Sunita’s Secret

by Narinder Dhami

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked in a clear and steady voice.

  Looking slightly flustered, the two women gave their order. Mum moved away from the till, her back straight and her head held high. I was filled from top to toe with pride. I knew then that Mum was going to be all right …

  ‘You were great,’ I told Mum later that evening. The twins were in bed and we were curled up on the sofa, watching TV. ‘I wanted to slap those two women, though.’

  ‘I nearly leaned over the counter and banged their heads together!’ Mum confessed with a grin. ‘But I don’t think that would have gone down very well on my first day.’

  ‘You’ll be OK now.’ It was more of a statement than a question.

  Mum nodded. ‘Yes, but it’s got me thinking. If your dad isn’t coming back’ – for once, her voice didn’t falter – ‘then serving burgers and fries all day isn’t exactly going to pay the bills for ever. I mean, what if you and the twins want to go to university?’

  ‘Oh, Mum, that’s ages away,’ I said with a shrug.

  ‘I know, but I have to think about these things now.’ I’d never heard Mum talk like this before, so clear and practical and determined. ‘I need to get myself a better job. I was wondering about going back to college myself.’

  ‘I think that’s a great idea.’

  ‘Really?’ Mum looked doubtful. ‘Do you think I could do it?’

  ‘You can do anything you want to!’ I declared, throwing my arms around her.

  Mum said she still hadn’t made up her mind which course she wanted to do, so I decided to give her a secret helping hand. On Monday morning, before I went into class, I hurried over to the careers office in the upper school and found a copy of the local college prospectus. I would slip it into Mum’s handbag tonight, when I got home. On the way back to class, I tidied a few bookshelves, watered a few dry-looking plants outside the school office, and picked up a few bits and pieces and took them to the lost-property cupboard. No one saw me.

  When I got back to the classroom, the first thing I noticed was the buzz of excited chatter. Celina seemed to be right in the middle of it.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked Henry. ‘Are they all amazed by the new, improved Zara?’

  ‘Idiot,’ Zara said rudely, touching her made-up cheek gingerly. ‘Celina’s got some daft idea that the local newspaper has found out about the secret good deeds. Apparently they think it’s a great human-interest story.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Henry chimed in. ‘One of the girls in Year Eight, Velma Charlton – her dad’s a reporter on the paper. That’s how they found out about it.’

  I frowned. ‘I don’t like reporters.’ I’d had enough of all that.

  Mr Arora bounced – no other word can describe it – into the room. He looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. ‘Sit down, please,’ he called crisply.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Sunita.’ Zara shrugged. ‘No one knows it was you who started it all. You’re quite safe.’

  I realized she was right. Something else struck me, and I grinned.

  ‘I wonder what Mrs Bright thinks about it now,’ I said.

  The following morning, Tuesday, Mrs Bright didn’t exactly bounce into assembly. But she did look quite excited. Her eyes were gleaming, her skin was glowing and her hair looked even glossier than usual, as if she had a sheen of excitement all over her.

  ‘The theme of our assembly today,’ she announced from the stage in ringing tones, ‘is good deeds. Good will to all men – and women, I might add – which is highly appropriate with Christmas not far away.’

  ‘She’s changed her tune,’ I whispered to Zara.

  ‘She’s probably dead thrilled about all the publicity the school’s going to get in the local paper,’ Zara said cynically.

  We sang our way through a song or two, and listened to a reading. It was an old story, from Korea, I think, about people in heaven and hell who were both given long, long chopsticks to eat food. The people in hell were miserable and starving because the chopsticks were too long for them to eat with. But the people in heaven got around the problem by feeding each other. It was a good story, and I wanted to think about it a bit, but Mrs Bright didn’t seem to want to discuss the reading, as she usually did. She was in a hurry to get to the next item.

  ‘Now, I spoke to you a week or two ago about these secret good deeds which have been happening in our school,’ Mrs Bright began, smiling more widely than I’d ever seen before. ‘And I said then what a wonderful thing I thought it was.’

  You did? I thought, raising my eyebrows.

  ‘And I am not the only person who thinks so.’ Mrs Bright beamed round at us. ‘Several local newspapers have been in touch, as well as local TV and radio stations.’

  That caused a murmur of excitement around the hall.

  ‘It is very pleasing to me to have the opportunity to stress that kindness and generosity towards each other are the cornerstones of our philosophy here at Coppergate,’ Mrs Bright went on, ‘and that the idea for these secret good deeds came from one of our pupils.’

  Her next words almost gave me a heart attack.

  ‘I am also very pleased to say that I now know the identity of that pupil.’

  I thought I was hearing things. I was stunned, shocked, frozen. How could she know it was me? Had Zara or Henry …? But a quick glance at each of them told me that they were as shocked as I was.

  ‘I would like that person to join me on stage now, so that we can give her the credit she deserves.’

  She looked down towards me.

  Zara nudged me, but I couldn’t move. Thoughts rushed through my head. Did I want to be in the limelight again? Did I want to deal with reporters and photographers all over again? Answer awkward questions about Dad?

  I was saved from making a decision one way or another. Behind me, Celina Patel rose to her feet and walked to the stage, beaming proudly.

  ‘No!’ Zara’s furious words were lost amid the gasps and exclamations of everyone else in the hall. ‘No, no, no!’

  For a moment I thought she was going to jump to her feet, but Henry grabbed her arm and held her down.

  Myself, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even hear anything, except for the sickening thumping of my heart in my ears. How had this happened? How had this terrible mistake come about?

  Celina was standing on the stage, a fake-modest smile on her lips as Mrs Bright praised her to the skies. Kind-hearted … Generous … Great community spirit … A wonderful example to the rest of the school … I only heard bits and pieces here and there. I was completely in shock.

  ‘We’ve got to tell Mrs Bright the truth,’ Zara whispered urgently in my ear.

  ‘Just wait a bit, Sunita,’ Henry whispered on the other side of me. ‘We’ll sort this out straight after assembly.’

  But was it as simple as that? I stared up at the stage, re-focusing my eyes and ears with a supreme effort.

  ‘And now I’m sure you’d all like to thank Celina for her wonderful idea, which has brought so much pleasure and happiness to our school in recent weeks,’ Mrs Bright gushed, looking more animated than I’d ever seen her before. She began to applaud.

  The rest of the school joined in. It wasn’t thunderous applause by any means. I think most of them were as dazed as I was. Mr Arora, just to my left, looked completely stunned, and barely clapped at all. I didn’t join in; I couldn’t. Zara folded her arms pointedly and glared at Celina, while Henry stared anxiously at me.

  Mrs Bright put her arm round Celina’s shoulders and led her off the stage, as the Year 7 classes began to file out into the corridor. We were supposed to leave the hall in silence, but no one was observing that rule today, not even the teachers.

  ‘I can’t believe it!’ Chloe was squealing. ‘I never guessed it was Cee! Did you?’

  Danielle and Jyoti shook their heads. They all looked tremendously excited.

  ‘How did she keep that quiet for so long?’ asked Jyoti.

 
; ‘She’s going to be in the newspapers and on TV now,’ Danielle pointed out enviously. ‘As if she isn’t in the papers enough already! That girl is so-o-o lucky!’

  Her face utterly pale with fury, Zara grabbed me and Henry and pulled us out of the line, into the Year 7 cloakroom. ‘Right!’ she snapped, folding her arms tightly. ‘What are we going to do about this?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said miserably. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Zara practically wrung her hands. ‘Of course there’s something we can do!’

  ‘We can go and tell Mrs Bright the truth,’ suggested Henry.

  ‘Think about it.’ I looked from one to the other, my shoulders already slumped in defeat. ‘There’s no way we can prove it was me and not Celina. All she had to do was go to Mrs Bright and say it was her idea. And that’s exactly what she’s done.’

  ‘But—’ Zara stared at me in horror, lost for words for once, as the truth of what I was saying sank in.

  ‘Anyone in the whole school could have claimed they started the good deeds,’ I went on. ‘Celina just got in first, that’s all.’

  ‘We could still go to Mrs Bright,’ Henry said desperately.

  I shook my head. ‘Don’t you see? It would just look like I’m being spiteful. She knows Celina and I don’t like each other.’

  ‘But we can’t let Celina get away with this!’ cried Zara.

  ‘She already has,’ I replied. Turning away, I walked towards the classroom.

  Celina was holding court in the middle of the room, surrounded by Chloe, Jack, Jyoti and Danielle. Her face was flushed and glowing, and she looked prettier than ever before. I hated her.

  ‘I can’t believe you kept it a secret all this time, Cee!’ Chloe was saying in a tone of awe. ‘You didn’t even tell us.’

  Celina laughed. ‘I wanted to surprise you all.’

  ‘Mrs Bright should give you a medal or something,’ said Jyoti admiringly.

  ‘Oh, please.’ Celina shrugged. ‘I don’t want anything like that. My dad’s going to be really proud of me, and that’s what’s most important.’

  That hurt more than anything.

  ‘I still can’t believe it’s her,’ I overheard Layla Bishop whisper to Kavita Sharma. ‘I mean, Celina.’

  Looking around at the slightly disappointed faces in the classroom, I got the impression that a lot of other people felt the same way.

  As Mr Arora came in, I slid into my seat, ignoring the anxious looks Zara and Henry were both giving me.

  ‘Well, Celina.’ Mr Arora gazed across the classroom at her. ‘You certainly gave us all a surprise.’

  Celina giggled modestly. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘So how did you get the idea?’ Mr Arora asked, looking curious.

  ‘Oh, I saw something on the Internet when I was doing my religious-education homework,’ Celina replied. ‘Did you know that doing secret good deeds is a Buddhist tradition, sir? I thought it sounded fun, so …’

  It also sounded horribly convincing.

  ‘No, I didn’t know.’ Mr Arora regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Well done, Celina. What a good idea.’

  ‘Mr Arora doesn’t believe her,’ Zara said as the bell rang out for lessons to begin. ‘You should tell him the truth, Sunita.’

  ‘Yes, go on, Sunita,’ Henry urged. ‘Zara and I will back you up.’

  ‘I told you, there’s no point.’ My voice was sharp, but I was too drowned in misery to care. ‘Just leave it.’

  Somehow I managed to drag myself through the rest of the day. I felt sick and exhausted, as if Celina had somehow managed to drain away all my life and energy and colour and take it for herself, like some evil bloodsucker. I didn’t want to talk to Zara and Henry. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. My lips curled into a bitter smile as I remembered how I’d been saving up my story to tell Mum on her birthday. I wouldn’t be telling her anything now.

  It was a relief when I got home that afternoon to find Mrs Brodie babysitting the twins. Mum would be home from work quite soon, but it gave me a little time to try and pull myself together a bit. I couldn’t dump all this on her. Not when things had just started getting better.

  ‘Is everything all right, Sunita?’ Mrs Brodie asked me bluntly. After sending the twins into the living room to watch TV, she’d turned her calm blue gaze on me. ‘You look as if you’ve had a bad day.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ I wasn’t fine. I wanted to be five years old again and lie on the carpet kicking my heels in the air and screaming, It’s not fair!

  Mrs Brodie regarded me thoughtfully for several long minutes. ‘You know, Sunita,’ she said gently, ‘there’s a saying that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.’

  ‘I’m tired of being strong,’ I blurted out. ‘I’m tired of trying to do the right thing all the time.’ To my horror, I felt my eyes fill with tears.

  The front door opened, banged shut. ‘I’m home!’ Mum called.

  I blinked hard, not looking at Mrs Brodie, and got myself under control before Mum came into the kitchen. She had the college prospectus in her hand.

  ‘Look what I found in my bag.’ She waved the leaflet at me with a grin, and I forced myself to smile back. ‘I was reading it in my break. The business management course looks interesting.’

  ‘You should go to the college and speak to the tutors,’ I said, making my voice sound normal with a big effort.

  But Mum wasn’t fooled. ‘What’s the matter, love?’ She dropped the prospectus on the table and stared closely at me.

  I shrugged. ‘Bad day at school,’ I replied, carefully avoiding Mrs Brodie’s eyes. It wasn’t a lie, was it? It had been a bad day at school.

  It was followed by a very bad week. Mrs Bright wasted not a moment in getting Celina into the newspapers. There were pictures in both of the local newspapers, as well as articles. I did not read them. I couldn’t. But everyone at school was talking about them. Danielle, Chloe and Jyoti, of course, had multiple copies which they flapped under everyone’s noses, shrieking with glee as Celina managed to look modest and humble, yet incredibly smug at the same time. One of the headlines was SCHOOLGIRL TEACHES US ALL A LESSON IN HOW TO BEHAVE. There were pictures of Celina posing with her dad in his mayoral robes. The papers loved that.

  She even got a very short, fifteen-second spot at the end of the local news. It was the feel-good slot, the one that is sometimes about animals or children or something uplifting. I was sitting at home, and suddenly there was Celina being interviewed outside the school gates. I couldn’t get away from her. Wherever I turned, she was there. Taunting me. Rubbing it in.

  The worst thing was, it was affecting me at home. Mum knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t tell her. I couldn’t be the bad fairy who brought everybody down with depressing news, just when things were slowly getting better. So I just kept saying that I had a lot of homework and the teachers were stressed because Christmas was coming, and left it at that.

  But the most terrible day was when Mrs Bright ordered the whole school into the hall during lesson time to hear Celina being interviewed live on local radio. She’d already done a couple of radio interviews at the weekends, which I had carefully avoided, but there was no getting out of this one. If I’d known it was going to happen, I’d have brought some ear plugs to school that day.

  I sat between Henry and Zara, trying anything to block Celina out of my head. I hummed. I counted sheep. I did my times tables over and over. Nothing worked. The whole school was listening in silence, and all I could hear was Celina’s smug and saintly voice echoing around the hall and drilling into my head.

  I got the idea from the Internet. Doing secret good deeds is an old Buddhist custom …

  No, I didn’t do it because I wanted to get all the credit. I just did it because I wanted to help people …

  I only told my headteacher, Mrs Bright, it was me, because I thought she ought to know why I was doing it. I never DREAMED anyone else would be interested!

  Of co
urse, my dad’s really proud of me. He says I’ll probably be mayor myself one day!

  I was so slumped in misery, I barely noticed Zara get to her feet and go to speak to Mr Arora. A moment later she was back beside me, taking my arm.

  ‘Come on,’ she whispered.

  I blinked. ‘Where?’

  ‘You feel sick,’ Zara informed me bluntly, yanking me out of the line.

  I glanced at the stage where Mrs Bright was sitting next to the stereo system. She was staring at us, frowning slightly as we left the hall. Celina’s sweet and sickly voice floated after us, until Zara let the glass door fall shut.

  ‘Did you tell Mr Arora I was ill?’ I asked her, out in the corridor.

  ‘Well, you do feel sick, don’t you?’ Zara raised her eyebrows. ‘Sick to your stomach at least. I know I do.’

  I turned into the nearest cloakroom, sat down on the bench and put my head in my hands.

  ‘But that’s it now, isn’t it?’ I said desperately. ‘Everyone’s had their story. Things will go back to normal.’

  ‘I suppose.’ Zara leaned against the door and regarded me thoughtfully. ‘If we can get over the fact that Celina’s a big fat liar, and she took something for herself which should have been yours.’

  I tried to damp down the burning fire of resentment that leaped up inside me.

  ‘Well, no one else would believe it, would they?’ I said. I tried a casual shrug and failed. ‘The mayor’s daughter is always going to beat the daughter of a thief hands-down.’ My voice wobbled.

  ‘Listen, Sunita.’ Zara put her hand on my shoulder. ‘Forget about Celina. Think about what you’ve done. Look at Henry. He’s so much happier. Me too. And that’s all down to you. Everything that’s happened in this school for the last month or two is down to you.’

  I did not reply. I wanted to be proud of what I’d done, but I couldn’t. A tiny, revengeful part of me wanted to make Celina pay for what she’d done.

  The glass doors of the hall opened, and pupils began flooding out. They were discussing Celina’s interview, but no one looked overly impressed. Maybe that was just wishful thinking on my part.