The Luckiest

 

It is indeed weird to let everything happen the way it has to. There are some people who think that life turns up to be pretty rough for them. Edmund Parker was one of them.

He happens to be a loner in school with all sorts of pranks being tested on him. It was like; he was some sort of a public victim for all the pranksters out there.

Some of his classmates refer to him as the next Drew Albert.

Drew Albert was a student of the school where he got himself in. He got killed in an accident a year back. He too was somewhat like a victim for the seniors. He got hell tortured by the pranks that he even thought of coming up with a complaint.

But it was just a thought! He could not raise it into action due to his lack of guts and abundance of fear.

It has only been two days for Edmund to step in his new school but he feels like he should lament over his misfortunes rather than counting the number of friends he should actually be having. Edmund had aspired to be a writer. He is always to be seen in the library when there is nothing else he could do during his recess period. The library is the only place which is wreathed with silence, sheltered with books, and coated with lots of ideas for aspiring writers like him.

Well, Edmund has not only got this victim tag attached. But he always gets himself dragged into something which is certainly not the thing he desires to get himself into. No wonder, he is the unlucky guy and the next Drew Albert. The first prank played on him had begun when he was ahead to the library. His foes had dropped two little frogs under his T-shirt and he had to scream all the way till he made it up to the bathroom. He kept wondering one thing- how do they know what his biggest phobia is on his very first day of school? Do they capture every single thing related to wimps like him?

He simply referred to those 5 pranksters as his ‘foes’. Yeah, the group comprised of five guys.

But it does not seem necessary for him to remain as a loner for the rest of his lives in this school as he was destined to meet someone who would offer a helping hand and pull out the frogs from his T-shirt. His name was Andrew.

The other pranks were minor and so they are not to be counted into the list of the pranks that Edmund keep considering 15 years from now.

The school bell rang as it announced the 7^th period. Edmund was headed to the chemistry lab when he collided with one of the students and fell over. It was none other than Andrew.

Had there been someone else instead of Andrew, he would be ending up with a black eye. He gloated seeing his friend.

“I am sorry,” says Edmund.

“Oh it’s all right! I should’ve seen that coming!” says Andrew.

Just then he heard a noise of a radio-control helicopter crashing into the wall right in front of him. He looked behind and saw his foes holding the controller glaring at Edmund. He ignored that and walked to his destination. He stepped inside the chemistry lab and gazed at everyone who looked at him with eyes of mockery. But the kid simply made his way to his respected seat.

The teacher arrived.

The teacher was busy lecturing on an assignment that the students have to deal with. Edmund tried to concentrate on the teacher’s words but he was totally distracted by two guys who continuously kept poking his back with a needle. Those two guys belonged to ‘the foes’ group. But he did not expect that one of the needles would actually penetrate his back and create a pain. Edmund cried in agony in the middle of the teacher’s lecture and broke the drop dead silence among the students.

The boys knew he would not disclose anything so they simply remained calm. Edmund carried his stuffs and went to the sick room to seek for medication.

But his foes have decided to drop their features wherever Edmund heaves his footsteps to. He had hurt his head as he slipped on the floor and ran into the wall on his way to the sick room. He knew that the floor was being made slippery by pouring oil all over it. Who else can do such a thing that would end him up in despair?

As he squinted, he could gaze at a complete different atmosphere. Edmund had regained consciousness and he learned that he was sent home right after he got a swollen head.

The next day in school had surprised him. He heard that a big explosion took place inside the chemistry lab as one of the experiments went wrong after he was sent back home. Most of the students were injured. It was Andrew who informed about this recent happening.

“So Raj and Harry? They are injured too?”

“Yeah,” says Andrew. “Aren’t they the ones who kept poking that needle on your back?”

“Yep. What about their friends? And my foes?”

“They have been to the hospital to visit Raj and Harry!” Andrew informed.

“Maybe that’s why for the very first time I am feeling kind of safe in here!” Edmund chuckled.

“You surely are lucky, Edmund.”

“For what?”

“Do you really think you’d walk out of your assignment if those guys didn’t have poked you with that needle? You would’ve met the same fate as them-ending up in the hospital! And would you have been that lucky to reach home if you didn’t have hurt your head?” Andrew told.

“Wait, I don’t remember saying a word about this to you! How do you know that I got hurt on my back and I ran into the wall due to slippery floor?”

“Because these pranks were tried on me too… A year back!”

“A year back?”

“Yeah. Till I died on that accident!”

Edmund dropped his books from his hand. The mysterious silence was shuddered as the books lay right in front of the table in the library. Yes, the library.

He began to wipe his sweat that covered up his forehead. “Are you sure?” he asks a girl who sat in front of him.

“About what?” the girl cried.

“About Drew Albert’s real name?”

“Yes! His full name is Andrew Johansson Albert!” said the girl. “Have you had any concussion or something? Coz’ a minute ago you asked me this question, didn’t you?”

Edmund said nothing but gazed at the pen and paper that he held. He had written a whole story about his school incidents with the help of Drew Albert’s identity that actually never existed. He read the recent line- ‘“You surely are lucky, Edmund!” Andrew said to me.’

He realised how obsessed he had become with Drew Albert’s identity after hearing it million times that he started hallucinating. He came to know that he never collided with anybody, not even Drew. That robot plane had made its blade ready to swipe over Edmund’s neck but as he fell down, it could not come in contact and instead it crashed on the wall and broke. He also had got an A in his biology test which was related to the study of frogs. He could nail that test since the day he pulled those two frogs out of his T-shirt all by himself. That incident had made him strong enough to grip a frog again. The Drew-obsession had urged him to pen down every thought that crossed his mind and thus he could compile it to form a story.

Also it was not Drew who told him about Raj and Harry’s incident but the girl in the library who he got muddled as Drew due to his strong obsession and hallucinating tendency.

The other pranks were minor and so they are not to be counted into the list of the pranks that Edmund keep considering 15 years from now.

Do you know why those pranks still bother him? Because these pranks have created justifications in the story, written by Edmund Parker, which has been recently published and is gaining a lot of appreciation. He says-

“There was never any Drew Albert. Nor there was any Andrew Johansson. I had no friends throughout my school life. And to be fair, I hated books. But I had to seek for silence. I couldn’t find anything better than the library since wherever I step in, it becomes a place that would witness which prank I was being performed on. Spending time in the library had produced a zeal for books and a thirst for ideas which has made me what I am today-THE LUCKIEST!”

There was a big round of applause by the audience as he ended up with his speech at the award ceremony where he was regarded as the best ‘teen’ writer.

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