For children: Neev is pulled back in time and given a mission by the Buddha: escort a scholar home

“Haven’t my teammates realised that I have disappeared from the library?” Neev grumbled. “If I’m stuck in the dungeon forever, then they can say goodbye to the project. No way will they win without me.”

“Overconfidence isn’t a good thing, Neev,” Veda said.

“And talking to yourself is indeed a sign of madness,” Akshay added.

“What are you doing in a dungeon?” Rishi asked, the only one with concern in his voice.

Neev was startled. Am I hearing voices? Am I going crazy? He stared in disbelief. His teammates were standing outside the dungeon, peering at Dharamjeet and Neev through the bars. The scholar’s mouth fell open as he watched the three children standing outside the dungeon. He turned to Neev with questions in his eyes.

Neev pinched himself to check if he was dreaming. The ARV of NARV were here!

“Ouch,” Veda said. “That must have hurt.”

No, he wasn’t dreaming. His friends were here!

He rushed towards them. He had never been happier to see them. Like him, they were also in their school uniforms and just like him, Veda had her school bag with her.

“How did you all reach here?” Neev asked.

“We took a flight and followed you here,” Veda grinned. “But it was a bumpy ride due to bad weather,” she rubbed her stomach.

Neev shook his head. Whichever time Veda inhabited, she kept her sense of humour intact. That was a good thing. If she had her wits about her, she could probably save him.

“Tell us how you landed up here!” Rishi said.

For the second time, Neev narrated the sequence of events. He then introduced his friends to Dharamjeet. The scholar had dropped the shocked expression from his face when he realised that the new entrants were Neev’s friends. He greeted them warmly. The children reciprocated the warmth.

“But Neev, something must have broken your shield of invisibility and made you visible to the mahamantri when you grabbed his hand,” Akshay said thoughtfully. “You mentioned that you heard the sorcerer call you the ‘boy from the future’. So, that means even he and his pets could see you.”

“That’s not important now,” Veda said. “We need to think how to get them out from here,” she gestured to Neev and Dharamjeet. ‘

“How did you all end up here?” Neev asked again. “But it’s a good thing that you all are not invisible.”

“After you suddenly disappeared from the library, we waited for some time, thinking that you must have gone to the restroom,” Veda said.

“A little later, I went hunting for you in the washrooms,” Akshay added.

“But you weren’t there.”

“I went back to the classroom looking for you,” Rishi joined in.

“When I searched your seat for clues, I realised that your school bag was missing. That’s when I got suspicious,” Veda said.

“But it was Rishi who put two and two together,” Akshay said. He was staring at Dharamjeet.

The scholar was listening to their conversation.

“When I peeped into your book while you were reading, I clearly remember seeing Dharamjeet sitting and writing in that sketch. But when I looked at the same drawing again, he was sitting inside a dark room, looking helpless and sad,” Rishi joined the conversation. “The sudden change in the sketch made me very suspicious.”

Dharamjeet’s eyes widened when he heard about his sketch in the book.

Neev stared at Rishi, thinking of all the times he had snubbed his offers of getting to know each other.

“I studied the new sketch. What stunned me was the words ‘help me’ in your handwriting on the wall…inside the picture,” Rishi continued.

Neev’s eyes widened with shock. The words he had scrawled with his finger had ended up in the sketch in the book, and those words had brought his friends to his rescue.

“Veda was the first to touch the drawing, then she disappeared. At that time, we realised we were on the right track,” Rishi said. “Then it was Akshay’s turn, and finally mine.”

“I grabbed my bag with one hand and traced Dharamjeet’s outline with the other hand,” Veda explained. “That was my boarding pass for time travel.”

“Can you all do me a favour?” Neev asked.

“Dude, we are here to do you lots of favours,” Veda said. “I left my school bag in the guest room. Even Dharamjeet’s brown bag is there. Could you please get it for us?”

“Not an easy task,” Akshay said. “We may get lost in this palace and never find you.”

“Have no fear when Veda is here,” she said with a smile.

“What do you have up your sleeve?” Rishi asked.

“Just my arm,” she grinned. “I have my favourite blue marker. I can keep marking the walls as we move through the palace and find the guest room.”