Phatik Chakravorti is described as the “ringleader” of the village boys. He enjoys getting the other boys to join in the pranks he thinks up. Although he is creative in dreaming up endless mischief, he is also selfish and thoughtless. As the narrator sums it up, “there is no worse nuisance than a boy at the age of fourteen.” It does not matter to Pratik that the pranks might be dangerous. He especially enjoys stunts that inconvenience his quiet younger brother, Makhan; one example occurs as the story begins, when the boys roll the little boy and a big log he is sitting on into the river. The self-centered Phatik, who refuses to take responsibility for his actions, believes his mother favors Makhan, and when she chastises him again, he pushes her away. This is the last straw.

A fortunate solution arrives in the form of her brother, and the family decides that the brothers should be separated before a true disaster occurs. Phatik goes to Calcutta to live with his uncle, a move he joyfully anticipates. But once Phatik moves to a new location—which is a huge city—he becomes a different person. No longer a “despot” surrounded by his obedient retinue, he is isolated and lonely. A fish out of water, he must also obey the household rules of his aunt, which he feels as “torture,” and endure being “new kid” at his school, where everyone thinks he is “backward.” Becoming dreamy and homesick, he cannot wait for the school holidays. Although somewhat ill with a fever, he tries to make his way back to the village on his own but falls into the water by accident and must be rescued—an inversion of the wet, muddy incident he had inflicted on his brother.