Dear Riley

“I was telling you, utilize the time and prepare for the test. But you all were busy in Netflix and Call of Duty,” Ryan said.

“Dude would you shut your mouth. It was for the first time in our lives where we aren’t pressurized by marks, studies, or house rent. We were enjoying our time to the fullest,” Urvil remarked.

“Would you guys please stop arguing for god's sake?” Danish shouted.

“Yeah, we are in the middle of an emotional crisis and instead of finding a solution, you are regretting your actions,” Ernest replied.

The coming final semester test had screwed everybody, the study rest during the pandemic had made everybody lazy and hopeless.

“Guys we are “RUDE” we don’t succumb to our problems. Let's plot a plan, remember we are the most intelligent and handsome group. This time too we need to top our finals and show everybody that who is the boss of the 2020 Robotics Engineering batch,” Ryan said.

“But do we have a plan and time to execute it? We have the Christmas cookie party in 4 days, which we have to organize in our college, as well as we have to prepare for the final semester exam which is going to be conducted right after Christmas,” Ernest was the most stressed person of the group.

He was right there was no way we could study everything in such a short period of time. His stress was in the right time and situation, we indeed had put on the careless behavior.

“We will make cookie robots with the attached scanner. We will leave it in the exam office, scan our paper and behold we will retain our toppers list,’’ Urvil's thought silenced everyone.

‘’Are you going bonkers? it's not some Christopher Nolan movie going on. It's our exam for god's sake,” Ernest replied.

“But we don’t have any option left with us,” Ryan said.

“But how will you execute this plan”?

 “The exam department is well secured by cameras and did you forget Mr. Will? The head of the department, he stays in the office all the time,” Ernest made a good point.

“Tell me where is the exam department in our building?” Ryan asked.

“It's below library in the A-wing,” Ernest replied.

“That’s where we are going to celebrate our cookie exchange party,” he said with a wicked smile.

“Boys, remove your screwdriver and semiconductor diodes. We have to prepare for our heist,” and the group smiled.

The curtains were shut on the windows, doors were closed. Take out boxes were lying on the floor, and some sparks were blazing from the small robots. The group hadn’t slept for 48 hours, but with each hour they were inching towards their goal. The cookies were getting assembled with less default.

But the stress was multiplying three-fold with every second, the project was a definite addition to it.

Adrenaline flowed through them when their project became successful. Each detail of the robot was executed, the robot exactly resembled the cookies. Only a sharp eye would distinguish between their robot cookies and the real cookies. In the next 48 hours, they would smell the true scent of their success.

“Dude I'm proud of myself,’’ Ryan said.

“It’s a group effort dude, we all worked hard for it,” Ernest replied.

“No, you didn’t understand me. I'm proud that I choose the smartest and intelligent people as my friends in this college.”

They embraced each other in a group hug, with giggles and laughter.

“Rudes we need to take bath, we are stinking,” Urvil was right as usual.

They all laughed and finally opened the curtains and the door.

All were showered with generous peppermint deodorant. They enjoyed their cinder tea while boasting about their infamous plan that would give them success.

“Hey we forgot something,” Danish said.

“Did you forget to solitaire the batteries?” Ryan jumped with anxiety.

“No, Dude we forgot to send the invitees to our teachers. You know the rule right, we can invite only 30 people for the celebration.”

“ I took care of it already."

The dorms doorbell rang.

“Here are our invitees,” he raised his hands in triumph.

It was Rachel at the door, with her beautifully honey blonde hair and raven black eyes.

“Hey hon,” Ryan kissed her passionately. They were the love birds of the campus. Couldn’t live without each other.

“I love you, honey,” Rachel said.

“I love you too,” and kissed her again.

“Please, guys grab a room for yourselves,” Urvil said.

“You are a jealous dude,” Ryan exclaimed. His cheeks turned scarlet red, he was madly in love with her.

“So guys take a look,” Rachel pushed a parcel on the tables.

“What are these?” Danish asked.

“The invites,” and before Danish could ask something, they started to make out.

 Geez!!!!!

The invites were beautiful, the names of people were written in bold golden letters. The paper was handmade, and it had a slight glossy touch to it. It had a slight fragrance to it, which showed that Rachel had put a lot of effort into the design and creation of the card.

“Dude Mr.Will is not even our professor, then why are we inviting him,”

“Because dumbo we need to keep a watch on him, and make him come out of his office,” Ryan said.

“The way the plan is executed I truly believe that we are going to be successful,” and everybody in the room smiled.

The day of the cookie exchange program came, everybody was wearing their ugly Christmas sweaters and silly Santa Claus caps. We were very observant, and careful with our behaviors.

Our cookies were displayed on the table and our job was to not let it go into people's gastric system.                                                                                                                                                              

Mr.Will walked to our table, with a grin on his face.

“I didn’t expect your invite, but thank you for inviting me,”

“It's our pleasure, this pandemic made us realize that every person that works for this university makes an impact in our lives,’’

“By the way, these cookies look delicious,” and was about to put his hand in this bowl.

“Sir” Ryan took his hands and said.

“How are you, Sir? I am sorry to hear that you got diabetes this year,” we just got saved by Ryan.

“No, I didn’t,” and pulled out his hand from his grip.

“Oh false alarm, but your contribution matters to this college, to us…” and signaled Danish. He continued his blabbering.

Tink! Tink!

“Hello everybody,” Danish grabbed everybody's attention.

“I want to raise a toast for this institution, for my fellow students and teachers for helping us amidst the pandemic,” and signaled to Urvil.

Everybody's attention was on the boring speech.

Urvil took out his tiny muti buttoned remote and activated the cookies.

All the cookies got activated and their legs popped out, they immediately started to crawl out.

Everything was going fine, but a cookie slipped and crashed with the glass on the table. In seconds the glass fell on the floor.

Everyone had just turned around to see what was happening when Danish shouted

“What's that?” and pointed towards the window.

Everybody turned their head to see, and at that moment Urvil brushed the fallen cookie robot aside.

“It's nothing there,’’ Miss Anne replied.

“I thought I just saw an oval-shaped spacecraft outside the window.”

“It's nothing must be a bird, let's continue with our feast,” said Mr. Will.

By the time all our cookies robot had gone out of the library and were on their way to the exam office.

We all did our famous handshake and gave a group hug.

Bow!Bow!

We heard a dog barking outside our library. Mr. Will rushed outside, the air silenced in our room.

 Where did the dog come from, and why was it barking?

Mr. Will entered the room, he saw the questioning eyes of people and said,

“It's nothing to worry about it's my Dog Riley. She was just searching for me outside.”

Near the door came a cute Golden retriever with a red hoodie on, she was super cute and friendly.

Everybody rushed to meet her, but Mr. Will made a beeline towards us.

He gave us a weird look and took out one of the cookie robots from his coat pocket.

“I believe it to be yours, please do meet me an hour later.”

“Dude we got busted,” and our breath stopped at the same time.

“I don’t know how you got out of this mess,” Rachel asked.

“Because he got so impressed by your boyfriend and his friend's robotic creation. That he enrolled our names in National level robotic competition and as well assured us that he will set the paper easy.”

“But wasn’t your plan without any flaws or loopholes,” she asked.

“We didn’t consider his cookie loving dog Riley, hence we got caught”

And we all laughed in the Merry Christmas jingles.