Flipped: Mystery Stories / Sci-Fi Stories

By Shamika Chaves

The Flipped Anthology series gives you two themes, two covers and two sides to open the book from ... and you get to choose! Now you don't need to keep a book away if you don't like a story or a theme, you only need to flip the book over and start reading again!

The first book in the Flipped series was a bundling together of Funny and Scary stories, the second of Adventure and Ghost stories and the third of School and Sports stories. This latest Flipped, the fourth in the series, will be a combination of Mystery and Science Fiction stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harper Children's
• Release date: Jun 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9789354894510

Shamika Chaves

Shamika Chaves is a children's book illustrator, author and graphic designer who's based in Mumbai.

Book preview

CONTENTS

1. The Copy Cat

Andaleeb Wajid

2. Divya Mystery and the Missing Bicycle Reflectors

C.G. Salamander

3. Kalakaar!

Ramendra Kumar

4. The Secret Tunnel

Varsha Seshan

5. The Testimony

Pollyana Desouza

About the Authors

THE COPY CAT

Andaleeb Wajid

‘This can’t be happening,’ Aarzoo muttered.

No one at the dining table noticed her. She often made such statements, and it usually had to do with a certain K Pop band’s rising popularity because she felt personally responsible for their success.

‘I don’t believe it.’

Again, no one noticed right away. But she hadn’t made the statement staring into her phone as she often did. This time, she was staring at the school magazine which they’d received the previous day at school.

Her younger sister, Nazeeha, also known as Nazu (because Aarzoo and Nazu rhymed) looked at her with concern. ‘Something wrong?’ she asked.

‘Shut up, brat,’ Aarzoo said. Nazu rolled her eyes and kept quiet. There was no point talking to her when she was like this.

Aarzoo turned to her mother. ‘Ma, look at this.’

Ma was harried as usual but was glad that Aarzoo was looking at a book instead of her phone. Any book would do, even the school magazine. ‘What is it?’ she asked as Aarzoo pointed out something to her.

Ma took the magazine from her and looked at the page. It was a poem called The Bird. It was a longish poem about how the poet had seen a bird on a branch near her bedroom window.

‘It’s nice,’ Ma said absently. Was Aarzoo showing an interest in literature then? That was wonderful, Ma thought. But what future options could possibly be open to her in literature?

Aarzoo made a tch sound. ‘No, Ma. Wait.’ She got up and ran to her bedroom and came back with a diary.

‘What’s this?’ Ma looked at her quizzically.

‘Ooh, is that your diary? Can I take a look?’ Nazu asked her.

Aarzoo quelled her with a look. ‘Don’t you even dare.’ She turned to her mother. ‘See.’ She opened the diary and showed her a page. There was a poem scrawled there, also called The Bird.

Ma looked at her, confused. ‘But …’

‘This girl has copied my poem!’ Aarzoo said angrily.

Ma scanned the page. Indeed, it did look like the poem had been copied, line for line, word for word.

‘Who’s this girl?’ Ma asked. Nazu too looked at Aarzoo with a great deal of interest.

‘She’s a new girl. I barely know her. Her name is Mahi,’ Aarzoo said.

‘I don’t understand,’ Nazu said. Ma too looked puzzled.

‘How could she have written the exact same poem as you?’ Ma asked Aarzoo.

Aarzoo shook her head. Her braids bounced and shook as she expelled a breath. ‘I don’t know how but I’m really, really angry.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Ma asked. She looked at both her daughters anxiously.

‘I’m going to get to the bottom of this,’ Aarzoo said with flared nostrils.

‘How?’ Nazu wanted to know. ‘Are you going to accuse her of plagiarism?’

‘Plagia … what?’ Her younger sister loved using big words just to trip her up.

‘Plagiarism is when someone copies what you’ve done,’ Nazu explained patiently, like one would to a four-year-old.

Aarzoo hated it when she did that. ‘No, I’m going to make her confess she copied my poem,’ she said vehemently.

‘But how?’

‘Just wait and watch.’ But the truth was that Aarzoo didn’t know how. Maybe she should ask her best friend Ira if she had any ideas, she thought.

***

Mahi was new in school but that wasn’t why she was so popular. She was popular because she was one of the few who had seen BTS perform live during the Love Yourself Tour in Hong Kong. Or rather, she was the only one in their school who had been a part of the frenzied crowd that had screamed and shouted when Jungkook had come on stage. It was all up on her Instagram stories, saved under her BTS highlights and it was all anyone could do not to explode in agony or jealousy. This had been enough to ensure that no one would be able to dislodge Mahi from the pedestal of the most popular girl in school.

There was no way anyone would believe Aarzoo if she accused Mahi of stealing her poem from her diary, because it was just so unlikely and, well, quite impossible. Aarzoo didn’t know how Mahi could have done it. How could she have possibly copied the poem, line for line from her diary and reproduced it in the school magazine as her own? It just didn’t make any sense.

In school that day, Aarzoo watched Mahi from afar, among the coterie of girls that surrounded her, hanging onto her every word. She’d always thought Mahi nice, despite all the show-offy tendencies and yet she considered her a bit dim.

So, this just didn’t make any sense.

‘Did you see the school magazine?’ she whispered to Ira.

Ira shook her head. ‘No! It’s the same old blah stuff, right?’ she asked. She was staring at Ms Raghunath, their maths teacher who was droning on about algebraic expressions.

Aarzoo paused. Reading the school magazine was certainly not something cool to do or announce loudly. Of course, it was published every year. But only nerds looked at it or claimed that they’d read it.

‘Yeah, same old blah stuff,’ she repeated. She couldn’t ask Ira for help then.

But her resentment kept growing, especially when, later in the day, during their English period Ms Cariappa cleared her throat and spoke. ‘Girls, I’ve been teaching in this school for twenty years,’ she said, in her usual plummy voice. ‘And still, sometimes, some of you surprise me. Pleasantly.’

Aarzoo’s head shot up and she looked at Mahi who was busy doodling something in her textbook. Aarzoo couldn’t help but feel even more annoyed. And her mother had been right. She was interested in literature. She didn’t really care if it didn’t have much ‘scope’ but she’d never mentioned it to her friends. They would think she was lame if she told them that she loved poetry.

The usual suck-ups who sat in the front row looked at Ms Cariappa, trying to soak up her compliments but her gaze was fixed on one girl only. ‘Mahi! I loved your poem dear!’ she said, the emphasis on the word ‘love’ making Aarzoo feel like her intestines had been stapled together.

Everyone made fun of Ms Cariappa’s accent but secretly, Aarzoo had wanted that praise for herself. In that same accent. She’d been trying to muster the courage to show her poem to Ms Cariappa and ask her opinion on it but she’d never gotten around to doing it. She kept thinking that Ms Cariappa would laugh at her if she read her poem.

And here she was, proclaiming that she loved it.

Mahi looked up quizzically. ‘My poeyem?’ she asked. Aarzoo twitched in her seat, wishing she could correct her pronunciation but Ms Cariappa was faster.

‘Yes, dear. Your pome,’ she said loftily.

Pome, Aarzoo repeated in her head. It’s my pome!

Mahi looked confused. She whispered to the nearest girl sitting next to her. ‘What is she talking about?’ The other girl whispered something in her ear.

Aarzoo, who was watching Mahi like a hawk, noticed this but before she could give Mahi the benefit of the doubt, Mahi straightened up and shrugged. ‘Thank you, Miss,’ she said with a sickeningly sweet smile.

Aarzoo’s nostrils flared. Look at her, taking credit for something she hadn’t even written! She could feel the anger coursing through her but there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t put her hand up and say that she had written the poem. Where was the proof? In her diary. But why would anyone believe her? She wouldn’t believe it herself, if someone else had made such an accusation.

‘Such imagery!’ Ms Cariappa continued. ‘Such evocative imagery! I wish I could take credit for bringing your English skills to this level, but you’re new here.’

Aarzoo could hold it in no longer. ‘Could you read out the poem, Miss?’ she asked before she could stop herself.

Ira nudged her. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked Aarzoo in a whisper.

‘I’ll explain later,’ Aarzoo said, her eyes fixed on her secretly favourite teacher.

‘Of course! I take it you all haven’t read it yet?’ Ms Cariappa asked as she pulled out the school magazine from her handbag.

No one answered her but there was a buzz in the class. Was there anything Mahi couldn’t do? They’d recently learned that she was excellent at basketball and the school’s basketball captain had immediately chosen her after seeing her slam dunk once.

Ms Cariappa cleared her throat and began reading the poem in her dulcet tones. The entire class sat in silence and listened. Aarzoo kept her eyes fixed on Mahi who looked confused as each line was read out but tried to keep a smile on her face.

When Ms Cariappa finished, everyone clapped, looking at Mahi who was blushing. Everyone except Aarzoo.

‘I hate her!’ Aarzoo whispered to Ira.

‘Y-you do?’ Ira asked, surprised. The sound of the applause receded and everyone was now talking about the brilliant poem Mahi had written.

‘Yes. That poem …’ Aarzoo licked her lips, not sure if she could trust Ira with the truth. But this was her best friend. ‘I wrote that poem.’

‘What?’ Ira asked, shocked. She shook her head. ‘What are you saying? How can that be possible?’

Aarzoo let out a shuddering breath. ‘I’ll show it to you during break.’

Ira nodded, looking a little unsure. She patted Aarzoo’s hand and then, for the rest of the English period, Aarzoo had to see Mahi get accolades from everyone in class about her beautiful poem. By the end of the class, Mahi had started pronouncing it correctly too, except that she called it, ‘My bird pome.’

During the school break, Aarzoo pulled out her diary and flipped it open to the right page and showed it to Ira who looked at it, her eyes wide.

‘But …’

Aarzoo nodded. ‘I was shocked too.’

Ira shook her head and they both looked at Mahi. ‘She’s sick,’ Ira whispered.

‘Yes, but what I don’t understand is, how? How did she get the same poem published in the school magazine?’ Aarzoo wondered aloud as she put her diary back inside her backpack.

Ira shrugged. ‘I don’t get it either. It’s the same, word for word.’

The two of them continued puzzling over it, for the rest of the day and later. Aarzoo returned home, not sure she would