A Thorn for Miss R. by Sakiv Koch

Author:Sakiv Koch [Koch, Sakiv]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-03-01T16:00:00+00:00

"The haughty girl thinks it’s a sin even to look at her."

"She’s just hungry for the power she can exercise over innocent young boys."

"If young girls are becoming so whimsical, our ancient and great culture is surely counting its last breaths."

This instigating, haughty, power-hungry, whimsical, culture-killing girl often went with the Rani to the district’s charity hospitals and orphanages. Rachna helped care for destitute, handicapped, leprosied, terminally ill people who had no one else to look after them.

I had been under the impression that Prince Sanjay had first met Rachna through Rani Meena Devi. This wasn’t the case, though.

They had come across each other in the forest surrounding Trumpet Hill. Prince Sanjay was out hunting, aiming his rifle at a deer. Rachna came upon him from behind and shoved him with enough force to make him put a bullet into the ground, very close to his feet.

Imagine the consequences if I had dared to push the Prince, making him miss his mark and putting his toes in the danger of being blasted from his feet! And what did the prince do when he turned around and saw the red-faced, angry girl who had dared commit violence to his exalted person?

He merely blinked before apologizing to Rachna! Can you comprehend the incomprehensible? Yes? I, too, can do so now. I wish I could do so back then, too.

The prince had been out without his guards that day, too (just like the time he had come to our school looking for Rachna). He loved to sneak out on his own. The Rani was always miffed at him for his laxity, but he was royally adamant about certain things. This devil-may-care attitude of his would vanish without a trace on the night of the murders.

Hunting had been among Prince Sanjay’s chief interests until Rachna thumped his back and shook him up. When he came to see her in school, it was to tell her that he had decided to never kill any animal again! The rascal went moon-high in Rachna’s hard-to-win esteem in one sly, smooth motion.

Guess who plummeted to the very bottom of the selfsame esteem? Yours truly, of course. Rachna stopped speaking to me after my memorable fight with the math-exam aspirant. Could anything be more natural than her snapping all ties with me? Nothing could be more natural, of course.

And yet I was shocked, flabbergasted, incredulous, incensed, and so on, when I found the following note on my desk one non-fine morning:

Neel, it would pain me immensely if you try to speak to me, or if you continue to make me an excuse for fighting with people. Rachna

What?! My speaking to her would pain her immensely?! After everything that I had done to make her pain go away?! I made her an excuse for fighting with people?! After I had stood watch over her, without letup, with such dedication, such devotion?! After I had earned so many bruises and bumps and bloody-noses, all for the sake of her peace?! (This

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