Sharma Sir sprang to his feet, his face turning every imaginable shade of crimson. Grabbing his weathered wooden stick—splintered tip directly at Arjun and Gopi.
"Today, you two are absolute history!" he roared, his voice cracking with pure fury.
The two boys didn't need to be told twice.
They bolted.
Arjun and Gopi tore across the dirt, running frantic circles around the assembly ground. Behind them, Sharma Sir gave chase with terrifying speed, looking less like a middle-aged physics teacher and more like an Olympic sprinter fueled entirely by adrenaline and rage.
"Sir, please! We're sorry!" Arjun yelled over his shoulder, coughing up dust."
"STOP RUNNING AND FACE YOUR DOOM!" Sharma Sir bellowed, his face twisting.
Naturally, that only made them run faster.
The entire school stood in stunned, breathless amusement. Hundreds of students bit their lips, struggling violently not to laugh out loud, while the senior teachers marched up and down the rows, feigning strict discipline while secretly enjoying the show.
Suddenly, a deep, resonant voice thundered through the main PA system, echoing off the concrete walls.
"STOP."
The entire ground froze instantly. It was as if someone had hit a giant pause button.
Standing near the edge of the stage, microphone in hand, was Principal Khanna. His expression was unreadable.
Bowing their heads, Arjun and Gopi slowly slunk toward the stage. A heavily panting, disheveled Sharma Sir walked alongside them, clutching his side but refusing to lower his weapon. He pointed an accusing, trembling finger at the duo.
"Sir, look at them!" Sharma Sir gasped, trying to catch his breath. "Look at the unbelievable, utterly hazardous way they arrived at school today! These two lunatics literally fell from the sky like malfunctioning enemy missiles. They crashed through the mango tree and landed right on top of me! I swear, Sir, I have no idea what scientific anomaly they are made of. Any normal human being would be in the intensive care unit with fractured bones, but look at them—not even a single scratch!"
He took a deep breath, his chest heaving. "They take advantage of this freakish luck to pull these monkey stunts every single day. They aren't students, Sir. They are little demons! They deserve nothing less than a good beating and suspension for a week!"
Principal Khanna listened patiently, his arms folded behind his back. His eyes darted from the furious teacher to the two boys, who were suddenly very interested in inspecting their shoelaces. A tiny twitch at the corner of the principal's mouth betrayed him—he was trying incredibly hard not to smile.
"Sharma Ji, I completely understand your frustration," Principal Khanna said calmly, his voice soothing the tension in the air. "But beating them with your stick won't solve anything. If physical punishment alone created wisdom, these two idiots would have been enlightened sages by now."
A wave of suppressed snickers rippled through the rows of teachers.
The principal stepped forward, looking down at the entire assembly. "But don't worry i have some appropriate punishment for them, So, here is how we will handle this. Every single student who arrived late today—and yes, even those of you who are usually late but somehow miraculously managed to sprint through the gates on time today—will report to the temple beside the school immediately after classes."
A collective, miserable groan rose from the crowd.
"Today is Shani Amavasya," Principal Khanna continued, raising his voice slightly to drown out the complaints. "Hundreds of devotees will visit the temple this evening, and the premises must be spotless. You will sweep the grounds, clean the steps, and help the priests prepare for the evening prayers."
Then, his sharp gaze locked directly onto Arjun and Gopi.
"And as for our two amateur astronauts... you will stay there, under the supervision of the head priest, until the final evening Aarti is completed. No exceptions."
The boys exchanged nervous, wide-eyed glances. Cleaning a crowded temple on a major festival night was going to be exhausting.
"Perform your service peacefully and with a devotion you clearly lack in the classroom," the principal concluded, a definitive sparkle of amusement in his eyes. "Perhaps the Almighty will grant both of you enough common sense to reach school through the front gate like normal human beings... instead of descending directly from the heaven like an angel of death for our sharma ji."
Laughter instantly erupted across the entire assembly ground. This time, even a few senior teachers couldn't hold it in and openly laughed along with the students.
As the assembly was dismissed, Arjun scratched the back of his head, looking over at Gopi with a weak grin. It was going to be a long, back-breaking evening, but as he glanced back at Sharma Sir—who was still muttering to himself and gripping his wooden stick—he realized they had at least survived to tell the tale.
The grueling work had dragged on far longer than either Arjun or Gopi had anticipated.
The blistering afternoon sun had slowly sunk into a hazy, golden west, and what they had hoped would be a quick, thirty-minute sweep had morphed into hours of relentless manual labor. They had swept, scrubbed, lugged heavy iron buckets of water, and dusted under the hawkish gaze of temple volunteers—older men who seemed to possess an almost supernatural, X-ray ability to spot microscopic specks of dust where none existed.
Inside the main temple hall, the white marble floor finally began to gleam under the fading twilight. Arjun and Gopi stood in the center of the vast room, armed with two ancient-looking, shedding grass brooms.
Gopi suddenly stopped sweeping and slowly straightened his posture.
CRACK.
A loud, terrifying pop echoed off the temple pillars. Gopi froze mid-movement, his eyes wide.
CRACK.
"Aaaah..." Gopi let out a long, pathetic groan, his face contorting into the expression of an eighty-year-old retired laborer. "Man... after Sharma Sir made us do the Murga (rooster) punishment for forty straight minutes in class this morning, my back is completely shattered. My waist is gone."
He rubbed his lower spine dramatically, leaning heavily on his broom like a walking stick. "Honestly, Arjun, I think my lower vertebrae has collapsed."
Arjun didn't even look up, methodically pushing a pile of dust toward the doorway. "Well, what did you expect? Sharma ji was bound to take his pound of flesh. You can't just drop out of the stratosphere and land on your physical education teacher without some cosmic blowback."
Gopi winced, a sudden wave of guilt washing over his face. "The more I think about the collision the more embarrassement i felt."
Arjun burst out laughing, the sound echoing through the cavernous hall. "Oh, please. Even a military-grade guided missile isn't that accurate. you could have landed anywhere in the entire ground, but you had to land right on top of Mr. Sharma in dead-center!"
Gopi snatched a damp, grimy dust cloth off a nearby railing and hurled it at Arjun's head. Arjun dodged it effortlessly with a dancer's grace, not missing a single stroke of his broom.
"Look at the bright side," Arjun continued, his tone turning a bit more serious. "At least Sharma Sir didn't call our parents. He preferred to settle the score personally with the rooster stance. If he had made that phone call, we wouldn't just be dealing with a sore back right now. We'd be fighting for survival."
Both boys shuddered simultaneously, a cold sweat breaking out on their necks as two terrifying mental images flashed before their eyes:
The deadly, heat-seeking trajectory of Smita's flying slipper.
The silent, soul-crushing, disappointed glare of Nand.
Neither option seemed survivable.
"True," Gopi conceded, shaking his head to clear the nightmare. Then, he aggressively pointed the handle of his broom at Arjun. "But let's not forget the root cause here. None of this would have happened if I hadn't agreed to your colossally stupid plan!"
Arjun stopped sweeping, looking deeply offended. "Stupid plan? We reached school in exactly three minutes, Gopi. Three minutes!"
"By flying through the sky like flying squirrels, Arjun! That is not a commute, that is an extreme sport!"
Arjun waved his hand dismissively, turning back to his dust pile. "Results matter, my friend. We weren't marked absent."
"The process matters too when the process almost kills a faculty member!" Gopi shot back.
"What's done is done," Arjun said, switching gears to avoid losing the argument. "For now, focus on removing that grease patch near the inner sanctum. The priests will be here soon."
Gopi looked down at the smooth, highly polished marble. A slow, incredibly mischievous grin began to spread across his face.
"Hey, Arjun... just make sure you don't polish it too much. We don't want Sharma Sir to come here for the evening prayers, slip on the marble, and fly face-first into the donation box."
For a second, a heavy silence hung in the temple hall.
Then, both boys completely lost it.
Arjun let out a loud snort, nearly dropping his broom as he doubled over. He stumbled backward and leaned his weight against a massive carved pillar, shaking with laughter. "Oh my god, stop! Whatever remains of his poor spine would be permanently liquidated!"
"Exactly!" Gopi cackled, clutching his stomach. "Then tomorrow, instead of standing at the blackboard, he'll be wheeling himself into the classroom, lecturing us about gravity from a motorized wheelchair."
"Or he'll drag us back to the principal's office!" Arjun choked out, tears gathering in his eyes. He suddenly straightened his posture, narrowed his eyes, puffed out his chest, and perfectly mimicked Sharma Sir's high-pitched, outraged wheeze: "Principal Khanna! I tell you, these two are not students! They are walking, talking natural disasters! In morning they fell on me and in evening they make me fell on the floor"
Gopi almost choked on his own spit, laughing so hard no sound came out of his mouth.
Their booming laughter bounced off the high ceilings and the ancient stone walls, filling the empty temple with pure, infectious energy. It took them a good three minutes of breathless wheezing before they finally calmed down, wiping their eyes and catching their breath.
"Alright, alright, come on, hurry up," Gopi said, coughing lightly to compose himself. He pointed a finger toward the massive stone walls near the entrance. "The sun has completely set. It's almost evening, and we still haven't wiped down the heavy brass bells or the side walls."
Arjun wiped a tear of laughter from his cheek and picked up his broom, giving a mock royal bow. "Right away, Your Majesty. Lead the way."
With their spirits lifted and the terror of the morning finally fading into a funny memory, the two boys jumped back into their work, their brooms sweeping rhythmically in the darkening twilight.
Slowly, the day began its graceful surrender to the evening.
The harsh, golden glare of the afternoon sun softened into deep, warm amber hues.
Gentle rays filtered at an angle through the ancient arches of the community temple located high on the hill, painting long, elegant shadows across the newly swept courtyard.
A cool breeze drifted down from the surrounding peaks, carrying with it the faint, rhythmic ringing of temple bells that floated lazily through the cooling air.
Outside the temple sanctuary, a modest crowd had gathered for the final prayer. In the gathering dusk, the oil lamps they held trembled like captive spirits, casting a flickering, ethereal glow over the assembly.
Thick, cloying coils of incense smoke snaked upward from the crowd, weaving a heavy veil of sanctity over the hillside.
One by one, more devotees trickled in.
Some carried fresh strings of marigolds; others brought bundles of incense sticks, while many arrived holding small, polished brass thalis filled with sweet offerings. The temple grounds hummed with life, awakening to a gentle symphony of murmuring conversations, shuffling footsteps, and soft, whispered prayers.
Slowly but surely, the heavy fragrance of sandalwood, crushed petals, and burning camphor completely washed away the sharp scent of soap and cleaning liquids.
Inside the main hall, volunteers moved methodically, lighting rows upon rows of clay oil lamps. Tiny, golden flames awakened one after another, their warm glow dancing beautifully across the pristine marble floor that Arjun and Gopi had spent the grueling afternoon scrubbing. For the first time since morning, the temple looked profoundly peaceful—almost magical. Even the two exhausted boys paused, leaning on their brooms to quietly admire the transformation they had helped create.
Outside, the canvas of the sky bled into deep shades of orange and crimson. High above the distant mountains, the sun slowly dipped below the jagged horizon, officially marking the start of the auspicious night of Shani Amavasya.
Suddenly, the deep, resonant swell of a large conch shell echoed throughout the temple complex.
BOOOOOOOOMMMMMM...
The powerful, ancient vibration rolled across the valley, signaling that the evening Aarti was about to begin
"Hey both of you! what are you watching go wash yourself and join the arti prayer." One of the fellow student cleaning the temple told them while walking towards the praying crowd in the hall.
Arjun and Gopi didn't wasted anytime and soon joins the prayer after cleaning themselves up.
Prayer held for almost five minutes and as the prayers concluded, the tension in the room began to unroll. Devotees drifted toward the exit, the rhythmic clang of the temple bell echoing softly as they departed. Slowly, the great hall emptied, leaving behind a heavy, hushed stillness.