“Everyone notices it, Mom. Even Daddy.”
“Oh, honey. I know it’s uncomfortable, and unfortunately, people will notice. They always will. Sometimes they’ll make fun of you, sometimes they’ll say mean things, but you do know that even if you shave it or wax it, you are still Karma Khullar. People notice what’s on the outside before they try to find what’s on the inside. That can hurt, or you can learn from this. Everyone has a mustache. Maybe not on their face, but everyone has something they try to hide or are embarrassed about.”
“So I shouldn’t try to get rid of it?”
“Well, that’s up to you. Do you want to know what I think?”
I nodded. I wanted to know it was okay to not want a mustache.
“Girls shave their armpits and their legs. But if you want to get rid of the hair on your upper lip, I’ll take you to get products meant for your face. There is nothing wrong with not wanting the hair. However”—she stopped and put her hand under my chin—“there is something wrong with making fun of others. Do you want me to call the school?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“Come on, then.” Mom stood up and held out her hand. I let her lead me to my bed and tuck me in burrito-style just the way I liked.
She left my bedroom door open just enough and I waited until she clicked the bathroom light off before I closed my eyes. Even though I hadn’t had a divine intervention at the temple, I knew the answer to my questions—and it wasn’t nothing, as Dr. Singh had said. He might believe that hope in hopelessness made sense, but that was because men were supposed to walk around with hair on their faces.
Mom was right, I could shave, but it didn’t really change anything. ’Stache Attack already existed out there in the wide-open world of Holly Creek Middle School. If I really wanted to change things with Ginny or Sara or Lacy, I had to turn “nothing” into “something.”
Just as I felt myself nodding off to sleep, the idea of how to turn everything around came to me. Maybe a karma curse did exist, but Dr. Singh had said I couldn’t do anything about it.
I’d show him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The smell of coffee and buttery pancakes filled the air when I woke up the next morning. I inhaled deeply, relieved that Mom would be home to help cool the embarrassment that would plague me every time I had to avoid Daddy’s eyes. I grabbed the note I’d scribbled last night and reread it to make sure it still sounded like a good idea.
It did.
“Morning, darling,” Mom said as I shuffled into the kitchen. “The boys are busy in the study and don’t want to be disturbed all day.”
The closed door to the study was a relief. I could delay the embarrassment for that much longer.
“I thought it’d be a good idea to do some shopping today. Just the two of us,” Mom said, sliding a stack of steamy pancakes across the counter to me.
“Actually, I have a couple of things I need to get while we’re out,” I said, trying to get a grasp on my plan.
“Good. We’ll stop at the pharmacy too if you want.”
A warmness radiated from my neck to behind my ears at the mention of the pharmacy. “Yeah, okay.”
• • •
Shopping was tiring business even when it was with Mom and for things that were actually nice and what I wanted. I chose a dark blue corduroy skirt and a pair of tights. The good thing about the weather getting cooler was, I would be able to cover most of the hair on my body. As for my mustache, it was gone for now, but when I touched above my lip, my fingers ran over little pricks where the hair wanted to grow back.
After lunch we stopped at a pharmacy near my favorite used-book store. It was one of those big pharmacies that had everything from phones to a refrigerated section. I was glad Mom chose that pharmacy, because it was a good twenty minutes from our house and I wasn’t likely to run into someone I knew. I said several silent thank-yous when she insisted to the man in the store that we didn’t need any help.
Mom pulled a few things off the shelf. “This is a cream bleach specifically for your face. We should start with this. It’ll lighten your hair but won’t irritate your skin the same way shaving can.” Then she grabbed a few razors that had a sketch of a woman using it on her cheeks and eyebrows.
Oh no. I didn’t know you could get hair on your cheeks, too.
Mom must have picked up on the panic in my eyes, because she gave my arm a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry. We’ll practice using it together.”
She added a family-size bag of strawberry Twizzlers to our things. “We’ll hide them in my bag as we read next door.” She winked.
“I need to grab a few things over by school supplies,” I said.
“Take your time. I’m just going to browse.”
Relieved that I could grab what I needed without having to explain to Mom what exactly I had planned, I headed over to the school supplies.
Holding several pieces of different-colored poster board, a box of markers, and a package of rainbow-colored glitter glue in my arms filled me with a nervous excitement, making me want to rush home and get started on my plan right away.
• • •
I pretended to read my new book on the ride home. Things had been so strained at home before I’d told Mom about my mustache, and I didn’t want to break the nice pillowy quiet that surrounded us now. I felt comfortable and wanted to settle into it.
When we walked through the door, folksy guitar music blared from Daddy’s study. I put my bags on the dining table and checked the laundry baskets out of habit. They were empty. Daddy really had started to get the hang of this staying-home thing.
“Mary! Karmajeet! Come in here,” Daddy called.
I poked my head into the study. “Hanji?”
Not a sight I was used to seeing—Daddy and Kiran working together on the computer. Daddy hardly let anyone sit in his chair, much less tell him how to do something.
“Look what we’ve created!” Daddy turned his computer so I could take in the whole monitor.
A mad-scientist-looking cartoon wearing a turban was waving a wand at the top of a page that said Your Science Guru.
“No, no, no,” Daddy said. “I want these letters to be shaded in the back, and it should be all capitals. ‘YOUR SCIENCE GURU,’ all caps,” Daddy said.
Kiran’s fingers started to dart across the keyboard. “Do you see how I have to type this and then—”
“That’s what I did,” Daddy snapped.
“No. Actually, your code—”
“Doesn’t matter.” Daddy stopped and watched Kiran type for a moment. “You really do have a knack for this computer stuff, don’t you?”
Kiran shrugged, but I knew it meant so much more than Kiran let on.
“The cartoon and title were Kiran’s ideas. It’s great, huh?” Daddy asked.
“Yeah. It’s good,” I said.
“Why are you yelling?” Mom asked, walking into the study behind us. “What is playing?” Mom asked.
“Did you know your son could play the guitar like that?” Daddy asked.
“That’s you?” I asked Kiran.
“Well, it’s a couple of us from band at school. We got permission to use some recording equipment.”
“I’m impressed,” Mom said.
“Yeah, me too,” I said. Everyone had a smile on their face—even if Kiran’s was more of a smirk.
“Should we add my guitar music to the page?” Kiran asked.
“How about Bollywood tunes?” Daddy asked.
“No way!” Kiran and I said together.
“Hey, this is my page,” Daddy said.
“Half your page,” Kiran said. “Besides, if you don’t understand how to write the program, you can’t choose the music.” Kiran clicked away at a new code.
“Well, should I get some pasta started?” Mom asked.
“Pasta?” Daddy said, faking a gag. “There’s chana masala in the fridge. I’ll start some rice.” He turned to Kiran. “And I insi
st that you put in the Bollywood music.”
Dr. Singh had said that the hand of God drives everything. I pictured Babaji with massive puppeteer hands, moving everyone in the world. Dr. Singh’s words scrolled across my mind like the highlights at the bottom of the news channel.
One hand drives everything. There are no answers. What can we do? Nothing.
I didn’t agree with that. We could do something. Daddy had opened his door and let Kiran in. That was something and it was a start. I couldn’t wait to get started on my something.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Marker smudges and glitter stained the sides of my hands, but I’d finished all the posters. Once I’d started decorating, more and more ideas had come to me. I’d written them down before I’d gotten too scared. It felt bold to write things with marker and not be able to erase it.
Before bed Mom mixed some powder and cream together from the box of cream bleach we’d bought at the pharmacy. I tried to hold my breath as she spread it above my lip with a tiny spatula thing that came inside the box. The cream was cold on my skin but burned and tingled my nose worse than Daddy slicing onions. It bubbled and popped against my skin, but nothing moved or changed as I watched it in the mirror for the entire fifteen minutes.
After Mom wiped it off with a warm washcloth, my skin was too red to tell if it’d done much good. I blew on it, trying to get the tingle off my skin and out of my nose.
“All right, it’s past your bedtime,” Mom said. She followed me into my room and sat on my bed next to me.
I turned off the lamp and rolled toward Mom.
“Making those posters to help your friend’s after-school group shows that you’re really becoming a wonderful young lady,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. I hated that phrase “young lady,” but I let myself smile because it was dark in my room, too dark for my expression to be visible. The darkness also made me feel like I could say anything.
“Everything has been so different this year.”
“Change isn’t always a bad thing, you know,” Mom whispered into my ear as she gave my ponytail one final brush with her fingers.
I wanted to believe that things did change for the better, that they would finally work out for me.
• • •
Daddy pushed a perfectly golden paratha across the counter to me. I watched as he chopped and sliced the vegetables on the cutting board. He’d actually gotten really good with the knife. The slices of onion were thin and even, not chunky the way they’d been a few weeks ago.
Mom rushed into the kitchen and gave Daddy and me a quick kiss. She grabbed the coffee that Daddy had already poured into a thermos for her.
Maybe Mom was right, all this change wasn’t such a bad thing. I mean, Mom came home tired, but I knew she enjoyed working at the university, doing what she loved, and Daddy had never intended to be home, but if his knife skills were proof, it might actually be growing on him.
Daddy handed me a brown bag as I finished my paratha.
Confused, I opened it. Inside was a sandwich, applesauce, carrot sticks, and two cookies. “What’s this?” I asked.
“Your lunch,” Daddy said, turning back to the onions he’d dumped into the pan.
“Then what are you making?” I couldn’t believe it. Now that he was giving me a normal lunch, all I wanted was my tiffin.
“Saag.”
“Will it be done before school?” I asked.
“Should be. Why?”
“I’d rather take that than this bland junk,” I said, holding up the brown paper bag.
Daddy put down the wooden spoon and turned to me. A laugh rolled out of his mouth and smoothed the deep lines across his face.
Without any thought I rushed toward him and hugged him around his middle. I felt like a little kid hugging him, but I also felt bigger, or maybe just older.
• • •
Daddy and Kiran helped me roll up the posters, and we drove to school together. Rain poured down outside. I didn’t know if rain was a bad omen, so I told myself it was a good one because it had gotten me a ride to school. Plus, it was nice to think of the rain rushing the bad summer down the drains, making way for the good stuff that would happen. I clutched my tiffin and the plastic bag with the posters and sticky tack so I could put them up in the hallway.
The parking lot was only half full because I’d arrived a half hour before the buses. Daddy dropped me by the pillar Sara and I chose on orientation day to be our meeting spot. Maybe it was another bad omen, or maybe it was just a sign that things change but really they stay the same. That pillar was still there. It would still be there when I left Holly Creek Middle in a couple of years. Only Sara and I had changed.
I clung to Mom’s words that change was a good thing and walked toward the sixth-grade wing to complete my plan.
Ms. Hillary wasn’t in the classroom, so I peeked into Mr. McKanna’s room.
“Morning, Karma. What brings you to school so early?” he asked.
“Um. Mr. McKanna. I wanted to know if it was okay to put up some posters for Ginny’s recycling club.”
“Of course. You need any help?” he asked.
“Thanks, I’ve got it.” I wasn’t sure I was ready for anyone’s reaction just yet. I’d rather wait for the only reaction I cared about—Ginny’s.
• • •
The bus kids started to pour in just as I shoved the last of my things into my locker. I clenched my jaw and fought the urge to run up and down the halls ripping down every poster I’d put up. I stared hard into my locker, waiting for anyone to notice them. So far the noises sounded normal.
Clutching my tiffin and books, I turned and headed to the classroom.
Then came the first reaction. Tom yelled, “The ’Stache-a-nator strikes back!”
“Ha! That’s totally hilarious,” Derek chimed in.
I could never tell if they were making fun of me or complimenting me. Today and from now on I chose to take it as a compliment, and I didn’t bother to turn around. I walked into the classroom with my head high and full of hope.
I put my books under my desk and turned to find Ginny rushing into the classroom. Her hair was spritzed with raindrops, and her skin still radiated cold from the outside.
“Bold, Karma. That was bold.” She walked up to me and hugged me tight. I laughed and hugged her with my free arm, the other still clutching my tiffin.
Then she pulled back. “ ‘Don’t Be ’Stache, Recycle Your Trash!’ That’s so brilliant.” She shook her head, still grinning. “Everyone’s talking about it.”
“Well, I have to give Tom and Derek credit for coming up with the whole ’Stache thing.”
Ginny shoved my arm. “Whatever. Everyone is going to want to recycle now. We can put mustaches on the recycle bins.”
“Listen, Ginny. About Lacy. I never had plans with her. Well, I did, but it wasn’t like that. I’ve been helping her in math, but she didn’t want anyone to know.” It sounded so stupid now that I said it.
“I didn’t think you’d actually be friends with her, but I saw her leave with you that day when I was in the art room. I don’t know. I guess I just thought after I’d told you about Derek and stuff, maybe you didn’t really want to be friends.”
I shook my head. “I still want to be friends.”
“Duh,” Ginny said with a laugh. “Anyone who makes posters like that is a real friend.”
The early bell rang, and Ginny shoved her stuff under her desk.
“Where’s Ms. Hillary?” I asked, noticing she wasn’t hovering like normal.
Ginny shrugged. “Probably putting the last-minute touches on another superfun ‘enriching’ lesson.”
We laughed, and Ginny walked with me to the storage closet. I almost dropped my tiffin when I saw what was on the floor inside.
“Oh no.” I fell to my knees, putting the tiffin on the ground next to me.
Ginny gasped. “Is that . . .”
I nodded. Scooter lay on the floor
of the storage closet with a chewed-up yellow surfboard next to him like he’d had a major wipeout. His chest wasn’t moving, and the closet kind of smelled funny, like gym socks and mildew. He was dead.
There was a scream from behind us. Emma squealed, “Rat!” and the class erupted in chaos.
“Hey, isn’t that from Lacy’s cake?” Ginny said, pointing at the doll-size surfboard.
I cupped Scooter into my hands and wiped off the gnawed yellow plastic crumbs that were on his fur. It seemed the right thing to do even if it grossed me out. I mean, bubonic plague and all.
“Girls!” Ms. Hillary gasped as she clomped into the room, David’s familiar shuffle close behind her. “The bell will— Oh my goodness.”
“Scooter!” David’s screech was buried under the commotion in the classroom.
“Calm down! Calm down!” Ms. Hillary yelled over all the noise.
David pushed my shoulder back to get at Scooter.
He scooped Scooter into his hands and held him to his nose.
“Is this Scooter?” Ms. Hillary asked.
Ginny and I turned to Ms. Hillary. She knew about Scooter?
“Oh, David.” Ms. Hillary rushed to his side and patted his shoulder. “Karma, can you find an empty box on one of the shelves, please?”
Ginny and I both stood up and rummaged the shelves until we found two half-full boxes of paper and put all the paper into one box. We handed the empty box to Ms. Hillary. She took Scooter from David’s hands and placed him gently in the box.
I couldn’t believe how gentle Ms. Hillary was with Scooter. It was a whole new side of her.
The rest of the class had climbed off their chairs and were huddled around the storage closet.
“Well, class,” Ms. Hillary said, still sitting on the floor next to David as he clutched the box to his chest, “I’m afraid there has been a grave injustice done.”
Everyone nodded. I thought she was talking about the death of an innocent gerbil, but she turned her eyes toward me.
“Karma, it seems that Scooter escaped on Friday, and the entire mess with Lacy’s cake can be explained by his disappearance.”
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