{Welcome to the desk of the talkative author}

[Hello, I am HeMang, an author in MT. Before I start this story, I express my heartfelt gratitude to the Heart Beat community, for giving me this opportunity to showcase my abilities, and take part in this joyous competition arranged by them. I also want to sincerely thank the person who has proposed the idea for this story, based on which I’ll be writing. And thanks to every other member, who have worked hard day and night to conduct this competition.]

[Also I would like to thank the readers, for willing to read this novel. Hope you will enjoy it! :) ]

EPISODE 1

“Oh god! I’ll be late for today’s class again! I have to hurry, or else Mrs. Daily is going to be mad at me again…!”

She ran as fast as she could, to finally bump into a girl, who was carrying a huge pile of notebooks. The notebooks scattered on the floor, and there was a total mess. “Ouch! Where are you hurrying to? You should watch your steps…”

But she had no time to hear. She got up and said an unconvincing ‘sorry’, and then ran towards the lift, just to see the door close in front of her. “Oh…What a lucky day!” She said, as she stood there, waiting impatiently for the lift.

After finally reaching the class, she thought to herself, standing in front of her own class, “Oh my God! There is no doubt that I am going to be cooked by Mrs. Daily today… What excuse can I come up with, umm…?”

As she stood thinking, the teacher came out of the class. “Welcome, the great Elizabeth Shirley! We were waiting for you for such a long time, what happened? Didn’t the muscle cramp on your right leg heal after two months? Or did you get lost in the school again? Or, you are too shy to say that you overslept?”

“Ah, ma’am, I have met some bullies on my way, who said they wanted me to-”

“Elizabeth Shirley!” roared Mrs. Daily, “You are never punctual! Stop giving excuses, I am not a fool to fall for them anymore! Come to my office after break! Class dismissed!”

She trod angrily out of the room. After everything calmed down and there was silence throughout the class, Elizabeth shyly went and sat on her seat. How embarrassing that was!

“Hey Elizabeth, did you break your alarm clock again today?” asked Sarah, with quite concern.

“Umm…ye…I mean no…” Elizabeth replied, guiltily.

“This is the 15th time you have been late this month,” she scolded, “I wonder what punishment Mrs. Daily give you…?”

“Anyways, leave the matter now,” interrupted Lucy, “Now tell me Elizabeth, did you bring the workbook after sticking the pictures? We need to present it today.”

“Oh yes, yes, of course I brought it. You must trust me sometimes,” she replied, confidently.

“Good, then give it to me, let me see it once before we present,” said Lucy.

As Elizabeth searched her bag, she found that the book was not there. It was a sudden shock for Elizabeth. Did she forget it?

“But I clearly remember taking it out of the desk! Or, did I…”

She gulped as she recollected her memory of what had actually happened that morning.

Episode 2

(Let's travel back in time:)

{THAT MORNING}

[“Oh no! I did not pack my bag! Quick, Elizabeth, quick! You can’t be late today!” said Elizabeth, as she motivated herself.

While packing the bags hurriedly, she remembered about her workbook and took it out. It was fully completed, with neat handwriting and colorful, radiant and attractive pictures. She kept it by her side, and packed the rest of the things.

But then she got up and looked at the clock. Ten minutes left to nine! Oh my god! I have to be fast!

But as she hurriedly ran out of her room, she rocked the table, and the glass of water on the table fell straight on the side of her bed. Yes, it fell on the WORKBOOK!

Realizing what mess was created by her now, she quickly picked up the workbook and kept it near the window pane to dry up.

She hurried and opened her wardrobe to take out her dress. And along with her dress, all the other clothes, tops and jeans flowed out of the wardrobe. Oh, what a bad day!

And after wearing her school dress, and somehow tying up her hair, she picked up her bag, picked an apple from the school kitchen, since she missed the breakfast, and ran out of her room and towards the lift as fast as she could, which was her only hope to reach early to class, and unluckily she missed it.

But what happened to the workbook?]

"I remember I had looked for it on the window pane before leaving, but it was not there," thought Elizabeth, trying to solve the mystery, "Where could it be? If it was neither on the window pane, nor in my bag, then is it..."

She was shaking with fear.

...

[Yes, Elizabeth, yes. In your hurry, you did not keep the book properly on the window pane.

So it was disbalanced and fell out of the window...

And it's probably in the dumping yard now...] XD

And like this, the poor but elegant workbook, which was so important to Elizabeth, ended the rest of it's short life in the dumping yard.]

---X---BACK TO REALITY---X---

After realizing this, Elizabeth spoke softly, with a horrific expression on her face. “Sorry Lucy and Sarah, seems like…” She stopped.

“Seems like what?” they asked, anxiously.

“Seems like I threw our workbook out of the window! I am such a troublesome loser!” and she explained what had happened that morning.

She paused for a while and then burst into tears. Sarah pitied her. “Don’t worry Elizabeth,” comforted Sarah, “Maybe, this is luck. We were doomed from the start.”

But Lucy was silent. “All my hard work will be going to be waste! This troublesome Elizabeth! I am really mad at her foolishness and carelessness!”

And like this, Elizabeth troubled everyone around her. That day, she broke the vase which was so precious to Mrs. Daily, as she was cleaning the teacher’s restroom, which was a punishment by Mrs. Daily herself.

The next day, she hurt someone’s nose badly, as she was passing the water bottle to her.

She was warned thrice but still no improvements.

And then, in the chemistry lab, instead of adding potassium chloride to hydrogen peroxide, Elizabeth added potassium permanganate, thereby resulting in a wrong product to be created through the reaction, the outcome of which was loud bangs and a total mess in the lab.

The next day after a test, during history class, Elizabeth was asked to distribute the class notebooks to copy down some notes. But she distributed the test notebooks instead, and the students efficiently did their work- correcting the wrong answers of the test with the now known correct answers and therefore every student topped the exam!

After that, in the music class, she played the violin violently. Even after repeated warnings, she could not change that way, she was so much used to playing violin in that terrible way, resulting in the damage of the poor, innocent violin.

But nobody ****** her out of the school even though she vandalized school property, unknowingly. Because she was an orphan and had nowhere to stay actually. Her diplomat step aunt had admitted her to that school, and then after a few months stopped contacting her. Everyone pitied her.

But now everyone knew very well why her step aunt did not want her. The only possible reason was that she was a walking disaster zone. Anywhere she goes, anything she touches, anything she does, she will definitely create some trouble or the other.

Still, her classmates did not tell anything and kept tolerating her eccentricities…

She is known to create trouble and problems all the time.

And perhaps the word ‘troublemaker’ was too short to describe her.

Episode 3

After a few months, Mrs. Daily was totally pissed off and fed up with Elizabeth. She had damaged many items which belonged to the school, but did not have to pay for them. From where will she get so much money, when she is actually an orphan? The school is her home, and the students and the teachers are her family members. Moreover, it has been years since Elizabeth was admitted to that school, and she was a really old student…

The teachers were upset because of this. They were worried about Elizabeth’s future. Although she was a troubling lass, she was a sweet and polite girl at the same time, and showed respect, love and care for everyone around her. Her heart used to ache if someone was injured. Although some thought that she was just showing-off to gain sympathy, most of the students knew she was a true human from heart.

While the troublesome, but kind and lovely girl was always making others worry, there was the boy, whose ultimate dream was to become a successful doctor and he would do anything to achieve his goal, even though his family did not support him, and for which he often ended up with heated arguments with his father, who was a rich,

yet cold businessman who expected his only son to help him regarding business issues. But the lad was determined to achieve his goal, and unlike Elizabeth, he was serious, careful and calm with every single thing he did. Mistakes by him were almost rare.

At times, he even used to outsmart his teacher.

“Julian! Have you completed the science homework that was given yesterday?” asked the teacher.

“Mrs. Smith,” he replied, with perfect vigor, “I have a doubt, but yes, I have completed the homework. Here." He said, showing her his notebook.

“Very well,” the teacher replied, pleased at his good work, “You have improved a lot in a really short time, and you can grip the concept so very well. Now say, what doubt do you have?”

“Ma’am, why are animals used for accentuating research? Animals are almost similar to human beings, they can feel, smell, think and behave. So why don’t they have the right to have respectful treatment, just like human beings?”

“When any human participates in any research, they sign a consent form. However when animals are used in life-threatening experiments, there is no informed consent, since they are not knowledgeable enough to understand what consent is. The complete ignorance regarding animal consent is pure exploitation of animal rights,” he continued, “Moreover, in today’s world, where the questions asked by science and society are more complex, animal testing is just an inadequate and outdated methodology which produces nothing but invalid results.”

“Millions of animals are sacrificed in the name of scientific research. It, therefore, should be banned because it not only violates fundamental animal rights, but also causes pain and suffering.”

He stopped speaking and let out a big sigh.

“Well, class is over now. Let me think about it for a while, I will answer you in the next class,” the teacher replied and headed towards the door.

“But ma’am next class is after a month, we have our summer vacation in between…then ma’am how-”

But before he could even complete his sentence, Mrs. Smith left the class. “My question was actually not that difficult,” he said, and sighed sadly.

---X---Welcome to the desk of the talkative author---X---

*[Please note: The topic discussed above is a debatable one. Please do not take it to heart. I do not intend to offend any individual or community. Thank you!] :)