Naina read the letter twice. Then she photographed it, and the spreadsheet, and each of the original mark sheets. She replaced everything in the drawer and locked it. She put the master key back on the staffroom board.
She stood in the empty staffroom. The school was quiet around her — the specific quiet of an institution in its off-hours. She thought about the six families. The infrastructure fund. The money that had bought adjusted marks, and which had apparently also bought the school's willingness to look the other way when a teacher who discovered the arrangement disappeared.
She thought about Mr. Iyer, who had come to Priti's apartment to confirm Kavitha was gone and had not asked any of the questions a concerned employer should ask.
She thought about Principal Verma, who had been carefully pleasant to Naina at every brief encounter and had never once mentioned Kavitha Rao or expressed any concern about her absence.
She thought about thirty students who had been told, by adults they trusted, that the best way to protect their teacher was to say nothing. Who had been managing that instruction with the loyalty and intelligence of children who genuinely believed they were doing the right thing. Who had been carrying a weight of secret for three weeks now, and who were starting to crack at the edges.
She took out her phone and looked at the photographs. Clear, readable, the discrepancies visible. The original mark sheets with their dates and signatures. The letter with its precise, measured language. The evidence of a teacher who had been a very careful person and had done exactly what a careful person would do when they found something that needed to be documented.
