The crocodile boy

The crocodile boy was sitting on the floor while I seated on a chair was busy bantering with my college colleagues. He didn’t say anything to any of us but there were expectations in his eyes. He wore ragged shorts and a t-shirt. He only wanted to learn and had expressed his desire to me to be his mentor. So, with a genuine heartfelt acceptance I gave him money to buy himself some decent clothes and a notebook and pen and pencils. He was back in no time looking immaculate in his new clothes and shining green crocodile eyes. The ten year old crocodile boy looked like any other ordinary boy, and just a little brighter. Soon he was learning words as I taught him alphabets. He would elocute when I would teach him to read. He was fast and soon became apple of my eye. I taught him to swim and in two lengths he became as fast as me. I tried teaching him to leap out of the water like a frog but it didn’t work out. His head would hit the swimming pool's wall and he would fall back into the water while I landed triumphantly on the floor. A teenager was noticing this and intervened. In some masterful euphemistic coyote teaching style he taught the crocodile boy how to leap out of the water. I looked at the teenager with thankful eyes and he nodded back. He looked at me with appreciative eyes which were distinct and similar eyes just like the crocodile boy's. He walked hurriedly to the swimming pool hall door putting on his white shirt back. Surprisingly his black trousers and red hair were dry. Soon I realized he was also a crocodile boy who never had any mentor to educate him things of intellect. Silently, I was praising myself of my prized opportunity of mentoring a pupil who was a mutant wanting to mix well with the humans.

I had another surprise when an old female friend checked with me finding that we work in the same college now. I was glad to see her again after a long time. To my surprise she requested me for a lift on my bullet to drop her home. By then I had already sent the crocodile boy to wait for me at the parking.

We walked to the parking and I cribbed about waste of parking space and broken fences. She seemed to agree to my points. There were more than thousand two wheelers parked in about ten to fifteen long rows. I tried locating my bike for I could not recall where I had parked it last. It was about fifteen minutes of searching that my female friend said she will go home by herself and after another half an hour of frantic search I couldn’t find my bike. Perhaps it has been stolen. Crocodile boy wasn’t in sight either.