Nose Betty

A short story By LJ Kundananji

Nose Betty hardly had any good looks, yet she was anything but ugly...

John stroked his beard thoughtfully.

“Sandra is a good girl,” he said, with an unusual brightness on his face.

“Whatever criteria you use for concluding thus!” Chanda said with a grin in his good English which, on most occasions, got on people’s nerves because they could not readily understand what he said.

“Criteria?” John raised his brow, simultaneously a big smile spreading across his face. Chanda nodded with a laugh.

“She is the most beautiful girl on campus!” he confessed, reeling with laughter. The table on which he sat creaked under his weight. Though he and Chanda were almost the same height, he was nearly twice his weight. As he laughed, some saliva splattered from his mouth and landed on Chanda’s face. With a look of subtle disgust, he swept his palm across his cheek.

“My, my, what a criterion,” Chanda said, standing up and sitting further away on the bed. “She may be the most beautiful girl to you, but we do not perceive beauty in the same way…”

“Is that so?” he frowned, realizing with a sinking heart the reason why his friend had moved as far away from him as possible. He was now leaning against the cupboard in which they put their property in a somewhat untidy manner. They hardly cared about neatness. “So what are your criteria?”

“I do not evaluate people on the basis of their appearances,” he chirped with an air of confidence. “As far as I am concerned, the truth is simply this: all humans are beautiful…”

John sniggered. He hit the table with his fist. It whined and moaned in the joints. “Man, that maybe true, but you and I both know that some are more beautiful than others.”

“I have told you about Betty, haven’t I?” He said with a sudden sober look that made him look a little bit of a man.

“Yeah…Betty, I think so…”

“Yeah…the girl who altered my life in anything but dismal proportions,” he smiled conceitedly, obviously proud of himself for his word use, “think of this: everyone on campus looked down on her. She hardly had good looks. She was unusually dark and skinny. Her nose was so unusually large it was the most prominent feature on her face. For this very reason, she was christened ‘Nose Betty’. She was so unpopular that no one wanted to been seen anywhere near her.”

John was now laughing profusely, literally bouncing all over the table.

“Nose Betty!” he gasped. Suddenly, and because of obvious absentmindedness, he slipped off the edge of the table and fell to the floor. The table tilted and fell on him.

Chanda sprang to his feet in a flash, his heart pounding. But he slumped back on the bed with apparent relief when he realized that his friend was still laughing.

“I’m alright! I’m alright!” he said in between gasps of laughter.

“Should I continue with the story?” Chanda said in slight annoyance, rolling his eyeballs in a peevish manner. He severely detested it when people hardly listened to him.

John slowly got up, holding his belly as he laughed. He lifted the table and sat back on it.

“Yes,” Chanda continued, with a hint of firmness, hoping to silence his friend. He gradually ceased laughing, but not without a lot of effort. “One day in class, I overhear her whining about her computer; that it has suddenly stopped working. But you know me and computers. So without even thinking much of it, I approach her and offer my help. You should have seen the way my friends glared at me. They obviously thought I had lost my mind.

“So later in the day, I go to her room to check on her computer. I carry along my little bag of CDs and my screw driver. I ask her to switch on her computer. When she does, there is an error message that flashes across her screen: ‘NTDLR missing’…”

“So what was wrong with it?” John asked curiously.

“The disk is corrupt; lost all its file structure.” He smirked. “So I remove it and take it to my room and install it in my computer and repair it. When I install it back on her computer, guess what happens…”

“It did not work?”

“Of course it works! Boy is she thrilled! She cooks me a really good meal… From that day, Nose Betty and I become good friends. Believe you me, from that day; I begin to see her in a different light. From that day, she is not just Nose Betty anymore; she is a good friend of mine and hence I learn that real beauty is that on the inside and not on the outside. So in short my friend, I have never cared and will never care about the outside appearance.”

John was reeling with laughter again. “Man, that food you ate—there was definitely a love portion in it!”

Chanda frowned severely. “I just realised that there was a good side to her…and my point is: no matter how seemingly ugly someone is, when you really get to know them, your perception of them changes and you realise that they are beautiful after all!”

“Man, what ever you say, I still believe that beauty can be graded.”

“Whatever man…that is the way I look at things.” He stared out of the window thoughtfully. The bright morning sunshine that streaked through the partially drawn curtain filled him with a warm sense of déjà vu. He smiled to himself.

“It’s interesting how these girls can control men with their beauty!” he stared at his friend with a slightly mocking expression.

“Are you implying that Sandra controls me?” a look of annoyance spreading across his face. The wrinkles on his forehead sank in deeper, making little valleys.

Chanda nodded his head slightly, so slightly John almost did not notice.

“No she doesn’t,” he refused vehemently, he swung his large arm but Chanda was safely out of his reach.

“She is so insidious that you can hardly notice…”

John was a reasonable person… he suddenly sat back thoughtfully, his frown gradually culminating into a smile.

“She is so pretty man,” he mused, “How can you honestly say no to such a pretty?”

“See!” Chanda scoffed.

“Hey, it’s not like she has put a lead around my neck, directing me like a dog.”

Chanda sniggered, got off the bed and walked to the window. He stared outside closely; too closely—as if he was looking for something, or for someone.

“Are you waiting for someone?” John asked with a suspicious look.

“More than that actually,” he said with a thoughtful frown, “I am waiting for something; something I inadvertently lost. I hope it comes back to me…”

“You are peculiar man,” John said, standing up. He walked to his friend and put his arm around him. They stared out of the window together and watched the students rushing by either from or to a lecture.

“Man,” John continued, “we should never allow women to control us…”

“No we shouldn’t,” Chanda agreed.

“I am going to take a bath.” He said, walking towards the cupboard. He got a towel and wrapped it around his shoulders. Just before he left the room, he turned to look back at Chanda and was just in time to see the look of shock on his face. He shuddered and disappeared through the door.

Chanda knew his friend very well. John hardly loved bathing and bathed only if it was exceedingly necessary. This was definitely fishy. He suddenly noticed John’s little pocket diary on the floor. He picked it up. There was a pen lodged between two of its pages. He opened it to the page where the pen was slotted and went through the appointments. A big smile spread across his face when he read the words:

“Appointment with Sandra.”

These words were preceded by a noticeable asterisk.

“The things we do for love,” he laughed. “And he denies that Sandra controls him! I’m glad I’m not at the mercy of feminine beauty manipulation!”

Suddenly, the phone in his pocket vibrated furiously. He quickly removed it and stared at the flashing screen with round eyes.

“It is time,” he said taking a deep breath. He stared at himself long and hard in the mirror before he left the room.

He walked at a furious pace towards the big tree that stood by the cafeteria. That tree was an important landmark on campus. It was an important rendezvous point. Also, many a meetings, important or otherwise trivial had taken place there. A number of sins, which I dare not mention, had also taken place at its base. For Chanda however, he hopped to find a long lost treasure, right there at the foot of the tree.

As he approached the tree, his heart suddenly sank. The treasure he thought he would find was not there. Where on earth was it? Suddenly, he saw a slight movement from behind the tree. He smiled and walked faster. Upon reaching the tree, he walked round it and—lo and behold! There was the treasure!

“Chanda!” she shrieked with goggle eyes. “I can’t believe it is you!”

Chanda was speechless, too mersmerised by her beauty. He stared at her in awe. She was just the way he remembered her. Her thick black hair extended all the way to her shoulders. Her eyes were perfectly white. Her pert nose was devoid of pimples. Her smile was so pretty it took his breath away. She wore a short sleeved T-shirt that exposed her gorgeous arms. Her flared skirt that extended to her calves fluttered elegantly in the gentle breeze. Her flat tight brown shoes made her feet and legs look pretty in a peculiar manner.

He walked towards her and hugged her affectionately. “Nose Betty,” he murmured, “I missed you so much!”

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