Class 7-B, ten minutes before the maths bell

Last ten minutes before the maths bell. The corridor smelled of chalk dust and wet red-oxide floor, and the fan turned slowly enough to count the blades. Ma'am was on leave, so it was a "free period" — the two best words in the school dictionary. The monitor wrote names on the board. Nobody cared. Priya drew a lopsided circle with a stub of a Nataraj pencil and shouted "odd ya even!" before anyone could blink. Behind her, four of them sat on the floor for chor-police, chits folded so tight you had to use your nails. Somebody in the back row was already on five fingers at chopsticks and losing badly. No ball, no board, no equipment. A circle, a shout, and whoever was fastest to call it. Then footsteps on the iron grating outside, and the whole row was back on the bench with books open before the door finished swinging. Not one of us was caught. We won that period.