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7 - Split Second (edited)

 7 - Split Second

 

Maya Sumedh

The doorbell rang halfway through dinner a few nights later.

Everyone glanced up from their food at the same time. Luke, who was seated closest to the door, got up immediately.

 “I’ll get it.”

 Ma shook her head, quickly putting her fork down.

 “Sit Luke, sit, I’ll see who it is –”

 He cut her off with a charming smile.

 “That’s alright, Mrs. Sumedh.”

 Beside me, Sam chuckled into his spaghetti.

 “Suck-up.”

 Luke smacked him on the back of his head before going to see who it was at the door. I grinned, shoving a forkful of pasta into my mouth. I watched Luke go, sliding the kitchen door shut carefully behind him, the sound of his new rubber blue-and-white Bata house chappals fading as he made his way to the living room. It was quite amazing how he had worked his way seamlessly into the house – he had already gotten into the habit of wearing the chappals and taking off his shoes at the front door, eating with his hands and drinking tea instead of coffee.

 He was also, as I discovered, a bit of an animal lover. The night after I told him about Rohan, we had been sitting outside the gate at night, in our pyjamas, leaning against the posts on either side, talking because it was boring in the house and Sam had gone out on a date with Meera. The road was quite deserted, dimly lit only by the half-functional yellow street lamps. A few watchmen were giving Luke suspicious looks because he looked deathly pale in that lighting – we ignored them. As usual, the black stray dog (Blackie, as the neighbourhood kids imaginatively named her) came wandering over to us, her tail rotating furiously as she spotted me.

 “Blackie!” I cooed, petting her between the ears and she gave a whine of appreciation. “Aw, you cutie.”

 Luke grinned at me, leaning on the opposite gate post. “Is she a stray?”

 I nodded. “Yep. She’s friendly, wanna pet her?”

 He reached out to Blackie and she sniffed his hand, wagging her tail and allowing him to touch her on her head. After a few seconds she was rubbing against his legs like a cat and he was laughing. I rolled my eyes.

 “Hey, are those her puppies?”

 I started. “What? What puppies?”

 He pointed to something behind me and I turned around and gasped when I saw two small puppies stumbling along the road. Blackie saw them too, and scampered over. But to my shock, she blatantly shunned one puppy, a brilliant white furball aside as she fed the other one.

 “Um,” Luke mumbled. “I’m guessing that one isn’t hers?”

 “Apparently not.”

 And then one thing had led to another – the next thing you know, Luke was walking into the living room cradling it in his arms and he didn’t even have to ask before Ma put down her book and declared “We’re keeping him!”

So at that moment, Blu was curled up in his basket in the corner of the dining room, looking more like a ball of fluff than a puppy. I had named him after the colour of his eyes and the only creative thing about the name was the omission of the ‘e’ at the end. Whatever (at least I didn’t name him Whitey). Sam kept shooting him dirty looks because he was more a cat person than a dog person, as he put it.