Cat in the Boot

When I was a kid I used to loose lot of things. Things like my pens, books,
rubbers etc. My father once gave me and my brother beautiful pens that were
made out of sandalwood. I lost my pen promptly.

My brother kept his in his bag. His bag used to smell so good. One day I felt like
using his pen (thats considered a sin) to do my homework. His pen fit in my hand
very well and I started writing effortlessly. Soon I started just gliding through
my homework. I actually entered a homework-zone just like VVS Laxman gets into
his batting-zone. In the zone, solutions flow effortlessly. If you were asked to
write an essay on cow dozen times, you would do that.

In the middle of the zone, my brother snatched the pen from my hands. I felt so
helpless. I also sensed an evil smile on his face. To take revenge I hid his
Social studies notebook in our washing machine. I totally forgot about it in
an hour. We were then in the middle of our unit tests.

The next day when I came home after a play-in-sand-n-eat-some-sand session I found
my brother silently weeping. (He was never public with that kind of stuff). In
between tears he said that he lost his Social studies notebook and that he had
an exam the next day. I was jubilant. Soon my dad is going to come home from
work and going to kick my brother's ass. I visualized my brother's ass being
kicked in Eastman color, slow motion and spring action. I was literally jumping
around my mom, asking "mom, isnt dad coming early today?". Running around the
home, "Dad is gonna come..naaranannaanaa","Dad is gonna come..naaranannaanaa".

My Dad came and hell broke loose. My mom quickly defended my brother. But my
brother was consummated with fear, guilt and despair. He was at the edge. I actually
felt a little sorry for him and started looking around the usual corners in the home
for his book. When I passed the washing machine I have developed a sudden chill.
Something told me that I had something to do with that machine. When I understood
what had happened my legs trembled. Unfortunately, my dad just entered that room
and started looking for that book. I just froze in front of the WM not knowing
what to do. Then I did a stupid thing that only a stupid kid can do. I opened
the lid of WM, took the book out and shouted, "Wow, what ah Suhhrprise. This book
is here? Ha..of all the places..he lost his book here? Mom mom I found the book,
brother you can read now....ho ho ho....a book in a washing machine? Never heard
of it. How did it get here? I cant bellllieve this..."

On that fateful night, my mom and my brother watched my ass being kicked, with
huge and pleasant smiles on their faces.