Child of Spring (6 page)

I
had lost the ring to a thief before my tongue could taste those sweet words
—my ring.
It was gone before my finger could savor its feeling.

I turned the Big Box on its side and searched in every nook by the weak lantern light.

Rukmani had to have taken the ring. Who else but her? She was a practiced thief and she’d itched to know about my secret!

I’d confront her at the first opportunity. “
Oi,
you chicken thief!” I’d scream in her face. “Give back my ring right now!”

The next morning as I started toward the water pump, I rehearsed the words in my head. “Hark!” I would say. “A chicken thief is now turned a ring thief!”

But then Little Bibi’s voice rang sharply in my head.
Thief! Ring thief!

And her eyes! I saw them too, plain as day. Just then Amma’s voice flew out from the hut. “
Juldi, juldi!
We don’t have all day!”

I picked up my pace. But when I reached the water pump, Rukmani was not there.

All day at the Big House, I felt as dreary as a snuffed-out candle in a darkened corner. I wandered from one room to the next flicking the broom at the floor, but my heart wasn’t in it. The dull ache inside me just wouldn’t go away. It just grew worse when I smoothed the sheets on Little Bibi’s bed, and when I arranged her ribbons in a neat row on her table.

At last Amma clucked her tongue in irritation and sent me to sit in the shade of the guava tree. There, time came to a complete standstill. My mind kept running over last night’s events again and again.

Rukmani! I was so angry I wanted to scream in her face here and now. But I was angrier at myself for landing squarely in this big mess.
Stupid, stupid Basanta!
I reproached myself, again and again.

It was the longest day of my life.

I went looking for Rukmani as soon as we got home, but her hut was as empty as a beggar’s purse. I checked under the nearby mango tree, expecting to find her glossing her long hair with coconut oil. She was not there either.

To help pass the time while I waited for her return, I gathered some of the baby mangoes that were scattered about like plump beads. I thought I might eat some of the sour fruit or even play a game of jacks with them.

Rukmani’s painted pots were stacked in a pile near her doorway. As wicked as she was, Rukmani was a great painter. When I ran a finger over the beautiful designs, the pile wobbled like the drunken cobbler at sundown. It would serve Rukmani right if her pots crashed to the ground and broke to smithereens.

But I moved away. It wouldn’t do to mess with them. If I broke her precious clay pots, no amount of screaming about the ring would get me anywhere.

The clock in the station tower struck seven. If Rukmani didn’t return within the next hour, I’d be back to square one and I’d get an earful from my mother as well for dillydallying. Gathering my courage, I lifted the curtain in the doorway to see if I might quickly poke around for the ring before Rukmani arrived.

“Oi!”
Paki charged up like a bull stung on his behind by a bee! “Why are you snooping near Rukmani’s hut?”

“I’m not snooping!” I cried.

“You were poking your nose in at the door like Ramu’s goat! I saw you with these two eyes!”

“I … I came to—”

“You came to do mischief, I bet!”

“I came to admire the pots,” I said as calmly as I could. “Why are
you
here?”

“To guard her house, of course. And it’s a good thing I arrived when I did!” Paki shoved past me and began to circle the hut, making a great show of examining everything from thatched roof to floor.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.

“I’m making sure everything is in shipshape order!”

“And why wouldn’t it be, you crazy owl?”

“With suspicious creatures like you lurking about, who can tell what might happen?”

“Go away!”

“No way. I’m staying because something smells fishy!”

“Fishy?”

“Stinky fishy!” He circled the hut again and this time I ran behind him.

“Why do you care?” I yelled. “Rukmani doesn’t give a hoot about you! Scat!”

“She needs me to guard her hut!”

“You only want her to bat eyes at you! She has no time for you. You’re less than a fly on cow dung to her.”

“Shut up!”

“It’s the Milk Boy she’s after. She’s saved a
laddu
for him!”

“The Milk Boy?” Paki spun around. “What happened to Ramu?”

“Hoosh!”
I threw a mango at him, and it bounced off his shoulder.

“Oi!”
Paki hollered. “I’ll get you for that, she-donkey! Tell me about the Milk Boy!”

I flung another mango and hit him squarely this time.

Paki dashed to the mango tree and came back running. His aim was true.
Phok, phok, phok!
He hit me on the shoulder, leg, head.

“Owl!” I dug into my stash and pelted him back. “Take that, and that!”

“She-donkey!”

Back and forth the mangos flew—
whiz! zoom! wham! bam
!—like frenzied parrots batting heads in a snug cage. A mango missed my head by a finger and bounced off the hut. Then another flew past my left shoulder and I heard a loud crack.

The pots teetered … tottered … and …
dhum!
They toppled over!

“Donkey!” I shouted. “Look what you’ve done!”

Paki’s mouth was a big O. “It was
your
mango!”

“
Na!
Mine flew in the opposite direction!”

“It went straight for the pots!”

“Impossible!”

“Destroyer of pots!” screamed Paki.

“You’re in for it!” I roared. “Rukmani’s going to be madder than a striking cobra!”

“I’ll tell her the whole story from A to Z! Your snooping started it all!”

“Pot breaker!” I yelled.

Paki looked around nervously. “We could tell her it was Ramu’s goat,” he said.

“It was no goat. It was a
donkey
,” I insisted. “A donkey and a liar!”

We stared at the pile of broken pieces for a moment, then swept them into a heap with our feet and ran away.

Far into the night Rukmani ranted. I covered my ears till at last I heard the cobbler shush his daughter. “
Chup!
” he snapped. “Be silent! You will paint more pretty pots.”

It’s true,
I thought.
Rukmani will make a new stack of pretty pots with her nimble fingers. If I had but kept mine behind my back in the Big House, I surely would not be chewing my fingernails down to the bone right now worrying and wondering what had happened to my ring.

A
nother workday would soon begin. Bapu had pedaled off to the Public Gardens, Amma was washing at the water pump, and Durga was crawling about the hut like a confused cockroach.

“Come!” I commanded, but my little sister ignored me as she weaved in and out of the legs of Bapu’s cot, colliding with the Big Box again and again and making circles on all fours like Kalu running after his tail. I snapped my fingers but it was no use. My little sister scooted further under the cot. “Disobedient girl,” I muttered. “I’m going for Tikki and you better be out before I’m done!”

A gurgling sound made me turn around. Durga’s arms and legs waved about in the air. Her happy coo had become a rasping croak.

“Quit that,” I growled.

But my sister’s arms continued to flail and the croaks seemed more desperate. Her eyes were wide as saucers; she sounded like Dev just before Vimla Mausi thumped his back to expel a tamarind seed.

Oo Maa!
My sister was choking on a tamarind seed!

I snatched her from under the cot, turned her upside down, and whacked her on the back. She coughed a big rattling cough, heaved up a frothy blob, and began to cry.

I stroked her little back. Poor thing, how scared she was, with snot running out of her nose and tears pouring down her cheeks. But her breathing was more even now and her stomach had stopped heaving.

“There, there!” I soothed. “You’ve got to quit chasing tamarind seeds and peanuts! When will you learn?”

I scrunched my nose at the nasty mess at my feet, but then something caught my eye. I looked closer.
Arrey daiyya!
It was not a tamarind seed! It was not a peanut either. It was Little Bibi’s ring! Durga had found the ring! But how?

I set my sister on the floor and pulled out the Big Box. On my knees I lifted the chip in the corner and eased a finger into the little compartment. I knew had examined it well that night. God promise, I had. But here the ring was and Durga had nearly choked on it!

I swept my finger from end to end of the space.
Arrey daiyya!
My fingertip felt the earthen floor of my hut. What was this? A hole?
Daiyya re daiyya!
Amma’s frantic rummaging had caused the ring to fall through a hole in the secret compartment on the night the thief came!

“What are you doing in the Big Box?” My mother’s question made me jump. I had not heard her return. “And is that not Little Bibi’s ring?”

I blurted out Durga’s story, hoping it might distract my mother. But after some cooing and clucking over my sister, she turned to me.

“Tell me about the ring!” she demanded.

I told her everything. Amma listened without interrupting. She let me have a little cry when I got to the part about the birthday garland that Little Bibi had discarded so cruelly.

When I was done, she said, “Now hear me, Basanta.” And then she gave me the lecture.

Amma said she understood that I was upset because some people had so many nice things and some didn’t. She also understood that it seemed unfair when some people worked hard to clean up other people’s messes without being rewarded with fancy parties and birthday presents. But right was right and wrong was wrong, she said.

I lowered my eyes in shame even though her voice was neither loud nor angry. “Please, Amma,” I begged. “Little Bibi’s getting a brand new ring for her finger.”

But there was finality in Amma’s voice. “It’s not yours to keep, Basanta,” she said. “You must return it at once,”

“But what shall I say?” I asked.

“The truth. Tell her it was a mistake. Tell her it will not happen again. Beg for forgiveness!”

“You could say you found it today while you were dusting. Could you? Would you?”

The expression in my mother’s eyes made me lower mine again. I didn’t ask again.

I was so scared that I could scarcely walk straight. I’d gone over and over different lines in my head until I’d finally settled on the ones that sounded the best. “I found your ring when I was sweeping. I am so sorry I kept it, Little Bibi. I’ll fetch you a glass of water, shall I? Shall I fluff up your pillow? Here are your soft slippers. What else shall I do for you today?”

Instead, when she turned around in her chair, I blurted out, “Little Bibi. I found your ring hidden in the China rug!”

As I handed it to her, I saw that she was wearing her new ring, much bigger and better than the old one. There was not a single stone missing from it.
Oo Maa!
How easily Little Bibi came by such nice things!

I was so flustered that I turned to run back to the Big Kitchen, but her voice stopped me at the door.

“Basanta!”

“Yes, Little Bibi?”

“You found it in the China rug?”

“Hidden in the flowers. You see, I never took it.”

“What?”

“I mean, I found it for you. I didn’t steal it.”

Little Bibi shrugged, and then she said something completely surprising. “I never said you did.”

I breathed in sharply. “But I thought….”

Little Bibi wasn’t listening anymore. “I’m late for school.” She stuffed her books in her schoolbag.

I started to leave, but Little Bibi caught me by the hand. “Basanta?”

“Shall I get you some water?” I asked, eager to get away.

She thrust the ring back into my palm. “You keep it,” she said. “I don’t want it anymore.” She turned away and I knew I was being dismissed.