The next day, Devdas got a terrible beating, - and he was kept locked up in his room. Later, after his mother had wept profusely, he was set free. Early the next morning, he was standing below Parvati’s window, calling softly, “Paru! Parooo!” Parvati’s window opened a crack. “Devda!”

Devdas beckoned impatiently, “Come quick.”

In a minute, Parvati was standing next to him.

“Why did you tell Dad I smoked ?”

“Why did you beat me ?”

“Why didn’t you fetch the water when I asked you ?”

Parvati did not answer.

Devdas eexclaimed, “ You really are a great idiot! Don’t snitch on me again, ok ?”

Parvati shook her head “ No , I never will.”

“All right, then. Come on. You can help me cut a couple of rods. We’ll catch some fish today.”

There were young canes growing in the bamboo thicket, and that’s where they went. Devdas pulled one of the bamboos down to the ground. Telling Parvati to hold it down, he climbed on it, and began cutting a young shoot of cane.Parvati hung on to the bamboo with all her strength.

She asked, “Devda, aren’t you going to school?”

“No.”

“Your dad will make you.”

“My dad is getting me a tutor, to teach me at home.”

Parvati thought this over. Then she said, We changed to summer hours for school yesterday. That means classes start at seven instead of ten. I have to go soon.”

Devdas glared at her. “You don’t have to go . ” he announced.

Parvati had been finding it harder and harder to hold the bamboo down. Now it slipped out of her hands, and swung upright, spilling Devdas onto the ground.

It was not a hard fall, but he was grazed in many places, and his dignity was lost.

Turning a furious face on Parvati, he lashed at her with the cane he was still clutching.

The blows fell on her back and her face.

“Get away from me, you ninny!”

At first, Parvati was thoroughly ashamed , at having let go the bamboo and causing Devdas to fall.

Now she felt most unjustly used.

“I’m going to tell you Dad!”

“Go on then, do that, you sneak!”

Parvati ran off. She had not gone far, when Devdas called “Paru! Come back!”

Parvati did not answer or look back.

Devdas called again “Paru! Listen! Come back!”

Parvati pretended not to hear.

Irritated, Devdas muttered “Go then, I don’t care.”

He cut the cane into a fishing rod, but he did not want to go fishing anymore. He wished he hadn’t lost his temper with Parvati.

Still weeping, Parvati returned home. By this time the welts from the cane were raised and red. The first person to see Paru was her grandmother who cried out in horror.

“Oh my God! Who has done this to you ?”

Parvati replied “Schoolmaster Sir.”

Her grandmother pulled her onto her lap. “Come with me ! We’re going to see the Squire!