Night Study - Climax

To be very clear, I would suggest you to read Night Study Part I first.

Heart pounding, without wasting another second I shouted at the peak of my voice - RUN!

I clearly knew that I am in real danger of being smacked by the people in the bus. My legs were swift enough to carry me away as fast as it can. Though it being a uphill road, I managed to run with my school bag on my shoulder. I was already 100 mts away from the bus. I didn't scramble the cards, as I still had hopes of continuing the game. I turned back to see my friends, there were not to be seen. I thought the commuters in the bus should have caught them, I was scared. The road was twisted and dense with trees, I know they were searching me. Out of curiosity to know about my friends, I stopped. turned back powered ON my torch light pointing towards the direction where the bus is. Right at the next moment, I heard the people yelling "there he is". Oops, did I let them know where I am? I didn't waste another second and started running as far as my legs could take me without a break. After reaching a particular point and when I felt that I was safe from the commuters sight, I sat down behind the road side block. I prepared myself as how to escape even if they are going to come here. There were tea bushes on the side of the road where I was sitting and I know it can provide me good cover in the dark and even in moon light.

I was gasping for breath, but managed to keep myself silent lest, letting them know my hide. I waited for my friends to come. When they reached, I interfered them. They didn't wanna speak with me and were very serious. After a dozen of sorry, they agreed to tell me what happened. Before my friends realized that something had gone wrong, I was already 40 mts away from them running at my top speed, the commuters caught them. After a long slew of scoldings, the commuters finally agreed to listen. As my friends didn't have a powerful torch and as the commuters had seen me running, they agreed to leave my friends. They also planned in such a way that from the next day when the bus comes, the driver will run the bus over me and my friends should hide when this happens. I was almost about to wet my pants. But being a gentle man, I tried my best to keep up my stature. My friends were so good that they agreed to save me from the bus.
That night I didn't have a good sleep. No, I didn't wet my bed.

Next day came, I was all prepared to face whatever is about to happen. After the night study we started our ususal walk and the wrestling card game. As we knew the time when the bus usually crosses that place, we started taking cover behind a tree and let the bus go. This started becoming our daily routine.

One day, while we were taking cover, we waited and waited but the bus never showed up. We were already running late. We finally decided to move, we thought the bus should have left much earlier than the usual time. We walked as fast as we can. My legs were trembling already. If ever the bus should come, I thought this will be my last day on earth. We were in no mood to play the game anymore, we just concenterated on all the head lights that were flashing on the road though they were just one or two.

When we still had 15 to 20 more minutes of walk, suddenly we heard the engine sound of the bus. Dhanu was the first to see the head light. As it is downhill for the bus, it was pacing at greater speed. We all knew that within 5 - 8 seconds the bus will find us. We didn't know what to do and had very little time to react. My legs gave up. I looked to the left, there were tea plantations. I shouted again, JUMP!

All three were down one above the other struggling between the tea bushes. Did we know that it was 10 ft. deep before we jumped? Still, lying flat, we saw the lights passing by, it wasn't the bus, but a local Jeep. Uh.... with a heavy sigh, I managed to get to my feet. We struggled again to climb up the road. We all had bruises all over the body. My arm hurted a lot. Both my friends gave me a staring look. This time I very well knew that dozens of sorry will not help. I kept my mouth shut and we walked home.

We never saw the bus after that. Later we came to know the timings have been changed. We also stopped our game as we lost most of the cards in that deadly jump and we started concenterating on our studies.