The tattered edge of Ravi’s Literature Companion – Class 9 caught the morning light like a worn flag of surrender. He’d inherited it from his cousin, and before that, perhaps a stranger. Its pages were a palimpsest of notes—some in blue ink, some in frantic pencil, a few in a pink gel pen that smelled of strawberries. But Ravi had never truly read it. To him, the Companion was a oracle of answers, a shortcut to the last page of every chapter.

That night, he decided to read the actual poem—not the summary. The words were strange at first, lacking the neat bullet points. But when he reached “I kept the first for another day,” something prickled in his chest. He remembered the time he’d stood outside the cricket ground, watching his friends choose teams. He’d pretended to check his watch, then walked home. That was a yellow wood. That was a road not taken.

He blinked. The Companion had no answer for feelings. “Erm… sadness?”

When the results came, Ravi scored higher than he ever had. But that wasn’t the victory. The victory was Ms. Das pulling him aside and whispering, “Your letter. It was real. That’s literature.”