My First Novel: Chapter 4

Previous: Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

4

It was noon when I reached home. Mother was still busy in the kitchen. Hearing me coming in, she yelled out to me, “Jeet, your lunch is on the table. Have it.” I washed my hands and sat down to eat my lunch. It was soon finished, as I was very hungry. “Any luck making a friend?” asked mother as she came to collect my plate.

“Nope.”

“Well, I am sure you will make one tomorrow. And one more thing, we have been invited for dinner by our neighbours tomorrow night. You don’t want to come, do you?”

“No.” I hated parties. That is why my parents used to keep me at home to ‘look after the house’ when they were out to a party.

“So, you look after the house and try behaving yourself from now on because I don’t want to see any mess when I return home.”

“But I didn’t behave badly today and I am never messy,” I protested.

“No, I was just warnin…I was just telling you beforehand,” replied mother. I could have started an argument, but I controlled myself and ran upstairs to my room.

My room possessed a bed, a folding mirror and many unpacked boxes. I walked up to the mirror, unfolded it and looked at my reflection. The same familiar face with his wavy hair scowled back at me. The mirror had three panes – one middle pane, which I considered as my ‘good and bad self, mixed’; one left pane - my ‘bad self’; and one right pane - my ‘good self’. I liked to talk to my reflections, taking turns to talk as my reflections and myself. I sure was lonely!

My left pane-reflection said, “Again behaving badly, huh? You will never learn, will you?”

“Hey, I didn’t behave badly today! I didn’t even stay in the house for more than an hour today! Then how can I ‘behave badly’?”

“But you sure are messy, aren’t you? Now don’t lie. I know everything. Don’t you remember? Weren’t you messy when you broke that beautiful glass painting? When you took your bat, which you thought was your magical sword, and, like He-man, smashed the glass, like you were cracking the ugly head of Skeletor, wasn’t that messy? Weren’t you messy when you dropped the glass chandelier, when you tried to help out mother in arranging the living room yesterday? And didn’t mother shriek at you? Tell me, tell me!”

“But I was still a baby when I broke that glass painting and…”

“And you will always be a BABY!!”

“No, I am not a baby. Shut up!”

“No, I won’t.”

And the never-ending battle started again. Soon I was enraged and was tempted to smash the mirror with my bare hands, the temptation that had always crept inside me whenever I was in a heated debate with the man in the mirror (rather boy in the mirror). But I did not succumb to my temptation and held myself back, as usual. I had spoiled my own mood. I looked away from the mirror to my room.

My room was all in a mess; I was to arrange it that day. I looked at the clock. It was three o’clock. I decided to complete arranging by five o’clock - a good way to calm myself down. First, I unpacked all the boxes, neatly arranged in one corner of the room. It contained all my clothes and my other necessary things. I systematically arranged the clothes in my cabinet. And slowly and steadily I continued working and soon I finished my work. I looked at the clock, which showed that I had finished half an hour before my scheduled time.

I settled down, tired, in my rocking chair by the window. Rocking gently, I looked out through the window. The sun was about to set. The pyre of the dying sun had reddened the evening sky. The horizon was painted in many bright colours. The sun was orange-coloured and looked rounder and larger than it had when it was directly overhead in the afternoon. The road, which meandered in and out of the cottages, got lost in the horizon. I rocked on the chair looking blankly and unblinkingly at the far horizon. A flock of birds flew towards the sun in the quest of glory.

Next: Chapter 5