The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,48

bicycle steady and straight down the road. Lal was holding on to my waist and giving me incredibly unhelpful suggestions.

“Watch that ice patch, Just Kiran!” he yelped. “Slow down! Not so sideways, my lady! Not so straight! Ring your bell! Perchance might you have any snacks in that basket?”

“Stop holding on so tight, Lal!” I griped. “I can barely breathe!”

“I have snacks!” Zuzu enthused, tossing Lal a granola bar from her pocket. She was standing up to pedal and looked like she was having a ball.

“Good thing we decided to come with you two!” said Jovi, maneuvering her bike on the other side of me and tossing Lal some gummy bears.

Embarrassingly, Lal lapped up all the attention even as he ate up all the snacks.

We were at the top of a big hill, and before I had time to think about it, my friends were convincing me to stop pedaling and see who could coast down the hill fastest. “Princess Just Kiran, be careful!” Lal yelled as we careened down the icy road. He scattered a bunch of gummy bears into the air in his agitation.

I was reminded of zipping along on a skateboard behind an auto rikshaw with the Pink-Sari Skateboarders what felt like ages ago. Even though I was nervous at first, soon I was whooping and hollering along with Zuzu and Jovi. Even Lal seemed to get over his fear.

“All for one and one for all!” the girls cheered as they started pedaling again at the bottom of the hill. For good measure, they even waved their fencing foils around in the air.

I thought about how much that musketeer rallying cry was like Nidhoggr and Sesha’s favorite: The all is one. Both sayings were talking about how people were connected, but our phrase, as opposed to Sesha’s, didn’t necessarily mean that we had to all be exactly the same to be on the same side.

Lal cheered. “I like your friends, Just Kiran!”

I laughed. “I’m fairly sure they like you too!”

Unfortunately, we were all so giddy from the rush of our adventure that no one really considered the route we were taking from our neighborhood to Smarty-Pants Science Corporation. The way we were going would not only take us in front of my parents’ old convenience store, but around the back of Zuzu’s family’s Greek diner. We were already biking through the adjoining parking lot, the one that goes between the pet grooming place and the Bennigan’s Coat Factory, when the fiercest employee of Mount Olympus Diner spotted us: Zuzu’s grandmother.

Zuzu’s yiayia was well into her eighties, but she still worked every day at the family’s restaurant, making the world’s best spanakopita and baklava, chatting up customers, and basically keeping Zuzu’s entire family on their toes. And our bad luck, she swung open the back door to the diner just as we were skating by.

“Oh no!” breathed Zuzu, but it was too late to turn around.

Yiayia stood there in her head scarf, apron, and orthopedic shoes, a bag of garbage in her hand. She squinted at us for a second, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, and then, in a move worthy of any intergalactic superhero, she threw the garbage bag. The smelly plastic sack hit Zuzu in the legs and knocked her off her bike.

“What kind of babushka’d monster is this?” Lal thundered, taking out his sword and brandishing it around.

“That’s not a monster—that’s Zuzu’s grandma!” I warned, and my friend put his sword away quickly.

In the time it took Zuzu to pick herself and her bike up off the icy ground, Yiayia got to us. You wouldn’t think that someone so old and stout could run so fast, but Yiayia was a marvel. Even more remarkable was when she started yelling. The parking lot was crowded with the lunch rush, but Yiayia didn’t care. With speed I wouldn’t have expected from such an old lady, she caught Jovi by the arm, forcing her off her bike. Then, with her other hand, she caught Zuzu by the ear, twisting hard.

“Ow, Yiayia, stop! Please!” Zuzu begged.

“Kakó korítsi!” yelled her grandmother.

“Madam, please, let go these nice ladies’ ears!” Lal was sputtering. We were the only ones still on our bike.

I didn’t understand half of the Greek scolding Yiayia was giving us, but I certainly understood the word school, which seemed to be coming up a lot. I also understood the words Mama and Papa, and understood from Zuzu’s reaction that Yiayia was about to drag her