Raman missed Krish. He was a very good-natured man. Krish had a maggie cart just outside the gate of Raman’s school, Delhi Public School, Senior Wing, Bokaro. Krish sold cooked maggie as well as maggie in packets.

For the last few days, Krish’s brother Krishna had taken over the cart. When people asked, Krishna said that Krish was sick and in their village house. Krishna was also a very nice person and soon people started liking Krishna and forgot Krish. That is everyone except Raman’s class. One day, Raman bought an extra packet of maggie from Krishna to eat at home.

When Raman opened the packet, he saw a packet with white powder hidden underneath maggie. Raman was very surprised. He quickly called his two best friends, Neelam and Saurabh.

When Raman showed them the packet, they too were very surprised. Neelam’s father was a police officer and she thought it was a packet of cocaine.

Saurabh wanted to tell the adults but the other two convinced him not to. After all, who will believe a couple of 11 yrs old kids? They might start blaming and scolding them only. They decided it was up to them to get to the root of the matter.

The three quickly hatched a plan. It was quite simple but they had to be extra careful.

Fortunately for the kids, their summer vacations were starting soon. The next morning, Raman and Saurabh asked their parents if they could get a summer job. Their parents, although surprised, saw this as a good experience for them and agreed.

Delighted that phase one had worked, they went to Krishna and asked if he was welcome to any summer help. As they had hoped, Krishna agreed. Two weeks later, vacations started.

Saurabh’s first shift for the day was from 8:30 to 11:30 in the morning. Raman’s first shift was from 12 noon to 3 p.m. After that, Saurabh and Raman would work alternate days in the evening from 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. All this time, Krishna would stay with them, which meant that they couldn’t search the cart.

Their instructions were clear, give maggie from the lower rack to those who gave thirty rupees and showed a gold coin and maggie from the upper rack to those who didn’t show a golden coin.

The rules were: Not to ask questions, to work diligently, and to not cheat people. A week before the summer vacation ended, Krishna had to go to check on his brother. He left the shop in the hands of Saurabh and Raman. The two decided not to do shifts when Krishna was gone, the two were there all the time.

Before he left, Krishna had given the boys a bunch of keys. With full access to the cart without supervision, the two searched diligently and found many things in the cart.

But the most valuable thing didn’t open with any of the keys. They needed to use a metal rod for it. A small metal box was shoved below the rack at the back of the cart. When they opened it, they found a notebook containing names, addresses and contact numbers of many of the regular drug buyers as well as dealers and smugglers.

After reading the notebook, the three children decided that the matter was now very serious and elders must be involved. Raman, Neelam, and Saurabh decided that the next time a person with a gold coin came, Raman would follow them and Neelam would tell her father everything while Saurabh will come from behind and inform the other parents.

Finally, a couple of days later, when Krishna was gone, a drunk man came with a gold coin. Raman gave the man a packet from the lower rack and told Saurabh to contact Neelam and tell her to put the last phase into action. Saurabh nodded and Raman ran after the man.

After following him for some 15-20 minutes, Raman realised he was in sector 3B. The man reached a two-story block. Raman saw the man going into the ground floor quarter. He could hear voices from inside. Raman heard some words such as drugs, beer, and maggie. He quickly sent his location to Neelam and Saurabh. In under 15 minutes, the Police came, led by Neelam’s father, Rakesh.

Inspector Rakesh along with 7 of his men arrested the 5 men inside the quarter. The Inspector then called Raman and Saurabh’s parents. Raman’s parents were furious at him for not telling any adult earlier.

Saurabh’s parents were very overprotective of him and were incensed with Saurabh for putting himself and his friends at risk. After everything calmed down, Inspector Rakesh, with the permission of the parents enquired the three children about everything they knew about Krishna and the company he worked with as Neelam had only told him that Krishna sold drugs and Raman had sent the address of one of his costumers.

Raman told the Inspector how he found a white powder hidden inside a packet of maggie he bought from Krishna, how they decided to get a summer job at Krishna’s cart to search in the matter, and how they found the notebook. After the inquiry was over, Saurabh fished out the notebook from his coat pocket and gave it to the Inspector.

The notepad proved to be very useful and many dealers and buyers of drugs were caught. All this took the whole night and when Krishna returned the next morning, he too was arrested.

After a long interrogation spread over multiple days and sessions, Inspector Rakesh was able to extract the details of many other drug dealers and buyers from Krishna and the others that had been caught. These people led the policemen to the owner of the Medicinae Doctores, a notorious international network of drug dealers.

With the owner arrested, much of the illegal money was also found. Almost all of the smugglers of the company and some others were caught. The whole thing took about a month.

Neelam’s father led many of the inspections. When the children found out what happened after Krishna was caught, they were astonished and delighted that their curiosity led to such a big revelation.

After everything was rounded up, the chief minister of Jharkhand gave awards to Saurabh, Neelam, Raman, and Inspector Rakesh as well as fifteen thousand rupees each for catching all those smugglers.

And the best thing was that Krish returned. Turns out, Krishna had imprisoned Krish in their village house. Krish was overjoyed at what the kids had done and gave them free maggie packets for a month.

Things returned to normal and these days, you will see a maggie vendor at the gate of The Senior Wing, Delhi Public School.