Kate’s eyes bulged at the sight. The banana! Lucy had picked up the monkey’s half-eaten banana! Kate raced back up the hill, so fast that trees and sky and people swirled around her like cake-mix blended in a bowl.
‘Lucy! Don’t! Don’t swallow it!’
Lucy gulped. ‘I did.’
Panic surged in Kate. What happened if you ate a banana a monkey had been chewing? How sick did you get? Could you get rabies that way? Or something worse? Could you, even – die?
‘Spit it out!’
‘Can’t!’ Lucy opened a wet empty mouth. ‘It’s gone.’
‘Oh, Lucy!’ Kate sank to her knees and pressed her sister close. ‘We’ve got to get you to the First Aid place.’
Someone tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Look, we’re sorry, but–’
Kate sprang to her feet. She saw Ivy Stevenson from Year Eight, and Kerry Moss’s big brother, Danny.
‘She swallowed the monkey’s banana!’ Kate wailed desparingly. ‘She’s eaten a banana a monkey chewed!’
‘No, ’ said Danny calmly. ‘No.’
‘What?’
‘She hasn’t.’ Danny was holding a crumpled paper bag. ‘They were ours, ’ he said, thrusting the open bag at Kate. Inside it were bananas.
‘We gave her one of them, ’ he said.
‘It wasn’t the monkey’s banana your little sister was eating, ’ explained Ivy. ‘It was a huming banana.’ Her full lips twitched to hide a smile. ‘Not fatal. If that’s what you’re so upset about.’
‘Are you all right?’ asked Danny. ‘You look sort of red.’
‘Very red, ’ said Ivy.
‘I’m fine, ’ said Kate stiffly.
‘Oh well. Sorry about that, then.’
‘Sorry about’, Ivy’s lips twitched again, ‘the banana.’
Oh, they were very sorry, thought Kate furiously. She could see their shoulders shaking with laughter as, hand-in-hand, they walked off into the scrubby bush-land behind the monkeys’ enclosure. By nine o’clock on Monday morning the tale would be all around the school. A tear of rage slid down Kate’s cheek.
‘Katie? Katie?’ A hand was patting her, patting her t-shirt, her arms, her damp hot sticky face. A small fat hand, with baby dimples still between its knuckles. ‘Don’t cry, Katie. Don’t be sad.’
The unexpected tenderness which had overcome Kate last night swept over her again. It was no use pretending: Lucy had begun to change herself into a huming being. And Kate was changing, too: she was no longer a person who hated her sister, not always, anyway.
And that wonderful essay she’d written for Ms Dallimore – those six whole pages of flying, perfect words about how she hated Lucy – was ruined. It simply wasn’t true. It was gone. She’d never find anything to write in its place, never. She wouldn’t be able to do it; she’d get into trouble.
Unless, thought Kate.
Unless Ms Dallimore really was the Bride of Dracula.
22
Uran Khatola
Neema and Nani went to the park. It wasn’t very far: along Lawrence Road and past the shops, around the corner and down the narrow lane behind the bowling green. Nani walked briskly, her small feet in their air-soled runners keeping pace with Neema.
‘She’s amazingly fit for her age, ’ Neema’s dad had remarked a few days after Nani had arrived. ‘Reminds me of Sister Josephine. Do you know, when Sister Josephine found me on their back doorstep, she would have been almost eighty, and yet – the way she swooped me up, out of the rain and that soggy old box, and danced me into the kitchen–’ ‘Ignatius, you were only a couple of days old, you can’t possibly remember that!’ Neema’s mum had protested.
‘Indeed I do, ’ Dad had said stoutly, with the same conviction that sounded in Molly Matthews’ voice when she spoke of her mother fastening the buttons on her little baby shoes.
The park was deserted, long wavy shadows flickered from the trees, and the only sound was the crunch of their runners on the gravel of the path.
Why was Nani so silent? wondered Neema, as they walked on towards the lake. Why wasn’t she talking on in Hindi, like she always did, like she’d been doing back in the TV room just a little while ago, talking and talking, even though Neema couldn’t understand? She flicked a quick glance sideways – Nani’s face looked stern, and even sad. Was she disappointed because she’d come all this way to find a great-granddaughter who didn’t speak a word of Hindi? Who couldn’t be bothered to learn? Neema felt her cheeks grow hot: she hadn’t even opened that little English–Hindi primer except to find out if Nani had been talking about her big feet and knobbly knees. Nani hadn’t seemed real to her, a person you might want to know.
Though Neema couldn’t have guessed it, Kalpana’s stern expression was only for herself. How foolish she was! How foolish she must have seemed to Nirmolini, back there in the house chattering on again, pouring out her thoughts and feelings in a language the poor child didn’t know, on and on, like a river swollen in the monsoon rains.
‘When you are old, ’ she’d told her daughter Usha, ‘it’s time to try new things. Time to be brave, to learn–’ and yet she didn’t have the courage to speak those English words she knew. Kalpana pressed her lips together in a thin straight line. The next word she spoke would be English. It would be. But what?
They sat down together on the grassy verge beside the lake. Neither of them spoke. Neema stole another glance at Nani. What was she thinking about, as she watched the small waves washing in and out among the stones? Was she angry with her? But Nani looked sad rather than angry – perhaps she was thinking about her young husband, who’d died so long ago. Did she remember little things about him? Had she been trying to tell them to Neema when they were watching the film?
Neema looked out across the lake. Beneath the late summer sky, the water was a brilliant burning blue, the kind of blue you hardly ever see in real life, except for the favourite colour in your pastel box you keep saving up for something really special. Yet it was the colour of something she had seen once in the real world long ago, something splendid and perfect and . . . The colour of the Indian sky, that was it! And with a rush it all came sweeping back: the warm lovely evenings, sitting by the river with Nani and Sumati, squeezed safe between them, gazing up at a sky which was bigger than the one she knew back home, immense and blazing: Nani’s sky. An important sky, so important, so vast and dazzling you’d think it would make you feel small. Only it hadn’t. It had made Neema feel important and sure of herself, even though she’d been so little – as if who she was, and everything she thought and did, really mattered.
Lightly, Neema touched Nani’s arm. ‘Nani? Nani, I just remembered you, from when I was little, when we used to sit by the river, me and you and Sumati.’
‘Sumati, ’ echoed Nani softly, and her face had the still, absorbed expression of a person making up her mind. ‘Yes!’ she said, in English, so suddenly that Neema jumped a little. ‘Sumati, and me – and you. By the river. Us.’ She spoke slowly, haltingly, with a soft accent that Neema liked at once.
‘By the river, ’ Nani said again, more easily.
‘What’s “river” in Hindi, Nani?’
‘Nadi, ’ replied Nani. ‘“River” is “nadi”, Nirmolini.’
Nadi! It was the word Neema had imagined meant ‘gawky’, or ‘ugly’ or ‘knobbly-kneed’. And all Nani had been asking was whether Neema remembered sitting by the river with her and Sumati!
Right! decided Neema. The minute she got home she’d find that English–Hindi primer, and she’d ask Mum, and Nani, about the words, and she wouldn’t be shy of speaking them out loud, even if they did sound funny.
And then, abruptly in that quiet place, they heard a sudden swish and swirl of gravel from behind them, and a voice called, ‘Nirmolini!’ It was a boy’s voice, full of astonishment and a kind of joyfulness which made Neema think of the words her dad had said: ‘Nirmolini, your name like perfume poured out . . .’
She thought it sounded like Gu
ll Oliver, but how could it be? She went quite still, holding her breath, afraid to turn round and see. Beside her, she heard Nani laugh and clap her hands. ‘Uran khatola!’
Uran khatola?
‘Oh, Nirmolini! It’s the – the flying boy!’
23
Nani Learns to Fly
Gull Oliver had been cruising down the path towards the lake, thinking, dreaming . . .
‘I think best on the old skateboard, ’ he told his mum on those evenings she caught him sneaking out when there was homework to be done.
‘Now don’t you go telling me it’s school work you’re thinking about when you ride off on that thing! I wasn’t born yesterday, you know!’
The funny thing was, it might be school work. A problem that he felt stuck with, cooped up in his room, could somehow unravel as he sailed on through the quiet streets and the narrow mysterious pathways in the park.
But these last few weeks it had been Nirmolini he’d been thinking about. She obviously didn’t remember how they’d met each other all those years ago. Once he’d thought she might: that time he’d seen her with Katie Sullivan, walking home from school. For a second, as she looked across the road, Nirmolini had seemed to recognise him, but then her eyes glanced away so quickly, bounced right off him, that he knew he’d only imagined it.
How could he get to know her again? You couldn’t just walk up to a girl and say, ‘Hi, I’m Gull Oliver, remember me? I used to be your shepherd back at Short Street Primary. Seven years ago.’
She mightn’t even remember how there had been shepherds at Short Street Primary.
Skating by her house each evening he’d hoped to see her at a window so he could give her a little passing wave, and a smile – that would be a beginning, at least. But the only person he’d ever seen there was the old lady who waved and smiled at him.
How could he approach her? At school, she was always with other girls, a whole crowd of them, and that made it difficult to talk.
Gull sped up a little; he was nearing the end of the path now, the bit he loved best, where you came out from the shadow of the trees into the brilliant blue of lake and sky, where the light seemed to shower down. He soared out from the trees and – there they were! It was unbelievable, like a sort of miracle: beside the lake, the two of them, the old lady who always seemed to wear white, and – and her!
Her name flew from his lips. ‘Nirmolini!’
Kalpana left them together and stole quietly away; young people needed to be on their own. She walked swiftly over the soft green grass, her small old limbs filled with the amazing lightness that comes from risking the thing you’d long been afraid to do. And it had been so easy, after all. She’d fretted and worried and been so proud, and then, when she’d spoken those first English words to Nirmolini, there hadn’t been a trace of scorn or mockery on her great-granddaughter’s face. Nirmolini had been surprised, that was all, and then she’d been – delighted. Kalpana glanced up at the sky, where little pink clouds were sailing, and then across the water to the bank of silvery green trees on the other side. She knew this place, too, this park. Of course she did, and it seemed to her she had recognised it the very moment she spoke that first English word aloud to Nirmolini. She had looked up, and seen: seen how the water and the trees and the small scudding clouds were the ones of the place in her dream, the place where she would fly.
As she walked, Kalpana hugged Gull’s skateboard to her chest, cradling it gently, as tenderly as Blocky Stevenson had cradled the old junior football he’d found in the cupboard beneath the sink. She was looking for a private little place, firm and flat and hidden, because when you were old and wanted to try something new, you needed to be private, away from the eyes of people who might fuss and bother, who might tell you, ‘Not that way, but this!’ or even say, ‘You are too old, this you cannot do.’
At last she found it: a small deserted carpark, screened behind the trees.
Kalpana set the skateboard down. She placed one foot on it, then two. Exactly. Exactly so. There she was, a simple hand’s height from the ground. She wobbled a little, and set one foot back firmly upon the ground. This would need practice; ‘Practice makes perfect!’
Sumati was often saying. And practice took a little time.
Kalpana glanced through the trees – over there, across the lake, Nirmolini and the flying boy sat talking. Hours might pass for them like seconds, she thought, smiling. She had plenty of time.
Her sharp old ears picked up two words from their conversation: ‘Count Dracula’. Count Dracula? She knew what ‘count’ meant, of course – that was numbers. But Dracula? What could that be? It wasn’t a word she’d ever heard Usha say, and yet it seemed somehow familiar, as a word might be if you’d seen it on the cover of a book, or on a big poster outside a cinema. ‘A fairytale, ’ she murmured. Dracula was someone from a fairytale.
Gull and Neema talked for ages – shyly at first, then more confidently, and then as if they were very old friends and the seven years since they’d last talked together had simply melted away. They talked about many things, until, finally, their conversation came round to Ms Dallimore. ‘Do you think her boyfriend really is Count Dracula?’ asked Neema.
Gull shook his head. ‘It’s just one of those teacher stories.’
‘You mean how people say Mr Ruddy’s on day release from a prison farm?’
Mr Ruddy was the part-time woodwork teacher.
‘Yeah. It’s just because he’s got tattoos and dirty fingernails.’
‘So it’s because Ms Dallimore’s so pale, and her boyfriend has that spooky car?’
Gull nodded. ‘But I reckon it’s something else too. It’s because she’s the kind of teacher people remember, even when they’re grown up.’
‘Like my mum remembers this little old lady who taught her maths at university.’
‘And mine remembers the poetry teacher she had in Year Ten. Ms Dallimore’s one of them: a teacher you remember.’
‘Yes, she is, ’ said Neema thoughtfully, and a vision of her English teacher floated into her mind: Ms Dallimore as she might remember her when Neema was as old as Mum, or Gran, or even Nani; Ms Dallimore in her long swirly skirt, with her dark red hair and pale pale skin, standing at the front of the classroom, talking about thinking, and imagination, and flying, and the heavenly music of the soul–
She glanced up suddenly. ‘Where’s Nani?’
Neema and Gull stared round. The empty park stared back at them; the brooding lake, the hollow paths beneath the darkening trees.
‘Could she have gone home?’ asked Gull.
‘No, no, she wouldn’t, ’ said Neema.
But where could she have gone?
And then they heard it, the faint ticktocking sound of little wheels, and far away on the other side of the lake, they saw a graceful gliding figure, like a big white swan. Nani.
‘She’s – she’s got your skateboard!’
Together, they began to run.
And now Kalpana was flying: the trees rushed by, and the water, and the small rosy clouds above, cool air brushed against her face, her sari floated out, all as it had been in her dream. Faster she flew, and faster – at any moment, as she pushed against the world, the tiny crack would open and she would see him.
‘Nani!’
Faster. She needed to go faster now; only she couldn’t, because Nirmolini was running towards her, and Kalpana could see how anxious her small face was, how her mouth shaped itself in a tight circle of alarm. ‘Nani, stop!’
‘I need to go faster, ’ Kalpana wanted to shout out loud, ‘I need to see! Oh please!’
But there were tears sliding down Nirmolini’s cheeks. ‘Aah!’ sighed Kalpana, and she made the small graceful movements she had seen the flying boy make so many nights as she watched from the window of her room. And stopped.
Neema rushed up: she’d been so afraid Nani would fall, be hurt, but here she was, her feet quite safe and solid on the ground. ‘Oh, Nani!’ Neema smiled a
s she took the old lady’s hand. And this time it was her proper smile; the one that curved her soft lips upwards and brought the tiny dimple, the small hollow, to show beside her mouth. The smile that made her face, for a precious instant, the perfect image of Kalpana’s own lost Raj.
24
Dr Vladimir Goole
‘Come in for the seminar, love?’ asked Veronica, the maths department secretary.
‘Er, yes.’ Priya found Veronica a little unsettling; she was so very forthright, and her voice was so very loud. And though Veronica was young, and big, and blonde, there was something about her which kept reminding Priya of Sumati, Nani’s old friend.
‘Missed us, eh?’
Priya smiled. ‘Yes, I did. Do you know who’s giving the seminar paper today?’
Veronica rolled her bright blue eyes. ‘Him.’
Priya’s heart sunk. ‘Him’, from Veronica, could only mean one person – Dr Vladimir Goole.
‘Dr Goole?’
‘Yup. Rather you than me – he’ll go on for hours in that drony old voice of his.’
‘It is a bit muffled.’
‘Keeps his lips half-closed, that’s why, ’ said Veronica. ‘It’s to hide the fangs.’
‘Fangs?’
‘Yeah. He’s got these two really long sharp teeth at the sides.’Veronica flicked a bright red fingernail at her own plush lips. ‘I saw them once when he snarled at me.’
‘He snarled at you?’ gasped Priya, horrified. ‘What for?’
‘For looking at the address on the back of one of those letters he gets from foreign parts.’
‘Where was it?’ asked Priya curiously. ‘The address?’
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