10 Things I Hate About Pinky - Sandhya Menon Page 0,13
in high school, expected her mom to know that. But that’s just how it had always been—in scary situations, Pinky went to her father for comfort and her mother for knowledge.
Her mom glanced at her, a slight crease between her eyebrows. “I don’t know,” she said slowly, just as two fire trucks came screaming around the corner, their sirens blaring, red lights bathing everything in their strobe. “But I think we’ll have some answers soon.”
CHAPTER 3 Pinky
“You’re lucky you noticed the fire when you did, Ms. Kumar,” the cute fireman said, shaking his head. “Windy night like this, if you’d waited even ten minutes to call, the fire would probably have engulfed your entire yard; possibly even your house and your neighbors’ properties.”
The firefighters had finished putting out the fire in the barn, and except for Mr. Cutie, they were all packing up. Pinky’s and Dolly’s families had gotten shoes on and were standing in the backyard now, looking at the smoking wreckage and smelling the crispy smell of burned wood.
“I got up to go to the bathroom,” her mom said, shaking her head. “I’m just so glad I did.”
“Me too,” Pinky’s dad said, putting one arm around her mom and another around Pinky. “Do you know what caused the fire?”
The fireman nodded. “One of the other guys found what looked like a few kerosene lanterns in there. Someone must’ve forgotten to turn them off when they left. There was also some debris that looked like bottles of alcohol.” His eyes brushed past Dolly and settled for just a moment on Pinky, on her wildly colored hair and her eyebrow piercing. Dolly’s mom and dad gasped softly, but Pinky’s parents were still. Smoothly, the fireman turned to look back at her dad. “I’d advise against lighting fires in enclosed spaces like that next time. Especially if there’s any alcohol around. Alcohol, as you probably know, is highly flammable, as is kerosene.”
Her dad opened his mouth, but her mom got there first. “Of course it’s flammable! We would never do something as irresponsible as lighting a fire in a wooden barn!” Before the fireman could respond, she rounded on Pinky, her eyes flashing. “What do you know about this?”
Pinky stared at her, her mouth dropping open. “What? Me? I don’t know anything!”
“Do you think I’m stupid, Priyanka?”
Pinky heard Dolly begin to speak. “But it’s not—it’s—”
Pinky’s mom spoke right over Dolly. “Drinking alcohol, lighting fires, sneaking out at night—do you recognize this song?”
“Now, honey,” Pinky’s dad said, “let’s give Pinky a minute to speak for herself.”
“Speak for herself?” her mom said, still glaring at her. Her silk pajama bottoms flapped in the stiff breeze, and her hair blew behind her in a thick black stream. “How can you possibly defend yourself from something like this? What were you thinking?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Pinky said, finally getting over her shock and feeling a wave of hot anger engulf her. “Why am I always at the top of your suspect list?”
Her mom barked a laugh. “Are you joking? How many times have we caught you and your delinquent boyfriends sneaking alcohol or vandalizing something or doing precisely whatever it is we’ve told you not to do, over and over again?”
Pinky opened her mouth and closed it again. The ghosts of boyfriends past hovered between her and her parents, all of them jostling for space.
“So?” her mom said. “Which one of the summer boys was it? Whose parents do we need to go speak with about this?” She thrust her hand at the charred remains of the barn.
“No one! I’m not—” Studying the hard, angry lines of her mom’s face, Pinky felt a monstrous indignation swell within her. This was so ridiculously unfair. Her mom hadn’t even glanced at anyone else before immediately sentencing Pinky. There were two teenagers in this house.
Pinky looked at Dolly, who stood huddled into her dad’s side, her big hazel eyes wide and scared, and then turned back to her mother. “I didn’t do this, and I definitely wasn’t drinking out here with some random summer boy—”
“Sure,” her mom said. “And you expect us to believe that.”
“I don’t care if you believe it because it’s true!” Pinky said, her mouth forming the words before her brain had a chance to react. As if from a great distance, she heard herself add, “It couldn’t have been me out here with a boy because—because I already have a boyfriend! And he’s… he’s nothing like any of the boys I’ve dated before! He’d