When an errand of Lalli’s took me to the neighbouring convent school, I was delighted to run into Florrie Crasto. She was teaching kindergarten and I found her infested with infants, all demanding urgent attention by way of lunch boxes, bathroom and naps. We couldn’t talk then, but made a date for the following week.

We met at an old haunt, the Irani restaurant near the college. We sipped the sweet boiled tea with newfound distaste and decided we had outgrown bun-maska. Kindergarten sounded exhausting, but Florrie clearly enjoyed every moment of her work. We laughed heartily over her anecdotes. “But there are times when you just can’t understand a child,” she sighed. “I’ll bet even your aunt couldn’t explain this one.”

“Try her,” I invited.
Lalli had been in a solitary and reflective mood all week. She gets that way when she reads the papers – they simply seethe with domestic violence these days. “There’s more cruelty within the four walls of a home than out in the mean streets,” I’ve often heard her say with bitterness. Lalli worries me when she’s in this mood. She lacks vim, is careless about meals, reads half the night, disappears on long jaunts and returns looking tired and defeated. The only way to get her out of the jag was to throw a problem her way. Perhaps Florrie would do just that.

The next evening, Florrie was so primed with anxiety that she plunged right away into her story.
“Two children in my class worry me terribly,” she began. “Salma Shroff and Ravi Nair. Salma’s been with us since Junior KG. Ravi joined us just a month ago. They’re total opposites! Salma is a solitary child, likes to play by herself, won’t join in group games and doesn’t have any particular friends. She likes her lessons, but won’t answer questions in class unless she can walk right up to my desk and whisper the answers to me. She loves to draw and paint and I encourage her as much as I can. She’s very talented.

“Ravi is a monkey. I wouldn’t mind that, if he didn’t target Salma so! Of late his sole aim is to torment Salma. And he does this in a most peculiar way!
“The trouble began when he’d been here hardly a week. He brought a fountain pen to class. We use pencils and crayons, ballpoints and markers aren’t allowed – as you can imagine none of the kids had even seen a fountain pen before! And the pen, too, was a very strange looking one! A big orange pen with a square barrel. Any child would find that difficult to grasp.
“Ravi was very popular that day! Salma alone, I noticed, showed no interest at all in that pen. Ravi sits next to her and he made a great show of writing with it, spattering the desk with ink till I was forced to ask him to put the pen away.

“The children were bent over their workbooks when there was a cracking sound and a sharp yelp from Salma. I looked up to find Ravi standing on his chair; when he had got my attention he shrieked, ‘She broke my pen, Miss!’
“The orange pen lay on the floor, shattered in a pool of ink. Salma stood stricken, inky splashes on her dress and legs. I called her to my table and bent down to hear what she had to say. ‘I never, Miss’ she whispered “I never!”
“‘Look at her shoes, Miss! She’s got ink on them! She broke it! She broke it!’ Ravi chanted.
“Salma looked down in horror at her white canvas shoes, now an inky blue. There was nothing I could say to console her.
“No fountain pens in class,” I told Ravi severely and wrote a note in his calendar, asking his mother to make sure he didn’t bring one to class again.

“But the following week, there was Ravi with a new pen, exactly like the first one! Again, he displayed it with great pride. Salma cowered as if she couldn’t bear to think what might happen next. I watched them covertly. Sure enough, in a little while as everybody got busy, Ravi dashed the pen to the ground and yelled, “Miss, miss, she broke my pen!’