Honey, ” Chinnu, are you sure can you really drive this bike? You are still fourteen years old, and your feet barely reach the ground, Mr.Dinosaour.”

Me” Don’t worry. Will you just stop your questions for a while and help me take out this bike from the garage first?

Meet Honey, My question bank best friend. She only talks with me in questions, everything in a question form. I don’t know why she will always wonder about the little things I do. Her most asked question every day is, “I am still your best friend chinnu?”

She would ask me this question now and then so that I wouldn’t catch up with any new friends and call them my best friends other than her. I wonder how anybody can be this possessive about a friend.

She is one year senior in my school, She does all my homework, and her house is two streets away on the way to our school. So she picks me up while going to school. I don’t know why how always make some friends with my seniors. But it’s super beneficial to me at times. She can do all my homework while I am playing with the play station. She would come to my house every day on the way to school and wait for me to get ready. My grandmother is also super close to her. My grandmother offers her some watermelons and sweets while waiting for me in the hall. They usually have some conversations about daily serials telecasted on TV.

We both go to school. Hand to hand, leg to leg. I even gave my school bag to her to carry. So that I can go to school dancing on the road or playing, kicking stones on the street, all these reasons look very small compared to the biggest reason I go to school along with her.

On the road leading to our school, a few street dogs eagerly wait for people to come on that street to bite or bark at them. I remember some of my friends telling me that dogs choose to bite and eat the fluffy ones initially. So that dog can get a big piece of flesh when they bite. So in that way, I am lean, and honey is super fluffy like a teddy bear, so rest assured if any dog is in the mood to bite any of us, honey is the first target between us. I probably run faster than her too. Am I looking cruel in my thoughts? No, no, not at all. This is survival for me, and those dogs look really fearful.

Whenever honey comes to my house, My grandmother and honey talk in Malayalam. Ya, she is from Kerala, and they settled here in Vijayawada due to his father’s Motorcycle repair business. I don’t get any idea what my grandmother and honey talk about, but they laugh a lot by pointing things at me.

Whenever I go to her house, I just stop mainly at the ground floor of her home and see how bikes are repaired there.

One day my grandma did good mutton biryani. Honey too loves mutton biryani so much. So I want to give her a biryani box and take some foreign chocolates from her in return. Ya, she stores a lot of chocolate at home. So I took a box full of biryani to her house on my bicycle.

To my surprise, nobody is in the home except she is studying in one corner room.
I Said,’ Oh devil, what happened? are your parents fed up with your questions and left home?”
Honey,” not so funny! They just went to a relative’s house to attend a function. I have a weekly test tomorrow they left me to my own”

I handed over the biryani box to her, and she ate super happily then replied, “thanks for the biryani man. It’s super delicious. your grandma is a super chef chinnu. That Rayalaseema biryani flavour I never tasted often. It is super spicy, and I love it.

Meanwhile, she was eating, and I disturbed all her teddy bears and tweety toys. I sat for some time and felt super bored and slept for some time. Finally, I said, enough, you read for the exam. I will go home and see some cartoons. She said okay and gave me a few chocolates she had hidden under her study table.

While coming down, after seeing some bikes parked on the ground floor waiting for the repair to be done, I got a wild idea. And ran back to Honey’s room.

And I said,” I don’t want these little chocolates, I gave you a big box of biryani, and you ate as a panda gave me these small chocolates in exchange for how cruel you are. I want more help from you, honey.”

She replied,” What do you want now? That tweety doll, I expected when you played with that one toy for more time. You girly fellow.”
Me” No, No, am I looking like that to you, playing with toys now?
Honey “Then”
I started telling my wild idea silently, “Can we take one bike out and go for a little spin till our street ends? We can put it back within an hour honey No Problem at all.”
Honey:” No, no means no thousand times no chinnu. You are just fourteen years old, and your feet barely reach the ground when you hop on onto the bike.
Me” What no, you ate my biryani, gimme back all my biryani, and I will announce all your secrets to your crush tomorrow after going to school in the first period itself.
“No chinnu, why are you this annoying fellow? just wait for an hour. I will complete a few chapters for the exam, and then we can go out on any of the shorter bike in the garage.”

After some time, she started her questions again” Chinnu, are you sure, can you handle this bike for sure?
Me” Sure, 100% sure. a few times I drove my uncle’s big bike “. (I lied to her to give her some confidence. my uncle just eats me for breakfast if I touch his motorcycle without his presence)
She got some confidence and said, “Okay fine, but we will go just till end our street end and return. that’s it”
I said,” Okay, sure.”
I took out one red-coloured pulsar bike, and we went for a little spin a little roundabout in her street. maybe it’s a sunny afternoon with only a few people on the road, so no problem for us.
While driving, she said,” Oh, chinnu, you are driving perfectly when you learned how to drive.”

I, too, got more confidence in my driving after listening to her words. Now I want to go a little far. We went to our house on the way to collect my dad’s old bike helmet. We went up to a hill-like place. We sat there for some time, and then she started talking about her problems in the house as a single kid in a home and that too as an only daughter with so many restrictions and rules. And discussed a few little adventures she had done before I came into her life.

Finally, she said” At first I couldn’t tolerate your craziness, but later one day I felt you as my little brother. I thought that if I had a little brother, he would probably do things exactly like you. After that thought, all my frustrations about you went away. I started enjoying your jokes and lies you told me to get a few more chocolates from me or that one more extra class homework. Now I laugh at all your silly, crazy ideas whenever I recollect them.

Me” enough of sentiment, I found a route to go up the mountain. Probably this bike won’t take us both to the top Miss. Fluffy panda. You wait here. I will go up and see the view and will return within 10-20 minutes. I brought her one ice cream and started driving on the small gravel road on the side of the mountain”.

I rode past the hill and further on. I went on and on not because I wanted to, but because it looked like the brakes on this bike failed. Probably that’s why it came to the honey fathers service centre in the first place.

When honey arrived at the top of the hill an hour later, looking for me. She was panting and completely out of breath( She ran most of her way to the top of the mountain to look after me). She found out that the bike was parked up on the tree. In simple words, the bike’s front wheel struck the truck of the tree. The red paint of the bike had been scratched off in a few places where the bike hit the ground. The bike’s handle is wrapped around the tree trunk like a hug how best friends hug seeing each other after many years. I was sitting on the mountain cliff nearby, busy examining my bleeding knuckles. My dad’s old helmet lying on another corner of the cliff.

Honey, in her angry voice,” This was the most magical bike parking I have ever seen,” She shouted at me

“Really, Isn’t it, “I asked.

I looked at her through her long dark hair. A few teardrops ran down from her eyes.

“Now, how can we manage this chinnu” She was saying these with tears in eyes. She continued “My father will kill me, if he finds about this total episode”

I replied,” this bike came to the service centre for some repairs right?”

“Yes,” she replied

I said immediately, “superb then, now I just added a few more things to repair on this motorcycle, that’s it.

we will think about what to do honey. don’t panic now, and stop crying. Now help me out to take out the bike from its great poster pose.

I dusted off my hands and stood up. We both walked towards the bike. As she came near to me and can see me clearly. She exclaimed, “It’s bleeding chinnu, on your face and on your hands!

I brushed the cut on my cheek with my t-shirt sleeve. I said,” It’s a small Cut, not hurting me at all.”

We took out the bike from the place and went down the hill and waited there for some time until full sunset. so no one in honey’s home street would see us with a motorcycle with some accident marks on it. After sunset, we wheeled the bike back into her father’s garage.

Honey made chalk drawings on the floor to mark where the front and back wheels had been before taking the bike out. So that her father would not notice that the bike had never left the garage. Then I tried and successfully straightened the bent out-of-shape handle of the bike to the angle it had been in the afternoon.

The worried expressions in my best friend’s eyes made me feel super bad. But this accident thing I didn’t expect at all.

“Good night question bank,” I said bye to her before leaving her home.

“Good night chinnu” She whispered.

‘Don’t panic much. I will think about what to do, and rest assured I will handle this, “I said and left.

The next day, Honey’s father is very angry. he can’t figure out what happened to the bike. He was in a super angry mood and shouting at every worker. This is a huge loss to him. he would have to repair the bike with his own money and make it look more perfect to the actual owner so that he would never know what happened to it.

Honey was sitting in her study chair in the corner of her room, weeping silently with fear and guilt. By the evening, her right cheek turned red. There was an impression of angry fingers stamped upon it. Her father slapped her after knowing somehow about what we did to the bike.

In the evening, after school, I went to her house and saw her like that. I felt super bad, and I went close to her and said” It would be better to say my name if the situation is this worse and serious. and I can handle this na?”

She replied,” You are my little dinosaur rey. How can I do something that creates a problem for you? If I tell him your name, my father would probably come to your house and do some drama at your house. He was very serious about this incident, so I was silent and didn’t open my mouth. Now it all settled. Seems my father figured out how to manage this. chinnu, go home now. We will talk tomorrow while going to school. By the way, I wrote the exam superbly. That was the only positive thing that happened today.

I walked up to Honey’s father, “Mithun Uncle.”

He turned around, and I can still see his anger and his eyes popping out with so much anger.

I continued,” It was me who did this. I took out the bike to learn how to ride it, and by mistake, I met with an accident. honey had nothing to do with this incident. She even opposed me taking out that bike, but I insisted her to allow me. I am sorry uncle, here is the money to fix it.”

I put a small bundle of 500 notes in his hand and then turned back to leave from that place. Mithun uncle looked down at the money in his hand and came to his senses after a minute probably he never expected this to happen. He was shocked to see nine thousand rupees in his hand.

He replied, “Wait a minute Ravi, where did you get the money from? did you steal it from your house?

I turned around and looked straight into his eyes without any fear or guilt, then I said,” It’s my money. I earned it uncle.” And left that place.

I came back home, and I didn’t stop in the hall though my grandmother put some cakes and milk on the table in the living room. I went straight into my room and took a deep, breath. I slowly raised my eyes and looked at that blue kitty bank of mine, where I used to save all the money I won from different competitions I participated in. My grandmother really encouraged me to participate in all the talent tests and chess tournaments. A few times she even sent me to Hyderabad to participate in competitions. A few more times I won, and the prizes sometimes included some money as a reward. I used to save all the money strictly for my bike. My goal at that time was to win as many talent tests and win money at least to buy my own bike on my 18th birthday.

But today, my money box is nearly empty. But it was worth it, and I had ridden a bike on my own for the first time in my life. I felt like flying when I drove. Though I fell and met with an accident, I was super happy with how things I handled. Until then, I never expected it to will be that courageous to accept my mistake to someone, deal with the matter in a good way, and stand up for what I believe in. I really owe these happy moments to that pulsar bike and to my question bank best friend.

Honey later said to me ” chinnu you know I just imagined some heroic BGM when you turned back after giving money to my father, He kind of said sorry to me, but indirectly after all this incident I am super happy for what you did and kind of made me proud. When it’s gonna our next motorcycle ride? at least this time we wont fall”

This is Ravi Yalavarthi and I will see you soon, Click here to read about other women who influenced me