if I had to take them.”
“Oh, really?” I scoffed. “You didn’t ask me when you took my pencil last time.”
“When? Don’t you lie to me!”
I snickered. “You said sorry, remember?”
“I didn’t.”
The next day, I said, “Whosoever stole sketch pens would bleed and die in a week.”
Lips quivering, Junisa blurted, “Why?”
“Because I prayed at the village temple,” I said. “The thief would bleed and die in a minute. The deity is
very temperamental but if sketch pens are returned, he will live.”
In recess, Junisa followed me and said, “Are you sure the thief would bleed to death if sketch pens are
not returned?”
“Why?” I kept my hands on my hips. “What makes you think I am lying?”
“Just asking.”
“Wait and watch. The thief would die in a week.”
Color drained from his face, he looked around. “Are you sure?”
“Of course,” I said. “The deity won’t leave the thief.”
The next day, Lemo said, “Oh, the sketch pens are here!”
“See, I told you,” said Junisa. “The fool didn’t search thoroughly.”
I curled my lips. “Oh, really?”
Months later, over a trifling matter, Junisa grasped my collar and shook me hard.
“Junisa, you gotta stop that,” I said, gnashing my teeth. “You are making me angry.”
26