Eleven Shorts +1

The Girl with the Glistening Plaits

The pointer cracked across a desk, startling Moti. She brought her head up sharply. Her eyes flew to Miss Prunet’s face, which was turning an interesting shade of red and was looking right at her! What had she done? She followed the teacher’s gaze and saw the boy with the stuck-up hair.

“Red Smith, give Ann that eraser, now!” Moti exhaled softly. It wasn’t her. It was the bully behind her. Red gave the eraser back to the girl next to him.

“I have told you before not to take things, and where is your eraser?” She bore down on him and stood next to Moti as she glared at the boy. Moti held her breath again.

“I lost it,” mumbled Red into his chest.

“That is the fifth eraser you’ve lost this month.” Miss Prunet grabbed Red’s ear and dragged him through the cloakroom doorway to the left of the giant blackboard. Moti’s eyes widened — her old teacher had hit their palms in front of the whole class when she was mad. Why did this new one drag the boy out of sight? Like the others, she leaned forward and strained to make out the sounds that filtered through the blackboard. They sounded so much worse than her old teacher’s ruler. She resolved to be a good girl. She did not dare carve her initials in the desk now. Those old ghosts must’ve been brave.

The rhythmic sounds stopped although the snuffly ones did not, and the class quickly shifted into a nonchalant position. Miss Prunet emerged through the door to the right of the blackboard, her face a triumphant purple, and went to stand behind her desk. Red followed a few seconds later, his face reflecting his name, his eyes glittering. He walked slowly, and his hands hovered at his side.

“Hurry up Red. You cannot expect the class to wait for you.”

“Yes, Miss Prunet.” He sat down gingerly.

“We shall continue.”

Moti noticed that she called upon many pupils during the review, but not once upon her. It didn’t matter though: she knew the routine of seeming busy, while hiding her skipping thoughts and inattention to the work. To while away the time, she flipped through the books she had taken out. Baby stuff, she thought with disgust, and longed for home. She could be learning exciting stuff, like Hindi, instead of last year’s work. The unfamiliar red and white flag drooping at the front of the room caught her attention, and she tried to make out the design hidden in its folds. The other red, blue, and white one she knew. Idly, she scratched her legs through the itchy wool stockings. She ached to remove them and her shoes as well, regaining the freedom she’d lost when she and her parents had moved to this cold country. She fidgeted with the sleeve of her cardigan and caused her bangles to jangle merrily.

Miss Prunet turned from the blackboard, chalk in poised hand: “What was that?” Her grey eyes prodded first Moti’s face and then others suspiciously, but Moti had stuffed her traitorous bangles out of view and had put on an innocent face, just like the other girls. Getting no response, Miss Prunet resumed the review. Moti relaxed, but she would have to remember not to wear her bangles to school. She just knew that Miss Prunet had not really gone after her since it was her first day. She did not think Miss Prunet would spare her again. She sighed inwardly. She loved her bangles; they jingled just like her mother’s. But they made her stick out, and she didn’t want to. So much to learn about these unfamiliar people and their ways.

She sighed to herself and slanted her eyes towards the window. The sun shone out of a brilliant, dark blue sky. Bare brown trees reached up past the window, their branches laden with glittering snow. She had never seen snow until one month ago and was fascinated with its pure white colour and textures that varied from soft down to frozen crunchiness. The rooftops that she could see beyond the branches were also covered with snow, and one had a chimney from which thin smoke drifted upwards. Her eyes ceased to register the frozen scene as her thick lashes lowered partially, and she saw instead a hot, noisy street where she and her friends had played on the concrete, skipping rope or chasing each other in hide ‘n seek. Up and down the steps they ran and along the sun-heated balconies, a flash of brown arms and legs and bouncing black plaits.

The shrilling of the bell startled her out of her reverie. She noticed that none of the others moved and that Miss Prunet was still talking. She did not want to be the first to move, so she waited impatiently for the teacher to dismiss them. At last, she did, and they all raced for the cloakroom.

In the dim, confining space, Moti looked for her outdoor clothes. She finally found them between two squiggling girls. She pulled on first her heavy boots, as her mother had taught her, then her coat: She threaded her right arm into its sleeve and watched her hand emerge, to her great relief. She always thought the long thick sleeves of the coat would swallow up her arms. She sought the other sleeve with her left arm, but her hand slid along the material. She twisted round to try and reach the recalcitrant sleeve, but it danced away. She twisted again and soon was hopping round in a backwards twirl until with a final angry thrust she found the sleeve and jerked it on. Her coat was on. Her face burned red. The others were all pulling their coats and hats on easily and quickly, and watching them, her face flared brighter at her clumsiness. She yanked her hat off the hook and pulled it down over her face, pushed it back up to reveal her eyes. It fell off. She tried again, and again it fell off. Inhaling deeply, she exhaled her frustrations at these cumbersome clothes she had to wear in this white country, and this time when she put her hat on, she remembered to fold up the front bit. The hat stayed on. She wound her long scarf round her neck, mouth, and nose. And lastly, she pulled her mitts out of her pockets and tugged them onto her hands. She felt like a stuffed doll. Her clothing’s heavy unfamiliarity seemed to pin her to the floor, and she wanted to take them all off and stay inside. She raised her head and saw that she was alone. She pushed herself to start moving. Her encumbered frame waddled down the hall and out the door.

White balls whizzed in the air; kids lay in the snow, doing strange things with their arms and legs; others chased each other, their breath puffing out in little clouds. The air rang with the shouts and screams of children playing. This shouting was familiar. Her frustrations dissipated in the cold air, like her steamy breath. She walked a little way from the door and along the reddish-brown brick wall of the old school. She liked this school-yard better than her old one because it was much bigger and the air tasted clean and clear, so different from the ever present grey concrete and the thick smelly air back home. She leaned against the sun-drenched wall of the school and watched the others play with their friends. She couldn’t see that boy — what was his name? She clicked her tongue sharply, angry at herself for forgetting it. Then two girls playing nearby distracted her; she thought they were from her class and smiled at them, hoping they would ask her to play. But they only stared at her. Perhaps they, like her, were too shy to ask. She would take the first step. Just then they turned away after a last uneasy glance in her direction and ran around the corner of the school.

Moti felt her eyes prickle, but she crinkled her face to stop the imminent tears. She could do nothing about the hollow feeling in her stomach. She inhaled deeply to steady her nerves. She would make a friend. The happy chatter of three girls as they rounded the corner near her caught her attention. She looked towards them and stepped away from the wall. Their smiles disappeared and their chatter faltered. They ran back around the corner. Her difference humiliated her, and she wished she could melt into the school wall forever and ever. Instead, she leaned back against it and kicked at the snow, over and over and over.

“Do you want to play?” Moti stilled herself and looked up. A girl with red hair and green eyes stood in front of her. Moti had never seen red hair before, and its fascinating colour stopped any reply in her throat. But just as the girl was about to turn away, Moti blurted out a yes. The red-haired girl smiled, a most brilliant smile.

“My name is Catherine. I sit in the back row. I’ve never seen anyone like you before.”

“Me neither, Cath … Cath …” Moti could not say her new friend’s name, and she felt the red tide suffuse her face. Catherine laughed, though not at her, but with her, and Moti felt her face return to normal as she relaxed.

“Call me Cath, and I will call you Mot. They’ll be our pet names for each other.”

“Ajah, I mean all right.” Moti smiled, a smile that reached from her toes and softened her face. She skipped away from the wall with her new friend in her new home, mitten in mitten.