The day dawned to be a pretty adventurous one at Gokulnagar colony situated on the outskirts of Hosur city. The kids who were having summer vacations, had gathered by 7 am.
The colony hosted only eight houses out of which seven houses had a kid each in the age group of 8 to 10.
A middle-aged man had just shifted to the last empty house on rent.
“We must collect five bundles of hay from the forest.” Raghav declared, indicating to the vast area that had bushes and grass at a little distance away.”
“FOREST!” Vinay let out a scream only to be gagged with Raghav’s palm.
“Do you want to eat chocolates or not?” Raghav jolted Vinay by his shoulders.
The word chocolate, acted like a catalyst and without bothering to find out what had five bundles of hay got to do with chocolates, they followed Raghav without protesting.
Raghav took it upon himself to explain. “Before 1pm if we can give my new neighbor five bundles of hay we can munch on all the chocolates in his fridge.”
Accepting his proposal, all the seven reached the forest a good 2kms away from Gokulnagar.
“How big is one bundle?” Sowmya had a valid question.
“This big,” said Mohan keeping both his palms sideways at a specific distance. “I have seen hay bundles at the milk maid’s house.”
They got down to work. Amit was the most agile among them. He collected the hay faster than his friends. It still took a lot of time to get five bundles sorted out.
Raghav had come prepared with strings to tie the bundle, earning appreciative glances from Salma for his prudence.
Upon returning to the colony they realized that they had caused serious anxiety to their mothers, who were frantically running up and down calling out their respective kid’s name.
“Where had you all been?” Shilpa’s mom demanded.
“Why have you collected so much hay?’ Vinay’s mom nudged him so hard that he began wailing.
Hearing all the commotion, Mohan’s father came out of the house. He had just returned after night duty.
Since all the other kids pointed out at Raghav, he was termed fit for interrogation.
“Uncle, yesterday night when I was playing with my ball, it fell near our new neighbor’s gate. When I went to pick it, I heard him telling someone, ‘The cow needs hay. Get me five bundles by 1 pm tomorrow and you can munch on all the bars in the fridge.’
“You all stay indoors I will get the chocolates for you.” Mohan’s dad assured gesturing his wife to take them all in.
The following day the newspapers carried this headline.
‘Smuggled gold bars worth 30 crores found in refrigerator of Gokulnagar tenant’s house.’
Mohan’s dad was given accolades for informing the police.
The kids were happy to have got their share of chocolates from him. Little did the innocents know that bundle of hay signified bundle of money and bar, meant, gold bar.
***
This is an entry for Five00-9, #Vintage. Find all the entries here: https://writers.artoonsinn.com/category/five00/five00-9/
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