Summer vacations were over and my school reopened.
I boarded my bus. I was the only one senior from our locality while others were primary and middle schoolers. So most of the times, I was all by myself during the half hour journey.
I went straight ahead to the last seat and sat exactly in the middle. I immediately opened my bag, took out a bunch of questionnaires and began solving them right away.
Few minutes later, the bus jerked unexpectedly and caused me to fall off my seat. I quickly readjusted my position and my glasses. That's when I saw a familiar face searching for an empty seat. Her hair was braided on both sides, which was a rare sight in my school. I noticed how her home was quite near to mine, and thought she must have shifted recently. Had she lived here before, we would have met during the prayer meetings held by the Christians in our locality.
Soon our eyes met as I sat straight in line of her sight, and she began heading in my direction.
I suddenly became conscious of her.
"Sanika sis!" Some girl called out her name which brought her to a halt. It seemed like she knew one of the 7th-grade juniors, and Sanika chose to sit beside her little friend.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I definitely wasn't prepared to converse with someone new.
I immediately reminded myself to resume with my assignment. This was going to be my last year in school. The pressure of entrance was already making me anxious. To top it all- we had to complete physics, chem, bio projects within 3 months. My head was messed up with the number of assignments I had to finish in a day, and I didn't have the leisure to think of anything else.
Aghhh! Why did I take up Maths and Bio together?
Well, my parents were partly at fault. They wished for me to become a doctor. At the same time, they valued maths way too much and didn't want me to drop it. I complied with their demands as I did well in the subject during middle school. I also used to win titles like 'Math wizard', 'Scientific inclination' almost every year along with... Sanika.
That would have been the very first time, I ever talked to her...
I was in 10th grade, waiting in a line for all the students who were being awarded some titles such as 'artistic skills', 'literature genius', 'sports hero'. All these awards were being given on our school's founder's day.
Sanika waited immediately behind me. She was in 9th grade then, around 5'1" in height and hardly reached up to my shoulders. She tied her hair in two ponies. Her serious looking face was covered with acne. She seemed like the kind of girl who doesn't bullshit with others, who doesn't joke around, does nothing but study.
"Hi, you are Jacob right?"
"yeah"
"You are here for maths or science wizard?"
"Science wizard."
And that was all our talk was about. I didn't ask which title she had been receiving, though it was obvious as she stood right behind me. Back then I didn't even try to make a conversation.
As I remembered this memory, I began wondering which stream Sanika must have opted for. With the little bit of information on her, I predicted PCMB (Physics, Chemistry, Maths, Biology) as her choice.
Focus!
I tried not to get distracted again. Meanwhile, I managed to complete my assignment before reaching school.