The Clown’s Discovery (TCG series Part 1)
We just moved in to our brand new house, it looked like a palace compared to our previous one. We bought it from a big fat guy called Dave Ferguson, so this man was a wealthy one who sold the house because he wanted to go back to America and wasn't more interested in India. I was very scared when I saw his grinny face for the first time. I could clearly see his golden and silver teeth covers on his front teeth in the upper jaw, his other teeth appeared in a variety of colours like pink, black, yellow etc. But we had no other choice so we bought the house. Actually my father is a businessman who runs a law firm, we recently opened a new branch of our firm in the city and we got the news that some sort of problems are being raised by the office staff so my father decided to make this branch the main one.
When I saw my new home I was shocked to see it, I mean it was a beautiful house but I didn't actually expect such a beautiful house from such a dirty man. I saw something written on a piece of cardboard and hung up at the gate of the house. I went on to read it, it said 'Don't buy the house unless you want to die, I will kill you' I was terrified once I saw the note. I told about the note to my father and he simply said "don't worry my son that can be a silly prank by a neighbour". I neglected it but I was still thinking about it. My mother opened the front door and she stepped in with her right foot according to vastu shastra. I followed her and I saw the same note again but with an addition of a joker's face. I took it to my father again but he was too busy making payments to the movers and contacting the cleaners for the cleaning up of the house. So I kept it with me in my right pocket. I rushed to the second floor of our duplex and conquered a room. I put up my ‘STAY AWAY FROM ME' board which was my so-called warning board. I entered in and saw a dozen of music CDs, a karaoke set and a recorder. 'Oh my God' I gaped this place was a heaven for me, wait didn't I tell you that I love music and more than that football is considered as my first love. The place was awesome but it was stinking like dead fish. I held my nose and went inside trying to keep all the filthy things out of my path by kicking. Then I stopped for a moment to look at the music CDs and they contained of almost all the cool singers of Bollywood as well as Hollywood, and then I thought 'who would leave all this cool stuff like this. I will obviously return to check it out. I opened the wardrobe and expected something messed up like outside. I saw some awesome looking football jerseys of players like Messi, Ronaldo, Zlatan, Neymar Jr., Suarez etc. I looked through them and down I saw them half eaten half chewed by rats. I went on to check the CDs with my mini CD player. I checked the first one, error........ Second one, error......... and this was not the case with one or two CDs but the whole dozen. I was really disappointed from this house. First of all you get the stuff which is related to you passion and it doesn't work, then sort of the same thing happens again and to top it all off you get a note from some crazy guy who threatens the kill you. Just imagine it guys. I was really unhappy and checked out the other room it was even worse than the first one. Finally I compromised with the first room. I put on my bag and climbed down the stairs. I tried to slide on the railing but it collapsed and the very next second I was on the ground rubbing my bums. My father saw me and started giggling. He helped me to my feet but he was still laughing. As I stood up, a small piece of the railing fell on his head and he started rubbing his head. This time I laughed at him and he also joined me. Let me tell you my father is a really cool man who is still a bit childish and my mom is a beautiful kind lady who lets me live freely but both of them are very strict when it comes to studies. I went outside to meet my new neighbouring friends I took a selfie of me with my new house and posted it on my Instagram and Facebook page. I saw some boys standing and staring at the workers who were shifting all the boxes into our house.
I moved towards them to start a conversation. The boys shifted their eyes from the workers to me and started examining me. I started out 'hello guys I am new here. Can I know your names’? The four guys started speaking
'Hi I am Ansh', 'Kush here', 'yo it's Yaksh', 'and Krish is my name'. 'Ansh, Kush, Krish, and Yaksh’ I started repeating their names trying to remember them. 'Which school do you study in?' I asked them, the next thing that they told me made me very happy, they told me that they studied in the same school where I had decided to go and in fact they were of the same standard as me. My mom used to drop me off to school for a couple of weeks but after some time I started riding my bicycle to school with my friends. We used to sit together during the break times in the school garden. One day a new girl joined our class, she was wearing spectacles and with a book in hand she perfectly looked like a book worm and also she seemed to be a scholar. Ansh told me that she lived in our society. In the break time when we were sitting in the garden, the new girl approached us and said 'Hi, I am new to the class so can you give notes to me' she said pointing towards Krish. 'Me' he said poking his finger in his chest. 'Yes, you by the way I am Aisha Kapoor'. After the school krish gave his notes to Aisha. Aisha's mother picked her up and went. We started pedalling slow and we reached our homes. I climbed up the stairs and entered my room. I quickly started finding my diary, after a struggle of half an hour, I found it and started writing 'Today a girl entered my class named Aisha Kapoor, she came to us and asked for notes from krish'. After writing this, my mom called out 'Vatshal come for lunch' I went down and ate my lunch in a hurry. After completing lunch I went for a short sleep to my room. My room consisted of posters of famous football players and music CDs of my favourite singers such as Justin beiber, Bruno mars, Ed sheeran etc..... after the nap I went to the local garden to play football for some time. I was about to hit a goal when an opponent player kicked me in my leg and a penalty. I took the penalty and curved my shot and GOAL it hit the crossbar and inside. After bouncing the ball went and directly hit Aisha on her head as she was walking past by the garden. A huge bump appeared on her head and she entered the garden rubbing her head. My team quickly turned around and ran towards the side of our goalpost. We sat there and started gossiping nonsense. She came to our group. She pointing towards the ball in her hand and the bump on her head and said 'who did this; I want to hear the truth'. I had no plans to confess my crime but I stood up and said 'I am sorry, it hit you by mistake' 'it's OK' she said 'try to make you kick a little more high one so that it doesn't bounce back and ya that was a nice banana kick'. 'What' Kush said 'you know about football’? 'Of course I was the captain of my school football team'. What about you guys' she responded back. We said we were a part of the present school team. I was the centre forward; Kush the centre mid, Yaksh left forward, Ansh the winger and Krish the defence. She wanted to befriend with us I think. A new member just joined our gang.
I approached my friends, 'hey man why did you call me here and what's the matter. Why you carrying this backpack' Yaksh interrogated me like he was a cop interrogating a criminal. 'Can you take me to the joker's Kingdom' I sort of requested him 'yes of course but it can be dangerous and it is located in a jungle' he said giving an awkward look. We got on our cycles and Yaksh was leading the way to the joker's Kingdom. We cycled for about half an hour and found ourselves inside a deep jungle. We parked our cycles under a huge banyan tree and followed Yaksh. We hid behind a tree and peeked outside it. All I could figure out was a tent like structure from the mysterious shadow. We tiptoed till the tent. It was coloured in a pattern matching a joker's dress. I observed that the tent was covered with branches over it and a creeper crept over the front gate. I tried to peek in but my leg tripped over the creeper and I fell in the tent. My friends followed me. The thing that I saw left me threatened. We ran out of the tent. We ran as fast as we could towards our cycles. We climbed on our cycles but couldn't move. We discovered that our cycles were locked by some creepers. We climbed down. The creepers held Kush’s leg and he fell down with a thump. A huge bump appeared on his head and we started pulling him. Finally we were successful in setting him free. We started running we ran and ran and ran. After five minutes we arrived at a diversion. We were confused what road to take; we took the left one because it looked safe. We ran but again arrived at the joker's palace, the tent. We ran again the same road. This time we took the right but again the same story. We again arrived at the tent. We had no Idea what to do next so we gathered the courage to walk inside the tent. We hesitated at first but finally went inside. We saw Sanki bathing in a tub full of blood and chanting mantras. We don't know what happened then, maybe some energy pulled us towards him. 'Welcome to my kingdom' Sanki said. We were sort of hypnotized. We would do anything he told us for the next half an hour but some holy spirit inside me woke me up and I saw my friends sitting near Sanki's legs massaging them and Sanki was half asleep. I went slowly towards my friends, so slow that no one could hear even the movement of my legs or my steps. I went near Aisha and shook her by her shoulder; she was startled and started winking her eyes rapidly. 'What where am I' she said. I was relieved once I heard her voice. She slowly took her hands from Sanki's legs and we came out of the tent.
After we came out of the tent, we heard a loud and unclear yell maybe from Sanki; it was so unclear that I couldn't make out what he said. After 5 to 6 seconds after hearing the yell, our friends came out. We noticed that they were walking in awkward way like.....like zombies or they had actually become zombies. A huge horde of clown hats, hula-hoops and juggling balls followed them. 'Are you serious man? Hats, hula-hoops, balls moving on their own' I said to Aisha eyes still on the parade led by our most humble friends. Frightened, we started running away from parade. We stopped at a dead end when a hat reserved its place on my head and a ball hit my head so hard that I fell and a bump appeared at my head. 'Aaaaaaaaaaaah..........' we heard a sound. No it was not Tarzan; instead it was Yaksh, hanging from a rope just like Tarzan. I was thinking from where he managed to get a rope. He landed before me and almost hit my leg. 'Wait you are here so who's that' Aisha said. 'Ah they won't do anything they are just clones' Yaksh said. We sighed with relief. Now the question was how to get back. We thought about football and imagined a football in front of us. I started dribbling the imaginary ball and then passed it over to Yaksh he did some skills and passed it to Aisha. We passed the hats and moved towards the hula-hoops the ball was with me I performed some nutmegs and passed the ball to Aisha who performed some skills as well, rainbows, zika zaka etc... We passed the hula-hoops and reached the juggling balls, Yaksh actually picked up some and started juggling them with his hands, I tried the same but was unable to do so but Aisha did it well. So I took one ball and started juggling it with my legs. After passing the horde I took a shoot and it went inside the tent. Yaksh took us somewhere behind the tent. There we saw all our friends trapped but how did Yaksh come out was still a mystery. 'How did you come out Yaksh' Aisha said she almost snatched the sentence from my mouth. 'I always carry a pocket knife with me from which I cut the rope' Yaksh replied. I saw the rope but it was a metal chain, I thought for a sec but ignored it. We found a rock and broke the lock with it. They were now free. We moved towards our cycles but I kept staring Yaksh. His way of walking had changed but I thought that he may have got hurt and that was the reason of his changed way of walking. He stopped to tie his laces. 'Wait he wore sandals when we left for her so how can he tie his laces' I thought in my mind. I looked back to him, he was wearing shoes. I thought I misunderstood something and it was just my thought. We reached our cycles and now those creepers had left our cycles free. We started to cycle. We all were cycling very fast but don't know why Yaksh was cycling the last although he was the fastest among us. We were almost out of the jungle when Yaksh was at the last and suddenly he overtook us and stopped with a drift.
