The Grand Plan To Fix Everything Read online

  After dinner Dini and Maddie paint their toenails because that always makes them feel better. Every other nail, green and silver, Dolly’s colors. Then they sit on the couch wiggling their toes dry and run through the MJTJ special features all over again.

  “Haven’t you seen this one already?” Mom asks.

  “Please,” Dini begs. “Mom, just one more time.”

  Mom gives in. She leaves them alone.

  First they run through the scenes, one by one by one. Then they listen to the songs, comparing them with the list in Dini’s stripy green notebook, where she has written down each Hindi title and its meaning in English.

  Really, Dolly is all the things that Dini admires in a person, all the things that Dini absolutely means to be at some time in the future when her life becomes perfect. Which it is not right now, most definitely.

  “I wish this Swapnagiri place was closer,” says Dini. She means closer to here, in Maryland. Or maybe closer to Bombay. She’s not sure what she means.

  “I know,” says Maddie. Maddie gets it. No one else does.

  Dini flips a moody page. Look at all the movie ideas she has written down in her stripy notebook. Who is she going to share them with if Maddie’s not there?

  They do not hum along with the songs or dhoom-dhoom the drumbeats because any minute Mom could change her mind and declare that it is way too late for them to be up watching Dolly. Instead, they fast-forward through scenes where she runs over bridges and down city streets, rounds up bad guys and locks them up. Watching these scenes should make Maddie happy, but they don’t. Oh, this move is going to ruin everything!

  Then Dini clicks the DVD to a stop. “Wait a minute,” she says. “Something’s wrong.”

  “What?” Maddie says. “What are you talking about?”

  Dini goes to the menu with the list of songs. She taps the open pages of her notebook. Dini’s Hindi is not great, but she has made Consultant Dad do his job. “Facing the music,” he calls it. Dini has made him tell her what the songs mean from title through lyrics, every single one.

  Now those meanings are whirling about in her mind. What is each song really about? What is it saying? And she knows. Something is wrong.

  Dini is a big believer in talking. Talking helps you to solve problems whenever you can. It’s what filmi people call a “plot fix.” She says, “You know how in every movie she’s ever done there are happy songs and sad songs?”

  “Right,” Maddie says. “So?”

  “This new movie,” says Dini, “has no happy songs.”

  “Huh?”

  “Uh-huh. Look at this.”

  She reads off all the English translations of the song titles to Maddie: “If I Call You, Will You Come?” “No One Knows Where My House Is,” “Only Clear Skies Will Cure a Broken Heart,” and on and on.

  “See?” she says. “Not a single happy one. No running in the forest in the rain. No scattering flowers. Not a happy song in there.”

  Maddie slides off the couch and heel-walks to the table, keeping her toenails carefully off the rug. She picks up the Filmi Kumpnee magazine. Then she heel-walks back, falls onto the couch, and opens the magazine up between them. “Let’s see,” she says. “We never looked at this.”

  She’s right. The news of the day distracted them from this very important thing they should have done together. Dini and Maddie pore over the Filmi Kumpnee magazine, which keeps up with everything the stars do. There is the page with Dolly’s happy, smiley pictures on it. But those pictures must have been taken some time ago, because the article on the page is not a bit happy and smiley.

  From the “News ’n’ Views” column of Filmi Kumpnee: Your Magazine of the Stars:

  Devoted Dolly Singh fans, we have News ’n’ Views for you. Our own inside sources tell us that delightful Dolly is on the verge of . . .

  She is on the brink of . . .

  Oh, how it hurts us even to think of it, but the word is:

  Heartbreak.

  You are so sorry, we know.

  We are too. That is all we can reveal at this moment. But we are ever alert. You be alert also. Watch this spot for the latest additions to this stunning story.

  “Heartbreak?” says Maddie. “That’s terrible.”

  “I know!” says Dini. Then she shares this idea that has been bubbling up inside her ever since that “surreal” word cropped up. “Maddie, I’m going to write her. What do you think?”

  “Dolly?” says Maddie. “Do you even have her address?”

  A stubborn spark lights up in Dini. She says, “She’s famous. I’m just going to send my letter to Dolly Singh, Famous Movie Star, Bombay, India.”

  “Will it get there?”

  “Why not?” says Dini. “Everyone in Bombay has to know Dolly Singh.”

  Maddie considers this seriously. Then she says, in a small voice, “I wish I could come to India with you. I bet two of us could find a way to meet Dolly.”

  “Oh, Maddie,” says Dini, and she hugs her, and they both cry a little and get tissues to blow their noses. This is a thing that no one ever needs to do in the movies, but real life can require a good blowing of the nose sometimes.

  Dini says, “Maybe you can come visit us.”

  “In India?” Maddie gives her a look that says, plain as plain, Are you crazy?

  “Why not?” says Dini. A big, wide expanse of why-not opens up inside her. Perhaps this is because Dini is an optimist, and optimists are always open to such why-nots. A bit like Dolly in MJTJ. Or perhaps it is just that when you are moving (a little reluctantly, true, but still, moving) to a place whose name means “dream mountain,” your mind begins to open up in strange ways, so that anything really does seem possible.

  May 31, 2010

  Dear Dolly Singh,

  My name is Nandini Kumaran, but my friends call me Dini. I am a big fan of yours, and my friend Maddie is too. We were even going to take Bollywood dance camp together in Greenbelt, Maryland, only now we can’t because my parents are moving to India for two whole years.

  I have a VERY important QUESTION for you. I noticed that there are no happy songs in MJTJ. You always do at least one in every movie. So is that a screen appeal decision or is it something else? I just want to know that you are okay.

  We are going to be in the south, up in some mountains, in a town called Swapnagiri. If you come visit us, that would be like a dream come true for me.

  Your fan and friend,

  Dini

  Chapter Four

  Dream Mountain

  THE BLUE MOUNTAINS RISE unexpectedly out of the hot land of south India. Their misty heights are covered with forests and green bursts of tea-gardens; little towns hide among their hilly pleats and folds.

  One of those towns is called Swapnagiri.

  At first glance Swapnagiri may seem like a long name, with lots of letters all racing after each other, just the way the cars and buses race along the winding mountain roads.

  But to that open-minded person who sounds the name out, one letter at a time, it falls quite handily into place: S-w-a-p-n-a-g-i-r-i. An honest sort of name, with no surprise letters waiting to leap out and ambush the unwary. It is what it is.

  And yes, this is that very same place, far from Bombay, the center of the filmi universe. The place to which Dini and her parents are about to make their way.

  Swapnagiri. Dream Mountain.

  Sometimes names stick to places for very good reasons.

  Chapter Five

  Take Note

  THE MORNING AFTER MOM’S big announcement Dini peels an airmail stamp off the sheet of them that Dad keeps in the kitchen drawer. She sticks it on the envelope she’s addressed to Dolly. Then she sticks an extra one on, just to be sure. She and Maddie drop the letter into the mailbox on the corner before they catch the bus to school.

  “How long will it take?” Maddie asks.

  “I think about a week,” Dini says. She crosses her fingers and toes as she says it, because you never know.
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br />   At school that day the news of the Move gets around fast. Everyone seems to think that it will be a wonderful adventure. Dini tries to hang with Maddie all day because Maddie’s the only person who understands how she feels.

  Dini wants to go. To find Dolly. To find out what’s wrong with Dolly. To tell Maddie everything she finds out.

  At the same time, she wants to stay. Stay. Go. Stay. Go. It is as if she has one arm stretching toward India and Dolly, and one arm right here, and she is going to be pulled in two.

  Two years is a long time. By the end of the school day, after explaining over and over that she’s going to be living in India for two years, and duh, she will not be riding an elephant to school, Dini’s exhausted. But she’s also beginning to get just a tiny bit excited. There is that push-pull again.

  “Can I go to Maddie’s?” Dini asks as soon as she has finished dashing through her homework that afternoon.

  “Wasn’t she just here last night?” Dad asks. “And you were with her in school all day too?”

  “Yes, but can I go?”

  He looks at Mom. Mom shrugs and smiles. “Sure, why not?” Mom is making lists of things to do, things to sell, lists of airline itineraries, lists of people who may want to rent their house for a couple of years. Mom is so busy that if Dini asked for permission to ride her bike to the moon, Mom would probably shrug and smile and say, “Why not?”

  “Come back before it gets dark,” Dad says as he helps Dini get her bike out of the garage.

  “Okay.”

  Dini pedals her way down the street and heads two blocks over to Maddie’s house.

  Maddie is wiping down a big reusable magnetic sheet stuck to the fridge door in her kitchen. “My mom gave me this old calendar,” she says. “We can draw in it every day. Until. You know.”

  “Oh, Maddie,” says Dini.

  “When?” Maddie says. “Do you have a date yet?”

  “Nope,” Dini says. “Mom’s checking out airline schedules, and they’re trying to rent a house.”

  “There?”

  “Yup. And get someone to rent ours.”

  “Here,” says Maddie. It has a final sort of sound.

  “And stuff,” Dini ends lamely.

  “Okay,” says Maddie, pulling the cap off an erasable marker with a flourish. “We’ll just fill up the ones we need. Here’s today—Tuesday, June first. You want to start?”

  Dini hesitates, then accepts the green marker. She draws a star.

  “Nice,” Maddie says. She draws a rectangle with squiggles on it six, no seven, squares down.

  “What’s that?” Dini asks.

  “Silly,” Maddie says, “it’s your letter. Flying into Dolly’s hands. I gave it an extra day, just in case.”

  Dini hugs Maddie so hard that Maddie says, “Yikes. Eep. Ouch,” and they laugh together because that is how friends are.

  Chapter Six

  No PIN Code?

  CHAAP! CHAAP! CHAAP! The sorting machine in a post office in Mumbai, India (used to be called Bombay), stamps the letters. The postmaster himself supervises the emptying of bags into the machine. There are bags from Delhi. There is one from Kolkata. There are bags from Bangalore and Kochi and many other places all over India. Bags from Switzerland and Zimbabwe and Australia. And from the United States of America.

  The workers empty the bag from Delhi. They empty the bags from Kolkata and all the other cities and countries.

  The bags from the United States are big and full. The postmaster himself has to help lift them up. “Careful,” he warns. “These are not sacks of potatoes, but valuable foreign mail!”

  A letter falls from one of the United States bags. It falls onto the floor. The postmaster picks it up.

  “What? No PIN code?” barks the postmaster. “How does this foolish person think we can find this . . . let me see”—he peers through his glasses at the address—“this Dolly Singh. How can we find her without a PIN code?”

  The post office workers joke and laugh, and say mean things about the silly person from America who didn’t know about the number codes that every proper address should have. Not one of them dares to point out that the postmaster is just plain ignorant about the fillums. In fact, it is quite remarkable that he has never heard of Dolly Singh, but that could be because he is a very senior postmaster and therefore not interested in the fads and follies of the young.

  “P-please, sir?” stammers a voice. It is the newest, youngest postal worker. His name is Lal and he has been on this job all of six months. His clothes crackle eagerly from the starch his mother puts in the rinsing water.

  Lal is only a lowly postal carrier, whose job is to ride his bicycle along the streets of Mumbai, taking the mail to people’s doors and putting it in the right boxes. He has ventured into this august sorting room only because his bicycle bell has recently lost its tinkle. The postmaster must sign a form so that Lal can get a new bell.

  Lal pushes his form timidly at the postmaster, who grabs it from him and looks menacingly at it.

  “Please, s-sir,” says Lal. “D-did I hear you m-mention D-dolly S-singh the m-movie star, sir?”

  The postmaster is so shocked that Lal has dared to speak without being spoken to that he signs the form and hands it right back. “Movie shoovie, all bakvaas,” growls the postmaster.

  Lal trembles, but he says, “I know w-w-where she lives. It’s on m-m-my route.” Because Lal is a Dolly Singh fan. He loves her movies, all of them. He hums the songs as he delivers the mail. And while he is careful to deliver all the mail with speed and efficiency (per the India Post motto), he always drops Dolly’s mail into her box with crackly-swift speed and efficiency.

  “She should tell her friends,” grumbles the postmaster, “about PIN codes! What does she think, this is some tin-pot place without postal regulations?”

  But he hands the letter to Lal. “Bombay!” he mutters. “Couldn’t even get the name right. All right, all right. Off with you, my man.”

  Lal sneaks a look at the envelope. He sees it has been date-stamped “June 1” in some place called Takoma Park, Maryland, far away in the United States of America.

  Today is the eighth. This letter has taken exactly a week to get more than halfway around the world. What a fine thing a properly working postal system is.

  By now the machine has chaap-chaap-chaaped all the mail and dumped it into bags that slide out all by themselves to the place where the carriers can pick them up for delivery. Such are the wonders of technology.

  Lal hefts his bag off the conveyor belt and over his shoulder. Off he goes, stopping only at the supply department to turn in his form and get his new bell. Then he carries his big, bulging bag out to his bicycle. He disconnects the old broken bell and fixes the new one in its place. Trrring! It has a nice musical sound. He loads up and sets off.

  On his way Lal hums a little song, his favorite one from his favorite Dolly Singh movie. He trrrings his new bell to let people know when he is making a left turn or a right turn or even sometimes for no reason at all. He is happy that he rescued this letter for Dolly, because he thinks perhaps this letter is from someone who is also a fan. Fans sometimes do crazy things like mailing letters even when they don’t know the proper address.

  Sometimes the universe bends its rules a little for people who really need to get in touch with other people. The thing that everyone calls coincidence—well, Lal thinks it may be more than that. Coincidence is big in the fillums Lal loves, and he is never happier than when life occasionally imitates a really good fillum.

  When he gets to the building, which is ground-floor-plus-ten-floors high, he takes all his letters and drops them carefully into the correct boxes. He drops the Dolly Singh letter even more carefully into its correct box. It is very full, that Dolly box. She needs to check her mail, he thinks. Those fans will be waiting.

  Then out of the lobby and back onto his bike goes Lal, a happy young man doing a good day’s work.

  Chapter Seven

 
; Coming Apart

  DINI’S ROOM IS COMING APART like a bad plot. Dini and Maddie are curled up under the desk, which has been turned into a tent by throwing a comforter over it, since everything else on the desk has now been packed, stored, or given away.

  Dini and Maddie have not built one of these furniture tents since they were in second grade together, but these are desperate times. “They found a renter,” Dini says.

  “For here? This house?”

  “Mmm.”

  “What about your stuff?”

  “The furniture’s going to stay here and the drapes and things. Some of it’s in storage. Jiji Auntie—Mom’s sister—is going to keep our car. Until we get back.” Two years from now. It might as well be two centuries.

  Maddie says, “I brought you something.” She gives Dini a glittery green gel pen to go with her green stripy notebook from the green stripy Dolly collection.

  “Oh, Maddie,” says Dini. “Thank you.” And suddenly, in her empty room, with the Dolly poster rolled up and the shelves empty of books and games and pictures, the distance yawns wide as oceans between Takoma Park, Maryland, and Swapnagiri that means Dream Mountain.

  “Seven days,” Dini says.

  “That means it must have gotten there by now,” Maddie says.

  “I don’t know,” says Dini, who is now assailed by doubts. Like waves on some fillum beach, these doubts. They wash over her when she’s not expecting them. What was she thinking? How foolish to have sent a letter off without a proper address and expect that it would get there.

  But Maddie will not give up. “I bet she replies right away,” says Maddie. “So then seven days for the reply to come back, and you’ll still get her letter before. You know.”