The Late Eid Present

It was a warm Monday morning after a wonderfully long Eid break. The whole world seemed too tired to go back to work. Those who managed to start their jobs could not complete them. The carpenter fell asleep while working with his saw, the bus drivers lazily drove as if they were the only ones on the road, and even the birds seemed to fly much slower than usual.

Rozaiba arrived at school with his brother to find that most of the faculty and students had decided to take the day off. However, the strict principle with ‘eagle eyes’, as the kids called them because nothing escaped their attention, would not let those who had already entered the school to go back home. So eight-year-old Rozaiba was stuck with a boring day. He hoped the principle would fall asleep allowing him to sneak out and play with his other friends.

The bell rang for lunch. Rozaiba quickly went over to the business office to collect lunch coupons worth 50 rupees from the sleepy eyed Mr. Hashmi. Without counting the coupons, Rozaiba ran to the lunch line and waited for his turn to get food, eat it as fast as possible and then have lots of time left to play soccer.

As he was paying the cook for the lunch, he realized that the stapled coupons were worth 100 rupees- twice what he paid for. Rozaiba’s friend nudged him from behind and thought it appropriate to point out that the two of them should get an extra cup of ice cream to help cool off in the warm day.

‘Let’s make good use of the extra amount!’, insisted his friend.

Rozaiba shook his head. But his friend tried to convince him with a big smile.

‘Come on! Think of it as a late Eid present!’

Rozaiba remained unconvinced. It did not feel right to use something that wasn’t his.

After Rozaiba’s confusion abated, he decided to return the additional coupons.

As he went up to the counter in the business office, he saw that it was closed. The janitor told him that Mr. Hashmi had just decided to take the rest of the day off.

‘However, if you hurry, you could catch up to Mr. Hashmi and return the extra coupons. Or you could give them to me!’, said the janitor with a sneaky grin.

Without thinking, Rozaiba ran out the business office and toward the school gate. From the corner of his eye, he saw the ‘eagle eyed’ principle furiously waving his stick just as Rozaiba passed out of the school gate maneuvering well enough to avoid the clutches of the frowning guard.

With sprint like steps, Rozaiba dashed to catch up to Mr. Hashmi. He entered the side street that lead into the residential blocks. As he ran down the small road, he suddenly felt something growling at his heels. It was a big black dog and it was not very happy at Rozaiba trying to outrun it. Rozaiba, who was always afraid of dogs, suddenly wanted to scream. The dog, trying to stop Rozaiba, took a bite at his right shoe. Rozaiba did scream now and jerked his foot away leaving the shoe in the dog’s mouth.

Not bothering to look back, Rozaiba gripped the coupons in his hands as tightly as he could, and ran harder than he had ever run leaving the dog well behind to destroy his leather shoe.

As he turned into the next street he was unable to stop from running onto the small sharp stones that were jammed alongside each other to help in the construction of the new street. The construction workers laughed at him and advised him to buy a shoe for both feet.

His right shoe-less foot pained at being subjected to the edges of the stones. Limping, Rozaiba slowed down and spotted one of his teachers who had taken the day off and was reading a paper on her lawn.

Gasping for breathe, Rozaiba asked, ‘Madame…Madame Baqar, did you see Mr. Hashmi go past here?’

Madame Baqar first lowered her head and stared at the boy from above the upper rim of her reading glasses.

Without attaching any significance to the question of the boy or uttering a single word, she slowly raised her steely finger and pointed to the direction further on the road implying the answer to his question. Not bothering for an explanation, Rozaiba began limping, then skipping and eventually running toward the direction of Mr. Hashmi.

As Rozaiba turned on the winding road, he suddenly saw a group of people sitting next to the small stream. They were the fifth-grade bullies who had often picked on Rozaiba. He tried to run past them but did not see one of them stick his leg out tripping Rozaiba onto the road scrapping his elbow, knees and chin.

The fifth grade bullies laughed at him and then helped him get up so they could continue torturing the boy.

‘Where is little Rozy running to?’ one of them laughingly questioned.

Rozaiba, breathing hard with drops of sweat coming down his forehead onto to scrapped chin, just bit his jaw and said nothing.

‘What happened to your other shoe Rozy? Did the DOG eat it?’ asked another one sarcastically causing all of them to laugh even more.

Rozaiba gripped the coupons tightly and tried to find an outlet through the circle of bullies around him.

Suddenly with a commanding though squeaky voice, Rozaiba responded,

‘Yes, the dog did eat it! THAT dog right there!’

As the bullies looked toward the direction Rozaiba pointed at, Rozaiba with all his might pushed two of them aside and squeezed out of the circle as fast as he could.

The bullies did not bother chasing his furious speed and let him run out of their sight.

Up ahead, Rozaiba thought he could see Mr. Hashmi. Out of breath, he was unable to shout his name, so Rozaiba continued running frantically until he caught up with Mr. Hashmi who was just about to open the door of his house.

As Rozaiba approached him, the old man took off his glasses and began cleaning them with his kameez.

‘Sir… Sir… Sir you gave me coupons for one hundred rupees. I only paid fifty rupees.’ blurted out Rozaiba breathlessly.

Mr. Hashmi checked to see if his glasses had been cleaned as clearly as they could be. He began rubbing them again with his kameez while squinting in the direction of the boy.

‘So you came to return the extra amount!’, said Mr. Hashmi in his heavy and commanding voice that almost scarred the boy.

After a long pause, Mr. Hashmi continued,

‘Shabash! Shabash Son!’

Checking his glasses again, he became unsatisfied and began cleaning them once more. Rozaiba stood there still trying to catch his breath and waiting for Mr. Hashmi to take the coupons. After a long yawn, Mr. Hashmi spoke.

‘Son, I tell you what! As a reward for your honesty, you keep the coupons!’, thundered Mr. Hashmi and continued,

‘Think of it as a late Eid present!’