Nira and The God Who Misplaced Magic: Part 3

THE SCHOOL THAT FAILED ITS CHILDREN

The School of Correct Answers stood upside down upon a hill. Its roof rested on the ground, its foundations pointed at the clouds, and its students entered by climbing a staircase that led downward. Above the gate was the motto:

DO NOT ASK WHY. WHY HAS NOT BEEN INCLUDED IN THE SYLLABUS.

A bell with a moustache rang itself. “Late!” it shouted at us. “Late for what?” I asked. “Whatever has already begun.”

Inside, we found classrooms filled with astonishing students: a crocodile practising handwriting, a multiplication table learning to dance, three raindrops memorising the definition of water, and a young banyan sapling being punished for spreading its branches beyond the margin.

At the front stood Headmaster Blackboard. He was a tall blackboard in a stiff collar. Chalk sentences crawled across his face. “Knowledge,” he announced, “is the correct placement of approved words in empty spaces.” Professor Bhokambol bowed. “I once believed knowledge was the appetite that remains after the book is finished.” “Nonsense!” snapped Blackboard. “Appetite is not measurable in marks.”

He ordered us to sit for the Entrance Examination for Unexpected Visitors. Question One: Write the sound of a purple silence. I wrote, “It depends on whether the silence is asleep.” Wrong. Question Two: How many sides does a rumour have? I wrote, “One more each time it is repeated.” Wrong. Question Three: Explain why the correct answer is correct without asking why.

I left it blank.

“Excellent,” said Headmaster Blackboard. “You have demonstrated obedience to the blank.” A girl named Chameli sat beside me. Her hair was tied with measuring tape.

“What do you like studying?” I whispered. “Cloud architecture,” she said. “But it is not a recognised subject.”

A porcupine named Pintu wanted to write poetry with his quills. He had been assigned accountancy because his quills resembled pens. A young elephant called Gajju loved remembering smells but failed history because the exam asked for dates. A word named “Perhaps” had been locked in a cupboard for creating uncertainty.

At lunchtime, the students opened identical boxes containing identical square rotis. The rotis recited nutritional facts. “Why is nobody asking questions?” I said. Chameli pointed towards Headmaster Blackboard. Every time a child raised a hand, Blackboard erased the question from the child’s mind and swallowed the question mark. His frame had become swollen with punctuation.

“The Collector of Certainties appointed him,” Chameli whispered. “Questions cause disorder. Sometimes they produce new answers.” Professor Bhokambol shuddered with delight. “New answers! How educational.” The song of the unripe star began vibrating in our bottle. Blackboard’s chalk eyes narrowed. “Unauthorised music!”

He confiscated the bottle and locked it in the Examination Vault. That evening, the school held its Grand Final Examination. Students had to answer one hundred questions in ten minutes. The fastest child would receive a gold medal shaped like a closed mouth.

I raised my hand. “No questions,” said Blackboard. “It is not a question. It is a suggestion.”

“Suggestions are questions wearing comfortable clothes.” “Then it is a complaint.” “Complaints are questions carrying luggage.” “It is an announcement.”

Blackboard hesitated. Announcements were respectable. “I announce that the examination is unfair.” His entire surface became red. “Explain!” “You have asked a question,” I said. The students gasped. A tiny question mark escaped from the corner of Blackboard’s frame. Then another. Then fifty. They fluttered around the hall like curious birds.

“What is happening?” shouted Blackboard. Another question. More punctuation escaped. “Who permitted this?” Question. “Why are you laughing?” The fattest question mark burst from his mouth and landed in Tipu. The teacup filled with ginger tea. “I feel astonishingly brave,” Tipu said.

Headmaster Blackboard chased the question marks with an eraser. Chhataram opened himself indoors, which umbrellas consider a serious act of civil disobedience. The question marks hid beneath his red cloth. I ran to the Examination Vault. It was guarded by two dictionaries.

“State the password,” said the first. “I don’t know.” “Correct,” said the second. “Knowing that one does not know is listed under preliminary wisdom.” The vault opened. Inside, thousands of confiscated questions were stored in jars. Why do stars not fall upward? Can a promise become stale? Who decided that neat handwriting means a neat mind? Do ants have maps of us? Why is silence different in an empty house?

I opened every jar. Questions flooded the school. They questioned the walls, the timetable, the textbooks and the square rotis. One asked the staircase why it went downward when everyone was climbing up. The staircase admitted it had never thought about it and turned sideways. Headmaster Blackboard tried to restore order. “Tomorrow you will sit for a new examination!”

“Who will write it?” asked Chameli. “I will.” “Who will examine whether your questions are good?” “I—” “Who taught you?” “My predecessor.” “Who examined him?” “His predecessor.” “And who examined the first examiner?”

Blackboard began to squeak. The question marks circled him. At that moment, Gajju the elephant lifted the examination tables with his trunk and turned them around. “Today,” he announced, “the answers will sit for the examination.” The hall erupted in applause. The approved answers were summoned from the textbooks. The sun rises in the east sat nervously before the children. “Does the sun actually rise,” asked Chameli, “or does the Earth turn?”

The answer sweated. Water is colourless came next. “Then why is the sea blue?” asked a raindrop. The answer looked towards the window for help. There are seven colours in the rainbow declared itself confidently. Pintu the porcupine asked, “What about colours between those colours?”

The answer divided into several nervous shades. Finally, the answer Because the book says so approached. “Who told the book?” I asked. It collapsed. Headmaster Blackboard watched his correct answers stumble. A thin crack appeared across his surface. Behind the crack was not wood or stone but a small, frightened child made of slate.

“I was once a student,” he whispered. “I asked why thunder arrived after lightning. My teacher punished me for disturbing the sequence of the lesson. I decided never to be wrong again.”

“So you stopped asking.”

“And stopped everyone else.”

Chameli picked up a piece of chalk.

“You can still learn.”

She drew a question mark on his surface. Headmaster Blackboard did not erase it.

The school turned right-side up with a tremendous sneeze. The foundations returned to the ground. Windows opened. The gold medal shaped like a closed mouth melted into several small bells.

A new timetable was prepared. First period: Questions. Second period: Searching.

Third period: Getting Lost. Fourth period: Returning with Something Interesting. Marks were awarded for changing one’s mind after discovering better evidence.

The school’s new motto became: A GOOD ANSWER RESTS. A GOOD QUESTION TRAVELS. As the unripe star’s song filled the hall, chalk dust rose into the air. It spun itself into a small white compass. Instead of north, south, east and west, its directions read: MAYBE. ELSEWHERE. NOT YET. LOOK AGAIN. Words appeared on its back:

WHERE QUESTIONS ESCAPE AND ANSWERS CONFESS,SEEK TOMORROW INSIDE A COW’S STOMACH.

“A cow has swallowed tomorrow?” said Chhataram. “It may have mistaken it for the newspaper,” said Tipu.

We left with Chameli’s cloud drawings, Pintu’s first poem and the Chalk-Dust Compass pointing firmly towards NOT YET. Behind us, Headmaster Blackboard was taking his first lesson in cloud architecture. He had drawn a house upon a cloud but forgotten the staircase. Chameli did not correct him. She asked how he planned to get inside