How Puchu Became Part of the Gang!

If you have not faced the rigours of the great Indian education system, you have had a blessed existence my friend. Like most Indian parents, Puchu's parents faced the dilema of putting Puchu in a school affiliated to the ISCE board or one belonging to the CBSE board. Now these scary sounding acronyms are just boards of education in India. There have been more additions to the list of late, but we'll keep our discussion limited to these.
When Puchu reached the ripe old age of three and a half years, a suitable school was searched for her. On popular opinion, she was enrolled in a Convent school which subscribed to the ISCE board. Some years down the line, when public opinion changed, and the demerits of this particular school were put forth in much publicised forums, Puchu's parents had a change of heart too.
They shifted her to another Convent school which was a CBSE board school. Inspite of all the bullying and the discipline, Puchu had made some amazing friends over the past 7 years. She was very scared stepping into the new school where she would have to make an impression all over again. But by now, she had developed certain stubborn traits which are now characteristic of Puchu. She decided to give the new school and the students a chance to impress her and vice versa.
When Puchu entered the new school, she was thrilled to realise that loads of other parents had the same bright idea as her parents, and had shifted their kids to this new school. She made a mental note to search for these kids, and befriend them. They were her only hope.
As days progressed into weeks, Puchu realised that the cool kids at the new school had a code which was exclusive to them. Her initial plan of sticking with the new kids was all fine, but like all sixth graders, being a part of the cool group was top priority for her. For a whole month she shared her tiffin at lunch time with them, laughed at their jokes, saved a seat in the bus for them, but somehow, it didn't work. As hard as she tried, Scorpion, Crab, Leo, Mainframe, all these words sounded like a strange mix of star signs and technology! When she asked, the girls just giggled helplessly and said that they had been sworn to secrecy.
Puchu's lucky break came one day in the swimming class. She was the one person who knew swimming in the whole of sixth grade. She'd learnt it a couple of summers back, and though she wasn't anywhere close to good, she was the only one in the class who was allowed to swim to the deep side of the pool with the swimming instructor. This incident happened in one lucky swimming class.
Puchu's love for theatrics made her try out the backstroke to impress the class. When she swam back to the shallow side of the pool, she saw the cool girls huddled together, and in deep discussion. Past experience had made her a sceptic. Were they going to hate her for showing off? Worse still, would the bullying start again, in the new school?
What happened next was something Puchu would remember forever. She was called to the middle of the group, and very seriously asked to swear to keep a secret and guard it with her life. Puchu sombrely promised as asked. The secret was finally revealed to her. Every girl in the cool group was linked to a guy in school. This guy was chosen very carefully by the other members of the group after a week or so of continuous scrutiny and monitoring of all his activities. Puchu's guy had been chosen. He was christened "Supercomputer". Puchu did not particularly like the guy, but she decided she could tolerate him. Well, atleast she could try to.
Puchu, for the first time in her life realised that cool people were not perfect. They had their own silly games, which they played to amuse themselves. But she was okay with it. She was officially a part of a gang. She had finally found her first set of best friends who were to stick with her throughout her school life and even beyond.

P.S Puchu shared the secret after a lot of prodding. I convinced her that school swears had a lifetime that lasted as long as school did. Don't ask me how!