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!’

“I dealt with Ravi quite severely this time and moved him to the other side of the classroom. Salma hasn’t lost her terror yet. She clings to me during the lunch break, afraid to be on her own. Yesterday she drew a picture of two brown mounds beneath a tree. When I asked her what they were, she said one was her grandmother and the other was...Ravi. I’m so worried about her!

“But my story isn’t done yet. Ravi has brought two more pens to class, and broken them the same way, calling out across the class to torment Salma. Ravi hasn’t shown my note to his mother. He keeps saying ‘Miss, I forgot’; it’s his favourite line. I was planning to visit his mother…but perhaps you’ll have a better solution.”

“Yes, don’t speak to Ravi’s parents yet,” Lalli said. “I’d like to meet the children. Is that possible?”
“Could you drop in at eleven tomorrow? The kids have their break then. I’d have too much explaining to do if you visited us in class.” Florrie was waiting at the school gate at eleven and she led us through the boisterous playground to the classroom where a lone artist toiled industriously. The little girl looked up as we entered, holding up the drawing eagerly for Florrie. But she ducked hastily when she saw two strangers with her teacher. She put her head down on the drawing. Lalli ignored her and drew Florrie on a walk around the classroom, examining the drawings pinned on the walls. At length Salma looked up. She sat solemnly, wearing a look of stubborn persecution on her tiny heart-shaped face.

“My old legs are quite tired today,” Lalli announced, sinking into a chair across the room from Salma. “I’m going to wait here while you find that child out there in the sun!”
Ravi Nair was located with difficulty. He was wriggling on his stomach in a shallow ditch where several kids were holding what they said was a caterpillar race. He was excavated by Florrie and on being told he was wanted in the classroom, swaggered ahead of us, brandishing a stick.
Lalli and Salma were huddled over Salma’s drawing. When she saw Ravi, Salma whispered excitedly to Lalli. Ravi jumped on the nearest desk and pretended not to notice.
“Ravi, which one of these is your drawing?” Lalli asked, turning slowly around to take in the perimeter of the decorated walls.
Ravi shook his head, looking foolish.
“Ravi isn’t one of our artists,” Florrie offered.
“Then he will be the only child in class not to get a prize! Anybody can draw! Here, draw something quickly for me if you don’t want to get left out, Ravi!” Lalli pushed a box of crayons across and Florrie dutifully provided a sheet of paper.

Salma had drawn a cat. It was an admirable cat, with claws dangerously bared on each extended paw. Ravi had started work, tongue protruding between his slat teeth in concentration. Salma watched him with scorn.
Red and perspiring, Ravi flourished his masterpiece at last. He had drawn a man with an enormous moustache. He sat astride a bike that ended alarmingly in a curly black cloud. One arm triumphantly held aloft a thick orange bar. The space around the bike was littered with similar orange streaks.
He accepted our praise coolly, as no more than due. “Is this Daddy?” Lalli asked, “Why don’t you write his name there?”
Ravi looked sheepishly at Florrie. “Spelling, Miss” he muttered. I heard a small giggle behind me. Salma had joined the audience.
Climbing a chair, she whispered urgently in Lalli’s ear.
“D-A-D,” began Florrie, but Ravi shook his head impatient–ly.“No, no, Miss Bastin!”
“Oh, so this is Bastin!” Lalli exclaimed “And look, he has so many pens! Nine, 10, 12 pens!”
“Bastin has 100 pens” Ravi said impressively. “Bastin has hundred million thousand pens.” Here his maths gave out, and he made up for it with a defiant glare.
Salma drew back in alarm.
“Salma, look, this is why Ravi has so many pens,” Lalli said conversationally, “and see, Bastin has broken all his pens, just like Ravi does in class!” Salma peeped cautiously over Lalli’s shoulder.
“So Bastin breaks his pens just as you do, Ravi? Throws them on the floor?”
“Bastin only breaks one pen,” Ravi corrected gravely. “Then he gives me another one.”
“And Bastin gives you a new pen every week even if you break yours?”
Ravi nodded. “But only on Monday, Miss. Bastin can’t give me a pen on Tuesday.”
“And so you do have one with you now! Can I see it? Please?” Ravi produced a pencil box with great ceremony, and opening it, he extracted an orange fountain pen. Salma stared at it with dread. Lalli handed it to her. “Go on, Salma, write what you’ve drawn.”
The pen was too unwieldy for her small hand, but Salma pushed on bravely and produced C_A_T in straggling letters between the animal’s paws.
“Let’s break the pen now, just as Bastin does,” Lalli suggested. Ravi grabbed at the pen, but Lalli intercepted him. “Oh, but Bastin doesn’t have ink in the pen does he, when he breaks it?” she asked.
Ravi laughed with easy contempt. “Bastin’s pen doesn’t have ink! He only puts it for me, special, in my pen!”
“Fine. Because we want to do exactly as Bastin does, let’s throw out the ink.” Lalli emptied the barrel and rinsed it out in the sink in the corridor.
Then she dashed the pen to the ground before the fascinated eyes of the two children.
Lalli gathered up the fragments of the barrel and examined them. “So now we know why Ravi breaks his pens, don’t we, Salma?” she asked. Salma nodded wisely. Lalli pounced on Ravi, “But why did you say that Salma broke them?”
“She’s scared,” he declared. “Just like Philu!”
“So Philu is scared every time Bastin breaks a pen?”
Ravi nodded, delighted. “Philu’s so scared that Bastin laughs and laughs! Bastin laughs and laughs and laughs!” To my surprise, Salma joined in the chant, giggling and jumping, keeping time with Ravi.
“Okay, Ravi, I’m going to keep your drawing and your pen. Both of you deserve prizes for your drawings. But Salma, you can keep your cat. You’re going to need him. Ravi, you’re quite wrong in thinking Salma is scared of you. Salma, tell him what will happen if he says that again.”

“Cat will scratch you…Grrrrr,” Salma sounded quite ferocious. We left them growling and snarling happily at each other.
In the corridor, Lalli showed us the fragments of the pen. Between the plastic shell and the ink barrel was a space of about half an inch. “I found it odd when you described the pen. Why such a big, thick, old-fashioned barrel? And how strange that the pen should shatter! A pen barrel may crack when dropped – but I’ve never seen one that shatters. That led me to expect something of this sort, Florrie. And then Ravi’s drawing told me the rest of the story. Bastin is his great hero – with that moustache and a motorbike, how could a small boy not worship him! Besides, he’s probably very good to Ravi. It sounds as though the child spends a great deal of time with Bastin and Philu!”
“I must call his mother at once,” Florrie burst out. “Why, they might be criminals! So trusting, his parents have been! They don’t get home till eight and his mother told me Ravi goes straight to the neighbours. And she made them out to be such kind people!”

“They probably are,” Lalli said. “They’ve given the child a lot of care. They’re his friends, and he loves them. That’s all he needs to know about them. There’s no need at all for you to call Ravi’s mother. Could you keep Ravi with you after school till I call you? We must hurry now, I must get in touch with Inspector Savio.”
“But why did Bastin break those pens?” I broke in.
Lalli said impatiently. “Ravi told us why! Bastin didn’t break all the pens – he just broke one pen every Monday and gave one to Ravi. On Tuesday there were no pens. Bastin was testing a sample to see if it shattered satisfactorily. Why was that necessary? Bastin’s job is probably to fill the space within with contraband – drugs most likely – and then seal the space with an adhesive that is a permanent bonder. When you unscrew the barrel after the job is done, it will look like a thick plastic shell around the ink barrel. And the only way to get at the stuff would be to shatter the plastic and slide out the contents! So a special grade of bakelite that fractures easily has been used.”
“But why not smuggle the stuff in the ink barrel itself,” I protested.

Lalli laughed. “If you can think of it, believe me, the Customs are way ahead! Now let me put Savio on the job.”
Thanks to Savio’s efficiency, Ravi never learnt how he had betrayed his friends. It was all over before he got home. Bastin, Sebastian, actually and his wife, Philu, were taken into custody within the hour in a surprise raid. Fifty kilos of heroin were recovered from the flat. There were two crates of orange pens that Bastin claimed were for export to Nigeria.
Florrie kept Ravi with her till the coast was clear. It cost her several ice-creams, two rides in a merry-go-round and an hour watching a bear dance. But it was worth it.