The Grand Plan To Fix Everything Page 6

  He’s a fan, right? Dini thinks. Well, fans help each other out. That’s how it is.

  So when Veeran shows up to take Mom to the clinic the following morning, Dini volunteers to go along.

  “Are you sure?” Mom says.

  “Yes!” Dini says. “I mean, it’s the whole reason we’re here, right?”

  “Right,” says Mom.

  “So I should check it out,” Dini says. “And I can learn stuff.”

  “Stuff?” says Mom, raising an eyebrow but letting Dini clamber into the Qualis ahead of her.

  “Yes. About—um, vaccinations.” Dini mumbles the last word in the hope that maybe Mom won’t hear.

  But Mom says, “Really?” as if she’s surprised. Mom has started taking some medicine for her ear, so now she can hear again—too well, Dini thinks. They should make those medicines work at a more normal speed.

  “Why don’t we have a car?” Dini asks as Veeran revs the Qualis into gear and they shoot off down the red dirt road. “We had one in Maryland.”

  “We still have a car in Maryland,” Mom reminds her, “and we don’t really need one here. In fact, once I’ve figured out my way around here, I’m going to take the bus.”

  “Very fine buses here in Swapnagiri, madam,” Veeran offers. “On time and all. Not like the big city, where everything is one big mess.”

  A bus lumbers past the Qualis. Buses do seem like a fine way to travel if you don’t mind being pretty close to a whole lot of people. This one is full of riders carrying baskets and bundles and bulging bags.

  Dolly could probably dance on top of that bus. That would make a terrific scene.

  Then Dini sees something interesting sticking out of the bus window. Something metallic, big and round, and painted bright red.

  “What’s that?” she asks Mom.

  “A cooking gas cylinder,” Mom says. “We need to get one of those. That electric hot plate gets too hot. It’s burning up everything we try to cook.”

  That’s why all the food has been tasting a bit funny. Dini can’t invite Dolly to dinner until they’ve fixed that.

  Veeran slows down and honks a warning to a couple who have decided to cross the road right in front of the van. The woman is holding a chicken. For a moment Dini wonders if it is their pet, she is holding it so tenderly. But then she thinks, Maybe it’s their dinner. She can tell that Swapnagiri is going to sharpen her guessing abilities.

  The doctors and nurses in the clinic all fuss over Dini. “So tall.” “And what are you writing in that notebook? You’re taking notes on us?” They make her stand next to Mom so everyone can see how tall she is. “Very clever, too, probably,” they say. “Just like your mother. You’re going to be a doctor just like her?” Luckily, they don’t seem to need Dini to answer any of their questions, so all she has to do is smile.

  “Want the tour?” says Mom.

  “Sure,” Dini says.

  The clinic is as full as the buses on the road. There are nurses taking people’s blood pressure, and mothers getting their babies weighed.

  A whole group of children have come to get their polio vaccine drops.

  “This is my consulting room,” Mom says, and parts a green curtain to let Dini through.

  Women are waiting in the hallway to get shots for their babies, which makes Mom very happy, as she can then put them down in her book and they become part of this study she is doing on women and children and immunization and weight gain and whatnot.

  “Hey,” Dini says, “you have our pictures here.” Dad and Dini are both on Mom’s desk, in a folding frame. “And Maddie, too.”

  “I looked for a picture with just you in it,” Mom says. “But you know what? Every picture I have of you, Maddie’s in it too.”

  That is a five-year-old picture. Or maybe a six-year-old one, Dini can’t remember. It is a nice feeling to think that Maddie is here. In this picture along with Dini, in Mom’s clinic. Well, it would be even nicer if Maddie were still friends with her.

  The women at the head of the line are already starting to edge into the room.

  “Can I help?” Dini says. She can see that Mom needs to get to work. She does too, on her Dolly mission, but in the meantime those babies look so funny and squirmy that she wants to hang around and see what Mom does.

  So she takes the pictures Mom hands her, of elephants and trees and a train, and distracts the babies so they don’t see that the needle is coming along to jab them. She tries not to look at the needle herself, as she is not a big fan of needles. She tries to make noises like Priya, but she is better at waving pictures than creating sound effects.

  Dini has to admit that Mom is a fast jabber. Some of those babies don’t even know what hit them.

  When the line starts to thin at last, Mom says, “You can go out if you like, sweetoo. You don’t have to stick around in here all day.” Dini glances at the clock and sees that two hours have gone by and she hasn’t yet had the chat with Veeran that she really came here for.

  “Okay,” she says, keeping it casual, not letting on that she is going on a most important mission. Make that in caps. A Most Important Mission. She goes off to find him.

  In the back, where the Qualis is parked, Veeran the driver is checking its tire pressure. He is doing this with loving care, letting the tire go pff-pfft for a second, then stopping and checking again.

  “Hello, Miss Nandini,” he says, straightening up and patting his mustache into place. “So—how do you like our Swapnagiri?”

  Dini tells him she likes it just fine, only she’d love it even better if she could find Dolly.

  “She is not receiving any visitors,” he says sadly. “That is what I’ve heard.”

  Me, Dini thinks. She’ll see me. But she does not say that.

  “Maybe she’s retiring from the movies,” he says.

  “No!” Dini cries. “That’s impossible. She can’t do that.” But then she thinks of that article in Filmi Kumpnee with that single word—“heartbreak”!—on a line all by itself. And she worries.

  Veeran says, “You should ask Mr. Chickoo Dev.”

  “The owner of Sunny Villa Estates?” Dini says, startled. There it is again. Coincidence. Or kismet. There seems to be quite a lot of it in Swapnagiri. More than in most places, Dini is sure.

  “At one time,” Veeran says, “Mr. Chickoo Dev was a very great friend of Miss Dolly Singh’s. Some people even said . . . but who knows? Friendships come and go sometimes, with these famous filmi people.”

  Dolly’s not like that, Dini thinks. She’s loyal and true. In MJTJ when the villain is about to throw her best friend over the cliff, Dolly flings herself at him, screaming, “Throw me instead!” That’s the kind of friend she is.

  “I hope you find her,” Veeran says. “I hope she’s all right.” He looks worried, which makes the ends of his mustache quiver.

  “You’re a true fan,” says Dini, her heart over-flowing with the thought. One fan can see this quality in another. “And I’m sure you’re a superfine mechanic, too,” she adds generously.

  Veeran reaches under the driver’s seat of the Qualis, pulls out a magazine, and gives it to Dini.

  “Filmi Kumpnee!” says Dini, delighted. Maybe coincidence is just a little step in a plot leading to the next step.

  Veeran nods his sideways yes nod. “You can keep it,” he says to her.

  Dini is surprised to find that when she nods back, her head is also moving sideways.

  She spends the rest of the afternoon sitting on a bench in the little vegetable garden behind the clinic, where they grow all kinds of greens with bendy stalks and ruffly leaves, warty bitter melons, tomatoes, and spicy red hot peppers that curve like little daggers from their stems. And she reads the magazine.

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

  Dolly Singh fans! Our hardworking Filmi Kumpnee reporters have been scouring the country for you.

  And the word is—ghayab.

&nb
sp; As in missing, disappeared, done a dimki.

  Not in Bombay, our Dolly. Not in her Juhu top-floor flat. Not in her ground-floor-plus-ten-floors apartment building overlooking the Point. Not in any place that we have become accustomed to seeing her gracious and beautiful self.

  But we are hot on her trail. And when we find her, you will be the first to know! We are alert. You be alert too. Keep your eye on this column.

  For the first time ever, Dini realizes, she knows something about Dolly that the Filmi Kumpnee people do not know. And she is not about to tell them what she knows. Not in a hundred years.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Meena to Dolly

  YOU ARE WELCOME STAY AS LNG AS YOU LIKE DOLLY GOT YR LETTER LV MEENA

  YOU GOT MY MSG DOLLY NO? TXTING FROM MELBRNE AIRPRT CAN KEEP PHONE ON 5 MORE MINUTES

  YOURE NOT REPLYING TO MY MSGS DOLLY SWEETIE WORRIED BACK SOON MEENA B.

  Chapter Twenty

  Blue Mountaing School

  WHILE MOM, with her perfect hearing now restored, is working hard to bring good health to the women and children of Swapnagiri, Dad and Dini pay a visit to the Blue Mountain School for an entrance test.

  Well, Dad pays the visit. Dini has to take the test. “Why do I need to take a test?” Dini says.

  “It’s just the way they do things here,” Dad says.

  “What if I flunk it?” Dini says.

  Dad gives her his oh-rani-are-you-nervous look. “You’ll be fine,” he says.

  They follow a long, winding driveway past a playing field and an open space marked YOGA PAVILION to a round building where a woman in a green cotton sari is hurrying up to welcome everyone in. She is Mrs. Meena Balu, the principal. “You,” she says, letting them in with a flourish of a wave, “must make yourselves at home. You must forgive me, I’ve just returned from overseas travel, so we’re running a little late. Test takers, please, this way.”

  Dini follows her. So do a couple of other kids.

  On their way to the testing room they pass a big flat-screen TV that is playing a video about the school. Wait! A face flashes by on the screen.

  “Is that Dolly Singh?” Dini cries.

  “You,” murmurs the principal, “will see many distinguished guests here in this school.” Dini can see that she is changing the subject on her. She wonders if Mrs. Balu ever begins a sentence with any other word but “you.”

  In the testing room half a dozen kids are sitting around waiting. Among them is Priya.

  “Hi,” Dini says.

  “Hi,” Priya replies, but she does not smile.

  The test is not that difficult, but Dini is not paying attention very well because of that video. She’s sure that was Dolly. She just can’t figure out why. How is she connected to the school?

  After Dini has answered math questions and science questions and reading comprehension questions, she has to write a two- to three-page essay on “How I Want to Change the World.” She really throws herself into that because this is something she has thought about a lot. It has never occurred to Dini that anyone would really want to know her views on this subject of world-changing, but here in this school they are asking her.

  So she writes about all the things she means to do someday when her life becomes perfect. They are good things, important things. Many kids have such ideas, it is true.

  But here is the thing. Dini sets it all up like a movie script with herself as a character in the screenplay. It is a story about her growing up and getting really smart, which is bound to happen someday if she’s patient enough. Then, in the screenplay, she goes on to make her life perfect so she can change the world, make it a place where problems are solved, true love wins, and dreams come true. It is complete with directions and all, the things that movie people call slug lines and parentheticals, all of which Dini knows from Filmi Kumpnee. When Mrs. Balu rings a little bell and announces that time is up, Dini is almost disappointed.

  After the testing is done, everyone gathers back in the main lobby of the circular building around a scale model of the school, while a teacher points out the various features of the campus. There is the main building, the trees, the winding pathway, the classroom complexes, the gym, the playing fields, and the yoga pavilion.

  Maddie would like this school, Dini thinks, and she finds herself swept suddenly into a moment of missing Maddie. These moments seem to come upon her unexpectedly, a bit like jet lag.

  “You will see,” Mrs. Balu is saying, “that we have a small guesthouse in the back for special visitors. Sometimes we do parts of this orientation there, but it’s currently occupied.”

  Refreshments follow, and Dini runs into Priya at the snack table. With her is the man who was driving the yellow car. Dini introduces Priya to Dad, and Priya introduces them both to the man. “My Uncle,” says Priya.

  “Just call me Chickoo,” says Priya’s uncle, extending a hand to Dad.

  Mr. Chickoo Dev! He’s Priya’s uncle, with the face that looks as if it’s all nose. Much shaking of hands follows, while Dad explains that they have just rented and moved into cottage number 6.

  “I hope you’re finding everything to your satisfaction,” Mr. Chickoo Dev replies, most seriously.

  Dad takes a breath. Dini is afraid that he is going to start talking about monkeys messing up the water-tank, so she takes charge of this conversation. “Everything,” she says decidedly, “is just perfect.” Dad closes his mouth.

  “Excellent, excellent,” says Chickoo Dev. He tells them how he inherited this huge, big tea estate from his great-aunty years ago and came to Swapnagiri, where he didn’t know a soul. Dini has to admit that while Chickoo Dev seems like a nice man, he is not completely fascinating.

  But suddenly, while he’s talking about this stuff, and Dad is nodding and agreeing with him about the rupee-euro exchange and the price of tea, Dini notices something. Chickoo Dev’s nose, which looked a little . . . well, big the last time Dini saw it, now seems perfectly fine for his face. It is an honest sort of face otherwise—not every face has to fascinate, after all. It is crowned with a mop of dark hair that gives it a sensitive look. He laughs, and a person could forget that nose.

  He gives Dad his phone number and says if they need any help, just ask. “How nice,” he says, “that Nandini and Priya will be in school together.”

  Priya and Dini look warily at each other.

  “How do you like Swapnagiri?” says Chickoo Dev to Dad.

  Dad says that his wife, Dini’s mom, has dreamed of coming here for years and years. “And I’m so glad she brought us,” he says. “It’s a beautiful part of the country.”

  “Perfect for movies,” Dini says. She can’t help herself. It’s just that the Dini Meets Dolly movie is never too far from her thoughts.

  Priya scowls. She makes a hissy noise that sounds like the complaint of a snake that has just eaten something disagreeable.

  “My daughter’s a big movie fan,” Dad says, as if an apology is needed.

  Priya glares. Yes, that is definitely a glare.

  Dini flounders on because she has started this up, so she has to keep going. She tells Chickoo Dev about how she dreamed of Dolly Singh dancing through the tea-gardens the very first day they came to Swapnagiri.

  Chickoo Dev sighs. He stays silent so long that Dini thinks perhaps he has fallen asleep standing right there, but at last he says, “That was my dream also.”

  Really? He is a fan too! But she can tell from his face that something is wrong. Something is the matter with his fan dream.

  “I wanted her to shoot this movie right here.” He waves at the hillside, covered with bright green tea bushes. “Only she . . . how can I say it? She backed out of the agreement.”

  “We are Not,” says Priya, who has quit being a snake and is now speaking again, “on Talking Terms with that Dolly Person, are we, Chickoo Uncle?” She draws a breath in, click-click, like a door locking.

  Priya’s uncle Chickoo Dev looks very, very sad.

  “Why
?” Dini says.

  “Nandu!” Dad frowns at her. He is embarrassed by her directness, no doubt, but she doesn’t care. If she isn’t direct, no one is going to be. It’s very clear that direct talking is precisely what is needed at this moment.

  “Forgive me, I’m not at liberty to disclose,” murmurs Chickoo Uncle.

  “Quite understandable,” Dad murmurs back, shooting Dini a look. A warning look. A stop-being-nosy-right-now look.

  Understandable? Not at liberty? Maybe Dad under stands, but Dini certainly doesn’t. All this time she has been plotting in her notebook the story lines that could possibly lead her to Dolly, but this is not one she has anticipated. Now what is she supposed to do?

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Lal

  KREER! KOOCH! KRAAR! The sorting machine in the post office in Mumbai has stopped and will not start again.

  “It’s broken,” someone says.

  “Impossible,” snaps the postmaster. “This is a brand-new imported machine recommended by our India Post collaborators in the United States of America. How can it be broken?”

  “Sir, sorry sir, but it’s b-broken,” says Lal the postal carrier, his uniform crackling anxiously as he sticks his head into the sorting room. He has been waiting patiently for his bag but he simply cannot compromise any longer the motto of India Post (“Speed and efficiency”).

  “Did someone manhandle this machine?” roars the postmaster. “Did one of you rascals feed it a lunch chapati instead of a letter, or what?”

  All the mail now has to be sorted by hand. This is a very big job. Everyone has to join in, even Lal, even though he has something else on his mind.

  “Sir,” says Lal, trying to make himself heard over the surge of voices and the chaos of hands shuffling envelopes.

  But the postmaster is not about to allow any idle chatter. “Not now, young man,” he says severely. “Can’t you see we are in the middle of a crisis? Everybody must sit and sort, that’s right! Buck up and buckle down for the sake of India Post and Mother India, jai hind!”