The Best Friend - Chapter 3

The Exams

Diepti who used to sleep by 9 PM was in such a deep thought. For first time in her life, she had a mission. Her senses became sharp. It was already 30 minutes past midnight, and she was buried in books. Each problem in every subject which earlier would have either made her yawn, or sleep, or switched the subject altogether was made a friend. Problems eased out. The dinner was cold and bread was hard by the time she went to take the food. For first time in her life, she was sleeping at 3:30 AM and studies was a reason. She was glad, she completed many parts. Next morning she was first to wake up. Being Sunday everyone was lazy in waking up. Diepti went right upto calender and stuck off previous day. She went and did started off with English. The zeal died down, and she started memorizing the essays. She called up Simmi, once she was done memorizing the essay. "Hey Deeps, you sound so tired. Is everything ok. ".
"Yes, it is . I just feel like studying nowadays. I think its the right time to do it,".
Laughing and nearly in tears, laughing, Simi replied, "that's so wise. But what do you do just 20 days from the exams that everyone looks upto, go play boyfriend-girlfriend with Anuj". A pause followed , and an immediate laughter. The things are not getting easy for Simi, who is having troubles in her own family. Her side of story was always unknown to Diepti who found the amazing company of Simi as her turning point in getting to exams.
Diepti has never been more confident in her life, Maths was a cakewalk for her, and for first time, she was confident going in the exams. Three days before the exams started, an unusual incident happened. Her brother went missing. His class XII boards expected to start in a week. Diepti's parents were devastated. They had no clue of what would have happened. His brother was an intelligent guy, who spoke too much. He was verbose and very strong in academics. There was no reason to assume he would have left the home for fear of exams, as the inspector mentioned. It was a clear case of kidnapping, and Diepti was all in tears. She could not help but keep on looking at the hanging keychain, which was gifted to her by her brother.
The only source of Deepti's inspiration was missing. There was a big void in her life. She had gone blank on hearing the news. She lost count of time. All the efforts for the exams were lost, only her brother's face was in her mind all the time. Times when she did not fare well in exams, and her brother used to defend her to the time when she had midnight craving for Ice-Cream would he jump back from the backyard, run out to get an ice-cream. He is now gone, and two days of search didn't bring any results. Simmi came and met Diepti couple of times but didn't spend too much time. Exam time is pressure time for kids.
One day to the exam, and the ground reality hit hard on Diepti. There were no last minute revisions, she had done an effort of lifetime, and it is all going to go down the drain. She was sad, but still can't get off these exams.
Concentration was not the only thing missing, every small thing needed next day seemed to be lost. The admission card to the gate pass, everything comfortably strolled to the corners of room. Sleep also evaded Diepti, and she was hardly slept before her first exam.