Karma Khullar's Mustache

by Kristi Wientge

  I tried to push my tiffin into the bottom of the locker, in front of my books. The locker wasn’t deep enough. I couldn’t chance putting the tiffin on top of my books, what if it leaked again? Sweat formed on my arms and the backs of my knees.

  “Is there a problem, Karma?” Ms. Hillary asked, her shoes clomp-clomping toward me.

  “My lunch doesn’t fit.”

  “Hmm. Follow me with your . . . your . . .” She paused with her finger pointing at the tiffin.

  “Tiffin.”

  “Yes, of course, tiffin.” She said it slowly like the word was uncomfortable in her mouth. Which, I guess it probably was. I must have been the only person outside India who carried a stainless steel tiffin to school as my lunch box. That should have been my first sign that I’d made a mistake bringing it to school.

  I followed Ms. Hillary into the classroom. Everyone’s eyes followed us curiously as we crossed the room in a spotlight of stares. I clutched the tiffin tightly in my left hand, trying to hide it against my leg. Ms. Hillary walked all the way to the back of the classroom and opened the storage closet. It smelled of dust and fresh paper, a very school smell. The closet walls were lined with small shelves that were filled with reams of paper and extra markers and erasers for the board.

  Ms. Hillary pushed a box of paper aside to make room on the nearest shelf for the tiffin. “That ought to be fine.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Just keep your lunch in here. It’s always unlocked.”

  I put the tiffin on the shelf and walked back to my seat. I prayed to Babaji that none of the dal had leaked onto my skirt, leaving a yellow baby-poop stain.

  I opened my notebook to the middle of the pages, where the corners weren’t stained yellow, and grasped my newly sharpened pencil so tight that my thumbnail dug into my pointer finger. It was the only way to keep the tears of embarrassment behind my eyes from spilling out.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When the bell rang, we went across the hall to Mrs. Clark’s for social studies. Even though we switched teachers and classrooms for each subject, we stayed together as a class. I’d liked the idea of sticking together because it’d be less likely for me to get lost, but having Lacy, Tom, and Derek trail me all day didn’t really put me at ease.

  Mrs. Clark stood in the front of the classroom with her hands clasped, bouncing on her toes. “I’m excited to share with you what we’ve got in store for this year. As was mentioned at orientation, you sixth graders have an opportunity to get more involved here at Holly Creek Middle School. We’re looking for ideas to help you learn beyond the classroom. Suggestion boxes have been placed in each homeroom, where you can anonymously drop your ideas to help make learning engaging.”

  “You mean we can put stuff in there like going to McDonald’s?” Tom asked.

  Mrs. Clark smiled patiently. “Well, if that would help you, let’s say, in math, or health, and you could give a valid reason for it, then sure.”

  “What about going to the mall?” Lacy asked.

  “Yeah, or the park?” someone else said.

  “You guys are kind of missing the point,” Mrs. Clark said. “Let’s think bigger. For example, we are going to be discussing early civilizations. We’ll be learning how they survived and planted their own food and made their own clothing. So, where could we go to discover more about this?”

  “The zoo!” Tom shouted.

  “A farm,” Kate said.

  “We could camp,” Sara said.

  Just hearing Sara’s voice sent a jolt through my body. I thought it would be comforting and reassuring. Instead it sent a zap of static electricity that cut through me.

  She’d sat in the back with Lacy in homeroom even when Ms. Hillary had asked if anyone wished to move. Well, the likes of Lacy wouldn’t get the better of me.

  “We could start a garden,” I said.

  “That’s great. I love those ideas. Well, the zoo was a stretch,” Mrs. Clark said. “Camping is a very good idea.” She smiled at Sara.

  I looked over at Sara, proud that Mrs. Clark had complimented her. Behind Sara, Lacy shoved her finger over her mouth in a ’Stache Attack.

  Mrs. Clark turned to me. “And, Karma, what a great idea about a garden. That is really thinking big. Not only would a garden give us hands-on learning experience, but it would also give us an opportunity to give back, either to the community or to our school. The suggestions you place in the boxes can also be for after-school groups and clubs that help organize learning opportunities outside of school. That’s the kind of big ideas I want all of you to brainstorm tonight. Obviously, I said this is anonymous, but I do want to challenge all of you to come up with one ‘big idea’ to consider putting in your homeroom suggestion box tomorrow.”

  A “big idea.” If I’d been able to come up with a big idea, I’d have been mustache-less and still have a best friend. So how was I supposed to come up with an idea for class when I couldn’t even think of a good idea for getting rid of my mustache?

  • • •

  Even though it’d been empty all summer, the lunchroom still smelled like sweat, basketballs, and leftover meat loaf. The entire room overflowed with kids and noise.

  The tables were nearly full, and I couldn’t spot my class. I’d left a couple of minutes after everyone else because of my tiffin being in the storage closet. Then I’d stopped off in the bathroom to wash off the lemon juice. It had hardened and made the hair clump at the edges of my mouth. Once I rinsed it and dried it with a paper towel, it wasn’t sticky, just red from the rubbing. So I waited a couple of minutes for the red to go away.

  Looking around the bathroom, I considered staying and eating my lunch in there, but it would be impossible to open up my tiffin and eat unless I sat on the floor—and no way would I ever eat on the bathroom floor, even if, statistically speaking, there were less germs in a public bathroom than on your toothbrush at home. Maybe a sandwich would have been doable by standing and eating, but not soupy dal and chapatis.

  I held the tiffin to my side, trying to hide it behind me, but when you’re walking through the middle of a huge open room, there is no behind or beside. Everything is visible to everyone. I tried to keep my head down and use only my eyes to look up—a way of walking and sitting I’d been getting used to today. I didn’t want to bump into anyone, but I also didn’t want to catch anyone’s eye.

  “Hey, Khullar, that your shaving kit?” Tom asked.

  “Nice one,” Derek said, slapping him a high five.

  Well, at least I’d found my class. There weren’t really assigned seats at lunch now that we were in middle school, but maybe because it was the first day, most of the classes kind of stuck together.

  The gap between Emma and Kate disappeared as I moved closer. All around the table, gaps disappeared. I looked for Sara but didn’t notice her anywhere. There was an empty spot beside Derek, but I didn’t dare.

  The only other spots available were by Ginny and David. I held my head high and walked right past Lacy to sit next to Ginny at the table behind Lacy’s.

  I did my best to put the tiffin down gently, but it still managed to hit the table with a clunk. Ginny looked up, an arm’s length away on my right. I smiled, but she just turned back to stare at her sandwich. Across the table David slurped chocolate milk from his thermos. He smiled, showing all his teeth, not bothering to stop drinking, so little dribbles of brown milk leaked from the sides of his mouth and dripped off his chin. His teeth were so crowded in his narrow mouth that it looked like they were fighting to escape.

  Those crammed-together teeth made me self-conscious of my own, even though they were probably the one feature I had that didn’t stress me out. Still, I smiled back at him with my lips tightly closed. I busied myself with unclasping the handle of the tiffin so I could separate the two bowls. The smell of dal calmed me slightly. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine I was at home. I tore off a piece of chapati and dipped it into the yellow dal.

  “Eww.”


  At the other end of Lacy’s table, Kate threw a wrapper from her store-bought snack at a grinning Derek.

  “That’s so gross,” Emma echoed.

  “I swear I didn’t fart,” Derek said, throwing wrappers back at them.

  Lacy pushed herself forward, practically lying across the table to find where the smell was coming from.

  “Eww! ’Stache Attack is eating her own throw-up!” she yelled, tapping Kate on the shoulder. I bit down hard on my chapati and swallowed the bite whole. Lacy’s eyes had a glint like the sun shining on an icicle. She’d said that on purpose. She’d said it to remind me about Supremo’s.

  “Oh, gross!” Kate and Emma said at the same time.

  “Up-chuck! Up-chuck! Up-chuck!” Tom chanted, pounding the table.

  I covered my food with my arms, not sure if I wanted to protect it or hide it. I didn’t even know why everyone was making such a big deal about my lunch. I wasn’t the only one with ethnic food. Yeji brought kimchi and rice cakes each day except taco day.

  Kids from surrounding tables craned their necks to get a good look at my dal. No one wanted to be left out. Everyone wanted to claim they’d witnessed a girl eating her own vomit.

  Mrs. Clark ran toward our table. “Is someone sick?”

  “I’m gonna be sick!” Derek covered his mouth and puffed out his cheeks. “BLAH. BLAH. BLECH.” He fake puked into his hands and put it in front of my face. The heat from his sweaty palm made me want to gag. It was so close, I could count the tiny spit bubbles that had landed on his hand.

  The lunchroom shrunk. There were so many faces laughing and gawking and staring. This must have been the nightmare dentists have, sitting in a room, staring at gaping mouths full of half-eaten food and bits stuck between back teeth.

  Heat rose up my body and made the backs of my knees sticky.

  “That’s enough,” Mrs. Clark said, resting her hand on my shoulder. “Everyone back to your seats.”

  Sara arrived next to Lacy with a tray as the other kids were slowly going back toward their tables, still giggling and whispering and pointing. A few put their fingers in a ’Stache Attack sign.

  “It’s wonderful that Karma brings such delicious food for lunch.” Mrs. Clark leaned down and smiled right at me.

  If I could have just stared at her warm, brown eyes and her smile and ignored the laughing and jeering all around me, then I would have smiled too. But she probably only smiled because she didn’t have to clean up barf, and no matter how nice she was being, it wasn’t enough to block out the noise.

  She patted my shoulder before walking away.

  “Oh, that’s so delicious!” Tom said in an exaggerated girly voice, dabbing the sides of his mouth with an invisible napkin. “If you’re the bearded lady!”

  I didn’t bother to lift my eyes to figure out who laughed or who didn’t. Lacy would probably tell Sara everything that had just happened. I couldn’t believe Sara had chosen Lacy over me in homeroom and now in the lunchroom. Now would have been a good time for Sara to stick up for me. But she still said nothing.

  Even though I’d only had a bite, I closed the tiffin and waited for the bell. A few minutes later everyone started to empty their trays and throw away their garbage.

  Lacy walked toward the trash cans, scrunching up her brown paper lunch bag. “What’s this?” she asked, gesturing at the table strewn with my tiffin, David’s random plastic containers, and Ginny’s insulated lunch box. “The lunch box group? Starting a new club, Kar?” She tossed her bag into the bin.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but it just stayed open like that. Completely empty—exactly how I felt. I felt open, exposed, and without all the things that had once filled me. Like the deer Sara’s dad had once shot and cut open right down the center to hang from a tree in her backyard. That’s how I felt right then. Gutted.

  Ginny cleared her throat next to me. It was the first noise she’d made since I’d sat next to her. “It’s green to reuse, and don’t you know that green is in?” She zipped her lunch bag closed with a flourish.

  I sat up straight and stared at Ginny with awe that she could think of anything to say.

  Lacy must have been more shocked than me, because she stood still, her mouth squeezed into a pucker, looking a few sparkles short of a tube of glitter glue. She grabbed Kate’s arm and stomped off toward the bathroom.

  “Thanks,” I said, still staring at Ginny in awe.

  “For what?” she asked. “I care about saving the earth, not saving you. Come on, David.”

  Her words stung worse than Lacy’s or Tom’s insults. I guess because I knew Ginny was right. Lacy and Tom were mean, but Ginny, well, she had no reason to care about me or to defend me. I’d never given her much thought before today. I’d even referred to her as “Guinea Pig” in my head. Now here I was, sitting next to her and expecting her to stand up for me.

  My brain was a kaleidoscope of thoughts—little shapes bumping around and knocking into other shapes, making a big mess. Only, instead of being beautiful from every angle, it was confusing. “ ’Stache Attack” had caught on. My tiffin lunch had just about caused a riot. I had no idea if Sara was even my friend anymore. I had no idea if I had any friends, since not even Ginny wanted anything to do with me.

  In order to survive middle school, I had to do something. And now I had more than just a mustache to worry about.

  Chapter Fourteen

  An embarrassment-burn stung my face as I put my tiffin back into the storage closet. I had a few minutes before the next bell, and I needed each second. Everything at lunch had happened in such a blur. As I thought about it, I felt like a marshmallow left in the microwave about five seconds too long. Tears formed behind my eyes, and my mind replayed the scene over and over.

  Derek’s spit-sprayed hand in my face and the gawking cackles of the rest of the lunchroom played on the backs of my eyelids whenever I closed my eyes. No matter how much I willed it to go away or how many times I tried to calm myself by repeating Satnam Waheguru, the sting stayed.

  There was a rustle in the classroom, so I took a deep breath and came out of the storage closet. I didn’t want anyone to think I’d stood in there crying.

  “Oh. Hey, Karma.” Sara stood by her desk with a binder in her arms. “I forgot this under my desk earlier. I can’t seem to do anything right today. Somebody should write a first-day manual, huh? I had no idea the lunch line would take so long. I had like five minutes to eat, and by then everyone was going crazy and the food was cold. I should have packed like you did.”

  I forced out a laugh, afraid I’d throw myself at her in a hug and cry to her if I didn’t.

  Sara opened her binder. “Hey, and I almost forgot to give this to you.” She pulled out a copy of Teen Bop. “Here’s that article about a natural scrub for facial hair.”

  My skin tingled with embarrassment even though we were the only ones around.

  “Um. Thanks.”

  We had walked quietly to our lockers before I asked her what had been growing inside me for days, growing so big, it pushed out and I couldn’t stop it any longer. “So, is Lacy your new best friend?”

  Sara stood in front of her locker. “She’s not my best friend. I’ve only known her a couple of days. You’d like her if you got to know her.”

  “Like her? I don’t even understand why you like her.”

  Sara stopped spinning her lock. “Look, I know she’s not exactly super nice, but she’s just trying to make friends. It’s normal. There was an article about it a couple of pages after the scrub article. New girls feel the need to make others notice them, and being opinionated is just one of those ways. Don’t take it so personally.”

  “But it is personal. She’s not going around ruining anyone else’s life.”

  “Jeesh, Karma. Why do you always have to be so dramatic? She’s not ruining your life.”

  “She started ’Stache Attack.”

  “No. Derek and Tom started it.”

  That was true.
Instead of arguing I ran my thumbnail along the gap of my locker door.

  Sara slammed her locker and turned to me “Lacy is in our class, she lives across the street from me, she’s new—I mean, what do you want me to do? Ignore her?”

  “No, I just wish you weren’t so BFF with her, that’s all.”

  “You and I’ve been friends forever. It’s always just the two of us. It doesn’t hurt to have more friends.”

  I shrugged.

  Sara sighed. “This isn’t the third grade anymore, Karma.”

  She was right, of course, but I sure wished that all I had to worry about was finishing my math work first so I could get a turn sitting in the reading beanbag at the back of our third-grade classroom.

  Right now Sara look like old Sara, with her fingernail polish already chipped and picked at, because that’s what she does when she’s nervous. But under all the things I knew so well about her, a part of her I’d never known existed had emerged. Like lifting up a rock and finding it squirming with an entire miniature world. She wasn’t the old Sara who had once kicked a boy in the shins with her cowgirl boots when he kept pulling my braids. She’d turned into the new Sara who chose to sit with Lacy in homeroom and ignore that ’Stache Attack was happening.

  “Fine,” I said. “You want to be friends with her? Be friends with her, but don’t expect me to be friends with either of you.”

  “That’s really mature. Maybe you should read Zendaya’s guest post on friendship. Page thirty-six.”

  Sara stomped off toward class, leaving me alone in the hallway.

  This wasn’t one of those arguments that would blow over and be forgotten in a couple of days. Lacy had brought along a Californian-style seismic shift and stuck it right smack-dab in between Sara and me.

  • • •

  I stood at my desk, stacking and restacking my books, trying to look busy. I didn’t want Sara to think I missed talking to her.

  The bus bell rang, and the classroom emptied. The tide of bodies in the hallway swept all the craziness out the door and onto the buses. For the first time in the entire school day, mostly quiet surrounded me. No teacher talking or giving instructions, no one sharpening a pencil or clicking a pen or tapping on their desk; yet my ears still buzzed with the things that had happened.