Funday Times

The adventures of Obtuse: Chapter 4
The night of neon flowers
By Smriti Daniel
The hot afternoon was giving way to evening when the children had gathered once again under the beautiful fruit tree that grew in Arkani's garden. Their eyes were round with longing and wonder… The fruit were golden and luscious and made the mouth water just by looking at them. It was the hope of sampling this feast that kept the children coming back to check on whether the fruit was ripe as yet. Today the fruit looked perfect, as perfect as can be…surely it was ready for eating?

While the children speculated, the proud owner stepped out of her cottage and came towards them. A chorus of "is it ready yet Arkani?" greeted her. Sagely she shook her head. "They're still too hot darlings, I tried plucking one yesterday and see where it got me?" she said, drawing their attention to a huge blister on her finger. "Awww," said the children in horrified sympathy. They looked at the fire-fruit with a renewed respect and no one went any closer.

The next day dawned bright and breezy. However, under Arkani's tree a riot was brewing. All the ripe fruits were missing! Only a few - green and unripe - were left dangling on the branches. A number of very disappointed, frustrated children were demanding an explanation. This is what she told them.

"O, my dears, after you left yesterday I was so sorry that the fruit were too hot to eat, and so I decided to do something" said Arkani. "I got out my gigantic fan (you know the one that my great grandfather used to use when he served the king) so that I could create a small breeze to cool the fire-fruit down…you can't imagine my horror when they all caught flame and just burnt up like that," she said snapping her fingers and looking sad.

"But how could that be?" wailed one of the little children. "It's just like any other old fire, silly," said an older child, looking disgusted; "you fan it and it burns brighter." They went off in search of other entertainment. Arkani saw them off with some satisfaction. Then turning, she went back into the house where she cut herself another slice of fire-fruit and gently inspected the blister she had got while cooking the previous day. It was beginning to heal.

So…Arkani was a liar. And only one other person in the whole village knew this. Pokee had heard the whole story from the unsuspecting children (they loved to play with him) and he had taken it upon himself to say a few words to Arkani. It had, of course, not helped matters that Pokee (who never knocked on doors) had found Arkani sitting before a huge pile of fire-fruit.
A few minutes later, when Pokee stepped out of the cottage, he left behind a very annoyed and embarrassed Arkani. He had said a few things she had not liked at all…and what was worse (from her point of view) was that the little porcupine seemed to see right through all her stories to the truth. He knew that she had lied to Madhu the washerwoman about Charu the grocery shop lady and that now the two weren't talking. He also knew that it was something Arkani had said (quite deliberately) that had people avoiding little Sudhu and his mother.

People react in different ways when they're cornered and Arkani who was a somewhat headstrong woman decided she did not like the little porcupine at all. Moreover, she would not risk having the villagers find out. (It never once crossed her mind that Pokee would keep her secret.) Something had to be done. Pokee had to be discredited so that no-one would believe him. Then he had to be driven out of town - he and Obtuse both. Arkani's fingers went tap-tap-tap on the table top as she thought up a plan.

There was a thief in Sooka! Why, in the last week alone three people had been robbed, and the village was in an uproar! "The gold chain my mother gave me was robbed," Madhu told her friends at the pond, "I cleaned it, put it in a bowl and left it to dry and when I came back it was gone!" Muthu, the owner of the grocery store complained that his stack of fake gold coins (very popular with the children) had been all upset and a few were even missing! Sirilal said his wife had lost her diamond ring while she had been washing the clothes; she could swear that no one could have taken it without her seeing.

Despite this, life in the village of Sooka had been proceeding in much the same way as it always did. Mustaffa, whose condition had not improved, was in the care of the local physician Kithul and her assistant Nalin - the medicine maker.

"The only problem," as Kithul was fond of telling Obtuse, "is that we can't pinpoint exactly what is wrong with old man Mustaffa." "Undoubtedly his symptoms looked somewhat similar to Beri-Beri poisoning but Mustaffa denies ever having been near the plant, and besides," a perplexed Kithul explained, "for it to have lasted so long would be possible only if Mustaffa were coming into regular contact with the plant." Obtuse could only nod. He was as confused as the physician.

In the meantime, a new batch of fire-fruits slowly ripened, and ugly rumours spread through the village like wild fire. Now if you or I were to try to find the origin of these rumours we would have been hard put to find the source, so cleverly was it done. But then again, Arkani was undoubtedly clever.

The villagers, for the second time, had begun to look at Obtuse and Pokee with suspicion. Understandably, the villagers did not want to believe that one of their own would be a thief. It was so much easier to blame the two "outsiders". Both Obtuse and Pokee noticed, but only Pokee had any idea why it was happening. He decided to wait it out.

One day as Obtuse was walking aimlessly around the village he happened to bump into a smiling Arkani who said she had something important to tell him. As the two walked towards the forest together Arkani told the apprentice guru about a great healer. "He swore by the rejuvenating powers of the neon flowers," she said. "Flowers that glow in the dark and make you feel younger?" asked Obtuse sceptically, wondering if such a thing could be possible. "Yes, and I know where you can find them….they bloom at night in the chieftain's garden," she said, adding firmly, "if they can't sort out Mustaffa, nothing else can." Despite himself, Obtuse found himself being swayed by Arkani's conviction. If there was something that could heal Mustaffa, surely it was worth a shot.
Obtuse told Arkani he would look that very night.

When Obtuse told Pokee about Arkani's "miracle cure", the little porcupine was hard put to conceal his suspicion. Why on earth, he wondered had Arkani not mentioned this to Kithul earlier? If Obtuse were caught, it would look very suspicious. As Obtuse took an early nap in preparation for a sleepless night of flower hunting, Pokee went on an expedition of his own. First he explored the chieftain's garden and after carefully inspecting all the beautiful blossoms blooming there he went of to find the medicine maker Nalin.

Pokee found Nalin and Kithul in Mustaffa and Reza's hut, in the process of making their daily visit to the old men. Kithul, Nalin and Mustaffa were chatting quite happily and so Pokee sat out on the porch to wait for them to finish. Just outside Mustaffa's hut the bees buzzed happily and the air was warm and thick. Pokee felt his eyelids drooping and the little porcupine was soon fast asleep on the porch.

For the rest of his life, Pokee would never forget the manner in which he was woken up. It was Kithul's screamed warning that had him instantly alert, with all quills instantly on defense mode. He looked up to see what was possibly the biggest bottom he could imagine lowering itself onto him. Pokee shrieked in horror, realizing that Mustaffa had not seen him and so was going to get a bottom full of porcupine quills!

In the next moment, Mustaffa was smiling benignly down at him, apologizing profusely for having sat on "an honored guest". A quick glance at Kithul and Nalin revealed that they were staring open-mouthed at Mustaffa's rear end.
Later on, as they slowly pulled each quill out of Mustaffa, Pokee, Kithul and Nalin, realized it had been perfectly obvious all along. A bit of the Beri-Beri thorn had gotten stuck in Mustaffa's buttocks, making the entire area numb (as was often the case) and keeping Mustaffa ill - understandably none of them had even thought to inspect that area. Thankfully, this had also ensured that Mustaffa did not feel even a single prick from the quills. While they worked, Pokee told them all about his suspicions concerning Arkani. "We'll fix her," Nalin murmured grimly, "neon flowers indeed!"

The night was pitch black and Obtuse had arrived at the Chieftain's garden. Just as he was about to step in, suddenly a voice yelled, "get him!", and a hoard of villagers descended on him. They were all frothing mad (Arkani was nowhere to be seen) and it took some time for Obtuse to explain about the glowing flowers. "Glowing flowers?" they said laughing cruelly, "that's an unlikely story!"

Everyone stopped laughing quickly enough when Obtuse, leaning over the garden fence, pointed out at least ten neon flowers blooming quietly in the night.

The glowing flowers were hailed as Mustaffa's magical cure. The only people who knew differently - Pokee, Kithul, Nalin and Mustaffa himself - were keeping their secret; sorry secrets, you see, Nalin was the one who had created a very special paint - one that glowed in the dark. Not surprisingly, the villagers never guessed the truth. They were all very fond of Mustaffa and very grateful to those who had helped heal the old man. They thanked Kithul and Nalin, they thanked Pokee and Obtuse and they even thanked Arkani.

The last was because Pokee had ensured she was given all credit for the "cure". By this time, Arkani (who had begun to believe in glowing flowers) was feeling quite ashamed of herself. Not, you understand, ashamed enough to actually go and apologize to people, but certainly ashamed enough not lie again for awhile.

So it was that the Fire-fruits ripened and Arkani was forced to let the children swarm all over it, helping themselves to the bounty of the tree. God works in mysterious ways, for it was this gesture on the part of Arkani, which led to a complete clearing of the charges against Pokee and Obtuse. You see, all the missing jewellery and fake coins were discovered by a little girl called Naranja - in a magpie nest!

For the second time that week the whole village was in an uproar. Everyone had known that the magpies that lived in Arkani's tree were untrustworthy, everyone had known that they liked shiny things, what everyone did not know was why they hadn't thought of it before. The magpie family, who were most outraged by all the negative attention, decided they would move to the sequin factory in another town and abandon these rude villagers.
As you can imagine, no one was really sorry to see them go.

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