Save Me a Seat

by Gita Varadarajan

  “It’s nice to see you,” says Mrs. Beam. “We missed you yesterday.”

  “You did?” I ask.

  “Don’t sound so surprised.” She laughs. “I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed the cookies your mother made. There’s a spice in them I’m not familiar with. Do you know what it is?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say softly, bending my head down again. “It’s cumin.”

  “Don’t apologize,” she says. “The cookies were delicious. It was all I could do to keep myself from eating the entire box. I was wondering—do you think your mother would be willing to share the recipe for the—what are they called again?”

  “Naan khatais,” I say.

  “Non cah-tize,” she says slowly.

  Her pronunciation is perfect. I think about what Miss Frost had told me about stepping on toes, and about how assumptions are often wrong.

  “Mrs. Beam,” I say softly, my voice quivering a little, “my name is not RAH-vee. It’s pronounced rah-VEE.”

  She looks at me and smiles. I never noticed before, but her eyes are the color of pistachios. “I’m glad you told me, rah-VEE. Was that better?” she asks.

  I nod my head and smile back at her. “It means ‘the sun,’ ” I say.

  As I walk back to my seat, my heart feels lighter. It seems things are finally looking up for me in America. But my gratitude is interrupted when I see Big Foot sitting at his desk, staring into the empty bowl in front of him. He looks so sad and I am not selfish enough that I have forgotten about the insulting cartoon, or what I saw Dillon Samreen take from the little glass dish on Big Foot’s desk. This is my chance to redeem myself for the unkind way I had treated Ramaswami at Vidya Mandir and for all the toes I have stepped on at Albert Einstein Elementary School as well—my chance to set things right. I reach into my desk and feel around with my fingers until I find what I’m looking for, then I put it in my pencil box for safekeeping until the moment is right.

  “We’re going to play a little guessing game,” Mrs. Beam explains. “The goal is to match up the objects sitting on the desks with the sentences in the basket.”

  Great. I’ve only been at school for fifteen minutes and my day is already in the toilet. I look at the empty dish. No one is going to be able to match it with the sentence I wrote. Not in a million years.

  Ravi is busy unwrapping his package. I am curious to see what’s inside, so I lean to my left so I can watch him. The brown paper is held on with about a million pieces of Scotch tape. When he finally gets it off, there’s another layer of newspaper underneath, and under that a layer of tinfoil and a lot more Scotch tape.

  “Before we start,” Mrs. Beam tells us, “I’d like you all to quietly make your way around the room, familiarizing yourself with the objects on each of the desks. I’ll give you a few minutes to do that, and then we’ll begin our game.”

  Miss Frost always says that the best place to start is at the beginning, so I go over to the first desk in the first row. Amy Yamaguchi brought a teddy bear—or at least I think that’s what it is. It’s a little hard to tell because it’s gray and it doesn’t have any stuffing left in it. Not only that, the face is completely worn off. Whatever it is, it’s ancient and probably doesn’t smell too good up close.

  Some of the other girls brought in stuffed animals too, or girlie junk like charm bracelets and flavored ChapStick. A lot of the boys picked video games or sports stuff—including Tim O’Toole, whose personal reflection object is his own front tooth. Everybody knows the story—he knocked out his tooth last winter sliding into a goalpost during a hockey game. Even though there was blood gushing out of his mouth, he still managed to score the winning goal, which is how his picture ended up on the front page of the Hamilton Herald with a caption under it that said PLUCKY LOCAL KID JUST WON’T QUIT!

  I am about to start walking down the next row of desks when I hear Lucy Mulligan scream.

  Mrs. Beam goes running over to see what’s wrong, and pretty soon there’s a big crowd of kids standing around Ravi’s desk. This is one of those times when being taller than everybody else comes in handy, because I can see right over their heads. Ravi has finally finished unwrapping his package. Sitting on the desk is a glass jar filled with cruddy-looking water—and swimming around in that cruddy-looking water are three long, slimy, black …

  “Leeches,” I say as everyone leans closer to see what I have in my jar.

  Yesterday Perippa and I took a walk together.

  “Where are we going?” I asked him.

  “You’ll see,” he said.

  Ever since we moved to New Jersey, Perippa has been very quiet. He eats his meals without a word, then goes and sits on the sofa to chew his betel nuts and read his newspapers. But yesterday as we walked together, he had a lot to say.

  “What’s this I hear about you wanting to quit school?” he asked.

  “Nobody likes me,” I told him. “They think I smell bad.”

  “It doesn’t matter what they think. Quitting is not an option.”

  “I know,” I said. “Appa told me.”

  “That’s because I told your father that same thing when he was a boy, and someday when you have children of your own, you’ll tell them too. Quitting is not an option.”

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “Nobody does.”

  For a while, we walked in silence.

  “Did you know that in India, tea has to be plucked by hand, Ravi?” my grandfather said finally. “Three leaves and a bud, right from the very top of the tea bush. The tea pluckers pick the tender shoots and drop them into baskets that hang from their heads. When I was a young man, my first job was to work at the tea plantation. I had to stand in the rain and guard the workers, protecting them from wild animals that might be lurking nearby.”

  “What kind of wild animals?” I asked, but my grandfather didn’t answer. Instead he took me by the hand and led me through the tall grass to the edge of the pond Amma and Perimma were always warning me not to go near.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked.

  Again, my grandfather didn’t answer. He bent his knees and crouched down, careful not to let his veshti touch the muddy ground. I crouched down beside him and watched as he dipped the tea strainer in the water and began dragging it very slowly through the weeds at the edge of the pond. Two times he pulled the strainer out and we peered in only at dirt and dead leaves, but on the third try his efforts were met with success. Three long black wormlike creatures wriggled in the strainer.

  “We used to call them Draculas in disguise,” Perippa told me. “The tea plantations were infested with them during the monsoon season—they were much larger than these skinny fellows, but these will have to do.”

  “Do for what?” I asked.

  “Perimma told me about your assignment.”

  “The assignment is to find something that represents who I am,” I told my grandfather. “Do you think I’m a leech?”

  Perippa laughed and pulled a small glass jar from his pocket. “Fill this to the top with water,” he said, handing it to me.

  When I had finished filling the jar, he dropped the leeches in, closed the cap, and tightened it. “These leeches are a reminder of who we are, and where we’ve come from, Ravi, and of all the hardships we’ve endured to get here.”

  I thought about our house in Bangalore and my friends back at Vidya Mandir, especially Pramod. I thought about the way things used to be, the way I used to be.

  “I don’t know who I am anymore, Perippa,” I told my grandfather.

  “You are Ravi Suryanarayanan,” my grandfather said, putting his arm around me and pulling me close. “And the Suryanarayanans never give up. We work hard, against all odds, and believe in ourselves. Who would have thought that I, a small tea plantation owner, would be able to send his son to a fine university and to help bring his whole family to live in America too? But that is what happened.”

  “I miss Bangalore,” I said softly.

  “Me too. But yo
u will have many more opportunities here.”

  “It doesn’t feel like home,” I told him.

  “Give it time,” Perippa said, reaching for my hand. “Come, Ravi, Amma and Perimma are waiting. If we stay out any longer, they’ll think we’ve been carried off by that terrible wind Perimma is always complaining about.”

  Everyone in room 506 is still crowded around my desk, trying to get a look at the leeches. The time is right, so I open my pencil box and take out the blue candy—the one Miss Frost gave me in the resource room two days ago. I put it in my desk and forgot all about it until this morning. Now this little blue candy is about to play the starring role in my big plan. I look around to make sure no one is watching, then I place the candy in the glass dish on Big Foot’s desk.

  I can’t believe my eyes. I actually blink a couple of times to make sure I’m not seeing things. Is there really a blue peanut M&M sitting in the glass dish on my desk? The answer is yes, but what’s weird is that it’s not the same one I brought from home. I’m positive. That was a single; this is a double. Those are rare—especially the blue ones, which is how I know who put it there.

  “I’ll get us started,” says Mrs. Beam as she reaches into the basket. She pulls out a card and reads it aloud: “On my honor, I will try: to serve God and my country, to help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout Law.”

  “That’s easy!” shouts Dillon, jumping out of his seat. “It’s Celena. Who else would be dorky enough to still be a Girl Scout in fifth grade?”

  Mrs. Beam’s eyebrows are twitching.

  “As I explained a moment ago, Mr. Samreen,” she says, “the person who reads the sentence is the only one who’s allowed to guess. In this case, that person would be me, not you.”

  Dillon sits back down, and Mrs. Beam walks over to Celena’s desk. She is the girl in the green uniform who had brought my things to the nurse’s office.

  “Is it you, Celena?” Mrs. Beam asks, placing the card next to a loop of green cloth with medals and badges pinned to it.

  Celena blushes and nods her head.

  “Now it’s your turn,” says Mrs. Beam, holding the basket out to her.

  Celena pulls out a card and reads: “Blondes have more fun.”

  “Gee, I wonder who that could be,” Dillon says.

  Celena walks over to Lucy Mulligan and places the card next to the silver hairbrush sitting on her desk. “Is it you?” she asks Lucy.

  “Uh, duh,” Dillon sneers. “Of course it’s her. This game is a joke.”

  Mrs. Beam frowns at him, then holds out the basket to Lucy, who reaches in and pulls out the next card.

  “I rule,” she reads.

  “I’ll give you a hint,” says Dillon. He turns on his ridiculous plastic star and the music starts blaring.

  “Ghetto superstar, that is what you are …”

  Dillon jumps up on his chair, sticks out his long tongue, and starts waving it to the music. The way it moves reminds me of the leeches wriggling in Perippa’s tea strainer.

  Mrs. Beam’s eyebrows are not twitching any longer; they’ve become a straight line now. She walks over and turns off the music. “Please get down from your chair,” she says.

  As Dillon starts to climb down, he happens to glance over at Big Foot’s desk. When he sees the blue candy in the bowl, his eyes grow very wide and a look of pure shock comes over his face.

  Yes!

  “Do you know who the card belongs to?” Mrs. Beam asks Lucy.

  Lucy nods, but doesn’t move.

  “Is something the matter, Lucy?” asks Mrs. Beam.

  “I don’t want to see the leeches,” she whispers.

  “What’s so scary about a couple of stupid old worms?” sneers Dillon.

  Ever since Mrs. Beam shut down his “superstar” routine, he’s been acting kind of grumpy.

  Lucy gives him a dirty look. Hallelujah! Maybe this means the wedding is off.

  Ravi has his hand up.

  “Yes, Ravi?” says Mrs. Beam. I notice she says his name right for the first time, with the accent on the second syllable.

  “Could you please tell Lucy Mulligan that the lid on the jar is screwed on very tight? My grandfather and I made sure of that. The leeches will not escape. Nothing to worry about, see?” He lifts the jar and turns it upside down. No water leaks out, but turning the jar over like that gets the leeches all freaked out and they start wriggling around even more than before. I expect Lucy to start screaming again, but instead she walks over and tosses the card down on Dillon’s desk without even looking at him, then she turns and smiles at Ravi.

  “I didn’t know you knew my name,” she says, tilting her head to one side.

  I look at Dillon to see what he’s making of this disgustingly mushy moment, but he isn’t paying any attention to Lucy. He’s got his eyes glued to the jar of leeches.

  I know that look. I’ve seen it a million times before.

  “It’s your turn to pick a card,” says Mrs. Beam, holding the basket out to Dillon.

  He groans. “This game is so lame. What’s the point? You can’t even win.”

  “Try to muster a bit more enthusiasm, will you please?” says Mrs. Beam. “Not every game has to be about winning.”

  If you ask me, Dillon is getting off easy. Mrs. Arun would have made him kneel down on the floor or sit facing the wall if he had talked back to her like that.

  Dillon makes a big show of swirling his hand in the basket to stir up the cards. His overacting is even worse than Shakti Kapoor’s. I can’t believe I ever wanted to be his friend.

  “Abracadabra!” he says, pulling out a card and waving it in the air like he’s done something special. Nobody responds—not even Lucy Mulligan, who is busy staring at me for some reason. Dillon shakes his hair out of his eyes and reads what is written on the card:

  “Quitting is not an option.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Gee. I wonder who this could be?” Then he marches straight over to Tim or Jim—I still don’t know which it is—and puts the card down on his desk. “Is it you?” Dillon asks in a voice that says he is confident his guess is correct.

  “Nope,” says Tim/Jim, shaking his head. “It’s not me.”

  Dillon can’t believe his ears. “What do you mean, it’s not you?” he says. “It has to be you. Everybody knows you’re the kid who just won’t quit.”

  Tim/Jim looks at him and shrugs.

  “It’s not me,” he says.

  “You see?” Mrs. Beam’s pistachio eyes are twinkling like little green stars. “Maybe this game isn’t so easy after all.”

  “Well, if he didn’t write it, who did?” asks Dillon, looking around the room.

  I wink at him and smile.

  “I did,” I say.

  “He cheated!” shouts Dillon. “That’s why I couldn’t guess it. What do leeches have to do with quitting?”

  “Would you like to come up to the front of the class and tell us how the two things are connected, Ravi?”

  Personally, I would have been sweating bullets if Mrs. Beam made me stand up in front of everybody like that, but Ravi doesn’t seem nervous at all. In fact, he looks happy. He pushes up his glasses and clears his throat like he’s about to give a speech or something. I’m listening, but I’m also keeping my eye on Dillon in case he tries to mess with Ravi’s leeches while he’s busy giving his speech.

  “Quitting is not an option,” Ravi says. “This is what my father taught me and what his father taught him and what I will teach my own son someday too.”

  “Big deal,” says Dillon. “What does that have to do with leeches anyway? I told you he cheated.”

  “Shh,” says Mrs. Beam. “Go on, Ravi.”

  Ravi pushes up his glasses again. “I haven’t prepared anything else to say. But I could tell you a story, if you like.”

  I rub my nose and push up my glasses. My hands are shaking a little, so I fold them together the way we were taught to do in elocution class at Vidya Mandir.


  “For many generations, the Suryanarayanan family has worked with tea,” I begin. “When my grandfather was a young man, he worked in the tea plantations. His job was to protect the tea pluckers from wild animals that might be lurking nearby.”

  I look around the room. Everyone is listening. Some are even leaning forward in their seats! I decide to bring a bit more drama into the story by adding a few details Perippa had not included in his version.

  “Have you ever been attacked by a porcupine or a wild boar?” I ask, pawing the ground with my foot. “Have you ever seen a panther crouching in the grass ready to pounce, or been stuck in the middle of a war between two angry elephants?”

  I pause and look around the room for dramatic effect. All those years of elocution lessons are really paying off.

  “Imagine it is the monsoon season,” I say. “Imagine the ground is still damp from the heavy rain—a perfect hiding place for the most dangerous creature of all. More dangerous than the porcupine or even the panther, this animal can latch on to you and bite through even the toughest flesh with its three hundred razor-sharp teeth.”

  “What the heck?” says Jax.

  “Be quiet,” Caleb Burell tells him. “I want to hear about the teeth.”

  This is no time to lose momentum, so I take a deep breath and dive back into the story.

  “Well, my grandfather battled these tiny Draculas in disguise every single day. Imagine yourself plucking tea under a hot sun, when suddenly you realize you are surrounded by viscous black worms waiting to fix themselves to your body and drain your lifeblood out. Look! There’s one between your toes! Be careful! There’s one behind your ear! Believe me when I tell you, these dreaded bloodsucking leeches can even crawl up your nostril!”

  Just as my tale is building to its climax, I am interrupted by a loud choking sound. A moment later, the air is filled with a horrible smell.

  “Check it out!” shouts Dillon Samreen. “Emily Mooney just blew chunks!”