I, Twinkle and Avni were the closest friends in the whole college. No one had such a great friendship like we had. We were always together in everything. We sat in class together. We sat together in recess. Whenever teacher would ask us to bring a pile of copies so we three would go together. We three even had parties in our dorm room. Well I was in boys dorm and Twinkle and Avni in girls dorm but still I would sneak in their room secretly and would scare them at night. It was such a great fun to do this.
Well so today also I had this plan in mind. So when everyone were asleep, then I sneaked out of my room and tiptoed towards their room. I opened their door and it creaked open. I went inside with my flashlight as the light was switched off and the girls were fast asleep. I saw something or rather someone crawling from the corner of my eye and turned to see who it was. It was no one so I took a sigh of relief. I heard the cupboard door creak open and turned towards the cupboard. I went towards it and was half way towards the cupboard.
“Kunj,” a familiar voice called me and I turned. Twinkle had woken up from her sleep. She switched on her bedside lamp which had red rays and pushed the duvet off herself getting off the bed and walking towards me. “What are you doing?” She asked looking at the cupboard and then at me. “Nothing, just wanted to party with you guys but saw that you both were asleep,” I told her and she nodded and then closed the cupboard door and stood pressing her back hard against the cupboard. “We will party some other day,” she told me.
“Okay but why are you standing like this? You should go and sleep Twinkle,” I said to her and she sighed. “So should you,” she said. I nodded and began to walk away. When I got out of the room and was shutting the door, I heard her opening the cupboard and murmuring. I pressed my ear against the door to hear clearly. “Hey, you shouldn’t get out until I and Avni are out of here, you left the door open, what if Kunj would’ve seen you?” She said. What’s such in her cupboard that she asked me not to see?
I opened her room door again and just then she closed her cupboard door shut. She placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head at me. She raised her eyebrows and then let them drop. “What now?” She asked. “Who are you talking to?” I asked and she bent down and picked her dog and showed it to me. “I was talking to him, you’re scared of dogs, no? I was just asking him not to come in front of you else you will scream and everyone will get to know that you sneaked in girl’s dorm at midnight, and you would be given detention, that’s why,” she said nodding her head acting innocent.
Oh, so that’s what I saw was crawling in the dark. “Okay okay, bye, good night,” I said. “Good night,” she greeted back. “Sleep baby sleep,” she said to her puppy as I left. I chuckled at her childish behavior.
*************SPLIT**************
Next day, we three were sitting and talking randomly. “Yesterday night when I came to your dorm, I saw something crawl in the darkness and I was damn scared but when Twinkle told me that it was just her dog, I was relieved,” I said to Avni. She looked at Twinkle and then back at me. “Dog, are you serious? Twinkle has no dog,” she said. “No she has, she showed me yesterday,” I said. “You both must be in dark that’s why you didn’t realize that the dog was artificial, it was a stuffed dog, it was fake, she keeps buying stuffed animals from toy shop, she’s so fond of them, she made you a fool,” she said and laughed and I also forced a smile. I got thinking as they both got engaged in talking. I sighed.
A stuffed dog can’t crawl. So then who did I see crawling in the dim light? How did the cupboard swung open? I was thinking all this when teacher called my name jerking me out of thoughts. “Yes miss?” I asked standing up. “Beta there would be a pile of yearbooks on my place in the staff room, please bring it,” she said. “Okay miss,” I said. “Kunj,” Twinkle called and I looked back. “We both will also come,” she said and the duo stood up and walked behind me with us to the staff room. We divided the pile among the three of us.
We began running towards the class and in the midway, Twinkle’s half pile fell along with Avni’s half pile but they ignored it and ran away. “Twinkle! Avni!” I called out but they kept running towards the class. I looked at my left and my friend Yuvraj was also laughing just like me at my situation. I also laughed and sat down and began to pick up their half piles and then walked towards my classroom balancing now a very huge pile. As I reached the entrance of the classroom, the pile fell from my hands.
Almost the whole class began to laugh, but the ones who were laughing the most were Twinkle and Avni. I shot them an angry glare, they stood up and helped me with the pile and then we three placed it on the teacher’s desk. Teacher assigned some students to distribute it among the class. “Fools, I know you intentionally dropped that pile in the midway, right?” I asked them, they were laughing continuously. “It was Twinkle’s idea,” Avni said laughingly, Twinkle hid her face. “Dekh loon ga tumhe main,” I said as she continued to laugh. We got our yearbooks.
But the ones whose siblings were in same college and if they had got the yearbook, so that person didn’t got the yearbook, they were told to share it. My brother got it so I knew I would get to share it with him so I didn’t got one. Avni’s sister would’ve got one so she also didn’t take one. Only Twinkle was the one to take it and so we began looking through it flipping pages. When we came to a page where there was a poem written by some guy, Twinkle’s jaw dropped open.
“What happen Twinkle?” I and Avmi asked at the same time. She pointed at the guy in the pic and he had a sweet smile on his face. “Looks like Parth,” she said, I and Avni looked at each other and then at her. “Who’s Parth?” I asked. “Yes, never heard about him,” Avni too said. “The guy who lives in my closet, the one you saw crawling through the darkness, the one who left the cupboard door open, the one who I opposed to you from seeing,” she said. That’s when I realized that she was talking to him the night before. To a ghost.