Book Uncle and Me Read online

  This is how they come out on the paper:

  The king of doves and all his subjects are caught in a net. Who will get them out? Quick, make a plan! Call everyone in the city. Don’t sit there in your office. Hold an election. Help!

  Mrs. Rao walks between the desks again and now she is looking over our shoulders and she is reading, reading.

  “That’s … very interesting,” says Mrs. Rao when she gets to me. “What does it mean?”

  How did I know she would ask me that? I have no idea. The words just came out that way.

  7

  —

  Posters

  I THINK ABOUT Mrs. Rao’s words all day. Plan. Election. City. Office. And I think about my words, too, the words in my letter. I am still thinking about them on the way home from school.

  Looking out the bus window, I see something. I see the movie poster that Reeni and Anil tried to show me before, when I was too busy reading my book.

  Only it is not a movie poster.

  “That’s an election poster,” I say.

  “It is?” says Reeni. “You’re right. It looks like it. But that’s Karate Samuel. What’s a movie star like him doing on an election poster?”

  “Movie stars run in elections all the time,” I say. “Don’t you know anything?”

  Reeni stares at me. Suddenly I hear the words I have just spoken as if they are echoing all around us in the bus.

  Don’t you know anything? Anything? Anything … thing … thing?

  Oh, those words! I didn’t mean to say them. Well, maybe I did mean to say them, but not that way. I didn’t mean them to be mean. They flew out of my mouth on careless wings and I wish-wish-wish that I could take them back.

  But it’s too late. Reeni has heard them already.

  She says, “Fine. You know everything, don’t you, Miss Yasmingenius?”

  Anil rolls his eyes and makes little punching gestures at me. I wish he had really punched me. Before I said those words. But what can I do now? It’s too late.

  Umma says sometimes it’s good to think twice before you speak. Sometimes I forget to think even once.

  It never used to matter with Reeni. I could say anything to Reeni and it would be all right.

  Suddenly it matters, and I don’t know what has changed.

  The traffic is so busy now that the bus can only go very, very slowly. The driver is not happy this afternoon. He does not sing. Instead he honks his horn. He yells at cars, scooters, autorickshaws, other buses and even a man driving a herd of goats across the road. The goats don’t know about traffic lights, so the bus has to wait until they all cross.

  While we wait I notice something that I could have pointed out to Reeni, if she was still speaking to me, that is.

  People are slapping posters on walls and lampposts. They are slapping posters on everything they can find. I’m sure if I was standing still, reading by the side of the road, they would slap a poster on me.

  That is a lot of people all wanting to be mayor. Every poster has a logo for all the different parties the candidates belong to — a hand, a wheel, a tree, a star, a hammer and sickle, a camel and more.

  This is going to be a crazy busy election.

  “The star! That’s Karate Samuel’s party,” Anil says.

  “Of course,” says Reeni. “He is a star.”

  She’s talking to Anil, I see, but not to me. There is a row of posters with the picture of the present mayor, S. L. Yogaraja, telling everyone to reelect him. Mayor S.L.Y. Some people say his initials suit him fine.

  Other candidates have posters in clumps here and there, urging us to vote for them. Well, not us. Not kids. I have never understood why they don’t let kids vote. This is another thing I would like to discuss with my friends, but I can’t exactly talk to them about anything right now.

  Karate Samuel has lots and lots of posters. He is leaping and punching and kicking all over his posters. His posters scream in giant letters: BEST CANDIDATE! A-ONE HERO!

  Strings of Karate Samuel’s posters hang between the trees on both sides of the road, like flapping lines of washing. They get smaller and smaller as our bus goes faster.

  It would be exciting, if only Reeni was excited along with me.

  But Reeni is wearing a frown on her face.

  I swallow my words. I say nothing.

  8

  —

  Hello, Everyone

  I RETURN THE dove book to Book Uncle.

  “Did you like it?” he asks.

  “It was … interesting,” I say. “But why was it so perfect for me?”

  I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I can’t help myself. I am puzzled and it just comes bursting out that way.

  “Ah,” he says. “That is a very good question.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “But what is the answer?”

  “Sometimes you have to let the perfect book sit in your mind for a while before it begins to mean something.” He hands me two more books. “One for now, one for later.”

  When I thank him, he smiles and nods at me, his Number One Patron.

  That afternoon my mother gets ready to go shopping. She has cleaned the house until she is satisfied that it is spotless and ready for Rafiq Uncle’s visit. Now we need to buy vegetables and fruits, so he will not think for a minute that we don’t eat properly. Our usual bunch of bananas and enough veggies for a quick curry will not do.

  Umma picks up her purse and shopping bags.

  “Come on, Yasmin,” she says. “Let’s go.”

  As the door of our flat clicks shut behind us, the one across the hall flies open. That’s Reeni’s flat, 3B. Out comes Shoba Aunty, Reeni’s mother. We say hello to her but she barely nods back. She seems to be in a big hurry. She must be on her way to the TV station to work the evening shift.

  On the way downstairs we say hello to Chinna Abdul Sahib of 2B who has popped out to look in his mailbox. He nods back, which is more than he usually does.

  Chinna Abdul Sahib is a drummer. He plays a big round ghatam made of clay. He is in big demand to play that clay pot-drum at concerts and weddings. Wapa says it takes a lot of strength to play that kind of drum. I wonder if that is why Chinna Abdul Sahib wastes no energy talking.

  We say hello to the newly married couple in 1B. They are standing outside their door, admiring the new doorbell that the electrician has just fixed. They say hello together. Then they look at each other as if they have never seen such a beautiful sight before.

  We say hello to the electrician.

  We say hello to the flower seller who is just arriving, and to the istri lady in her little booth downstairs. She’s filling her big heavy iron with hot coals so she can press and fold the clothes of all her customers in Horizon Apartment and the neighboring flats.

  “Can I put some money in Book Uncle’s tin?” I ask.

  “Hurry,” says Umma.

  I run over to Book Uncle. My coins clink in his tin.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  We cross the road.

  “You’re very quiet,” Umma says.

  “Mmm,” I say.

  “Is something wrong?” she asks.

  I mumble, “No. Not really.” But my voice sounds guilty, as if it’s trying to escape from telling a total lie because maybe something is not wrong, exactly, but it’s not exactly right, either. How can everything be right when my best friend Reeni has gone all huffy and quiet and it’s all my fault?

  “How are you?” says the fruit man, when we get to his stand with rows of fruit all neatly stacked. “I have nice bananas and guavas for you.”

  Umma picks her fruit — guavas that are green on top but they will be pink inside when we cut them open, and tiny bananas from the hills. The man puts them all in a bag and hands the bag to Umma. The guavas settle to the bottom, with the bunch
es of little bananas on top. They all jiggle into place, just the way a perfect book settles in my mind.

  Something roars behind me.

  “Yasmin, watch out!” says Umma.

  Just in time, I leap out of the way.

  9

  —

  The Important Things

  THE BIG BLUE van rattles past. Its horn shrieks.

  Another second and I would have been mango pulp. Guava jelly.

  “Yasmin,” Umma scolds, “don’t give me a heart attack! Always with your head in the clouds, always wrapped up in your own thoughts. What will I do with you?”

  The fruit man’s wife clucks at me from her veggie stand next to his. She waves her hand to let me know that I should step off the road and onto the broken pavement, which I do.

  I am not always wrapped up in my own thoughts, I want to say. But I don’t say it, because Umma is the one wrapped up now in worry. She is wearing a big blanket of worry that has to do with Rafiq Uncle and how his visits always give Wapa a headache.

  That roar again. The van is back!

  “Be careful,” warns the fruit man. “Nothing better to do — these political heroes of ours and their election campaign people. They don’t care about election issues. They think life is nothing but one big TV screen.”

  The van pulls up, slows down. It has two big posters like a tent on its roof. Karate Samuel is kicking and punching all over those posters as if he is doing his karate demo to the very loud music from the van’s speakers.

  Over the music, the driver shouts, “Want a tip-top mayor? Vote for Karate Samuel!”

  “What’ll he do for me?” the fruit man shouts back.

  “And me?” his wife pipes up from her vegetable stand. She picks up an onion and tosses it in one hand, as if she’s practicing. As if any minute she will throw it at Karate Samuel’s poster.

  The driver only yells as he drives off, “A-One hero! Karate Samuel for mayor!”

  “Who are you going to vote for?” I ask my mother.

  “I don’t know,” says Umma.

  “What about him?” I point after the van. It has now sped through a red light and is quickly vanishing into the traffic.

  “That cinema-kaaran?” says Umma. “Why should I vote for him?”

  “Just asking,” I say. She’s right. He is a cinema guy. But is that a problem?

  “They all want votes,” says the fruit man. “Then when they get elected, they don’t do anything.”

  That is a problem. Because grown-ups are supposed to keep their promises, aren’t they?

  We buy onions and potatoes and bitter melon from the fruit man’s wife.

  “I don’t like bitter melon,” I say.

  Umma buys it anyway. She needs to show Rafiq Uncle that she is no slouch in the kitchen and that she can make traditional dishes. She does not say this but I know. The vegetable lady fills our second bag and hands it to me. I grab it with both hands. It is heavy.

  Then we walk home.

  “Umma,” I ask as I drag the bag full of veggies up the stairs. “What is an election issue?”

  “The things that people care about,” says Umma, jiggling the key in the keyhole. She pushes the door open with her shoulder. “The candidates’ positions on things.”

  “What things?”

  “You know, important things.” She waves her hand as if the important things will appear in our flat and walk across our floor. “Things that political leaders have to manage.”

  “Does Mayor SLY manage important things?” I ask.

  She tries to be serious. “Uh … ye-e-es, I suppose he …” Then she laughs at the silly name that everyone calls the mayor, because really, it fits him so well. “I don’t know, Minu. I don’t trust him, either.”

  10

  —

  The Permit

  I MANAGE TO finish one of the two books that Book Uncle gave me. It is a mystery — the kind of book you can read in one big gulp and it does not feel like work. Not like that dove book. Skinny as that one was, its story is still flapping around in my mind.

  The second Book Uncle book is a karate book. I’ll read it later and then maybe I’ll pass it on to Anil.

  In the morning, before I catch the bus to school, I decide to return the mystery book. That way I can get a new one.

  I’m thinking I’d like to give a book to Reeni, too, but she’s not interested in karate. Maybe Book Uncle can find me a book Reeni would like. Something about animals or movies. Reeni is crazy about animals, the bigger the better. She’s only a little less crazy about movies.

  Oh, she is a crazy girl, my friend Reeni, and I want her back. I want her not to be angry with me anymore.

  I’m busy tossing all these thoughts around in my mind, but then I get to the corner. The istri lady is yelling at her son. The buses are rattling down the road. It seems like a normal morning. But is it?

  Because what I see stops me cold.

  Book Uncle’s place looks different. Book Uncle looks different.

  “Good morning, Yasmin-ma,” he says. He’s not smiling.

  The books are still in their boxes. He hasn’t even set them out yet, the way he does each morning.

  What’s wrong?

  Book Uncle is just standing there with a pink paper in his hand. He puts the paper in his pocket. He takes it out again, then puts it back once more. He shuffles his feet.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask. He is still not smiling. It jumbles me up.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” he says.

  I stare at him. What does he mean?

  “They’re telling me,” he says, “that if I want to run my lending library here, I must get a permit.”

  A permit?

  “Can’t you get one?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “It costs too much. I can’t afford it.”

  Then he says, “You want to give me back that book?”

  He sounds so sad that I nearly burst into tears.

  “I need to …” I hand it back to him.

  I was going to say, I need to get another book. But before I can finish, Book Uncle takes the book from my hand. He puts it in a box. He picks up the box. He carries it over the broken pavement and stacks it on top of other boxes on his wooden cart. He does not even look at me.

  He rolls the cart up the road — gada-gadaa, goodoo-goodoo. He does not look back.

  Over the wall that circles Horizon Apartment Flats, I meet the eyes of the istri lady. She moves her iron up and down her board. She shakes her head.

  “What happened?” I wail.

  “Someone wrote a letter to Mayor S. L. Yogaraja,” says the istri lady. “It was a complaint. About our Book-ayya. Who would do a thing like that?”

  The school bus is grinding its way towards my stop. I’d better go.

  I don’t want to get on that bus. I want to chase after Book Uncle. I want to say, “Wait! There must be some mistake!”

  Instead I have to run to the bus stop.

  There is so much I want to know. What was in that pink paper? Who would be so mean to Book Uncle? Why would anyone write a letter complaining about him? And where are all his patrons who come and go, giving and taking books, day after day after day?

  Can’t anyone help him?

  I want to know all this, and there is no book that can tell me. What’s more, for the first time in four hundred and two mornings, I don’t have a new book to read.

  11

  —

  Shocked

  “WOULD YOU believe someone wrote a letter complaining about Book Uncle?” I say to Reeni on the bus.

  She just stares at me with big round eyes. Then she looks away.

  I try making jokes.

  I try showing her the inside of my book bag where the lining was torn and I didn’t know it, b
ut when I followed a jingling noise, I found a bunch of change.

  Nothing.

  She won’t talk to me in school, not even at our shared desk, not in maths or science, Tamil or Hindi or English. Just won’t talk.

  When we get to school, Anil tries to juggle two pieces of chalk. He tries to make Reeni laugh, but she won’t, won’t, won’t.

  Mrs. Rao says, “Anil, sit down, or you’ll have to go have a little chat with Indira Ma’am in the office.”

  All of which means yes, of course I said some things I shouldn’t have. But it’s not just me, is it? Anil was just trying to make things better. Can’t Reeni see that?

  What’s wrong? I want to help but how can I do anything if she won’t unbutton her lip and say one word?

  When I’m ready to open up my tiffin box under the banyan tree at lunch break, I see Reeni sitting by herself. I can’t stand it anymore.

  “Would you like some dried mango?” I ask.

  I am really trying to say, Reeni, please talk to me because you’re my friend, and I have to tell you all about Book Uncle and how can I do that if you won’t talk to me? Aren’t you my friend?

  So I am shocked, completely shocked, when instead of saying, Thank you, I’d like some dried mango, or even, Go away. I don’t want your silly dried mango, she bursts into tears.

  12

  —

  Trapped by Words

  I AM MORE than shocked, I am flabbergasted, which means stunned, staggered, astonished.

  When Reeni is done crying and her eyes and nose have turned all red from it, she tells me.

  “My daddy’s lost his job so he’s going to stay home now and Mummy’s working extra hours at the TV station.”

  “Lost his job?”

  “That’s what I just said,” Reeni says.

  I try to make sense of it. Arvind Uncle has lost his job? I know what that means, of course, and it is not good. It is an odd way to say it, I think. It sounds as if you just misplaced the job. Woke up one morning not remembering where you left it or something.

  When you lose a job, they ask you to leave and not come back. Like Book Uncle and his lending library.