The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,25

drawled. “Man, you move fast! Let a guy get to know you a little! We just met and already you’re talking marriage!”

“That’s not what I meant!” I was embarrassed, so my words were all uptight. Again, I heard my mother calling out my name. “Look, I better go.”

“And just when we were starting to have fun,” said Ned with a mocking laugh. “We are, you know, already sitting in a tree, all we need to start doing is … How does the rhyme go? Oh, yeah, K-I-S-S-I …”

“Um, no thanks!” I muttered, feeling more and more alarmed by the second.

“It was just a joke!” Ned laughed. “Oh, how sweet, you’re embarrassed!”

This conversation was getting way intense way fast. Before the boy could say anything else, I turned to make a graceful exit by jumping off the branch. Like, you know, a prancing gazelle or something.

As it turned out, my leap was less prancing gazelle and more dancing water buffalo. I crashed to the ground in an inelegant heap. I got painfully to my frozen feet, remembering the few other times I’d had to jump down from somewhere like this. Each time, Neel had been there to break my fall. The memory made my heart ache a little.

Ned landed next to me on two feet like some kind of ballet-star-slash-elegant-creature-of-the-forest. “You all right, there, Princess?”

The boy’s words made the hair stand up on my neck. “What did you just say?” Why had he called me Princess? How could this guy I’d never seen before know the truth about my life?

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.” Ned grinned, then pointed to my open front door, and my mother’s silhouetted figure in the doorway. “You better get going or your mom’ll get worried.”

I know this is a really vain thing to think, but I got a little bit dizzy at this gorgeous stranger calling me pretty. Then I shook my head. Wait a minute, don’t worry your pretty little head about it meant that he thought I was pretty but also stupid. That wasn’t a compliment at all, or, was it? Ack, what was wrong with me? The frostbite must be getting to my brain!

Without another word to Ned, I ran toward my open front door.

“Bye, Princess!” I heard Ned call mockingly. “You and me-e sitting in a tree-e.”

I ran up my front steps to where Ma was waiting for me, just inside the threshold. It was so long since I’d been home, so long since I’d seen her, that I couldn’t help but cry out a little as I ran into her arms.

I’d been separated from two sets of friends, almost not made it through a bizarre wormhole, and now survived an encounter with a mysterious boy who thought I was pretty. And also stupid. Even though on different scales, all three of those things were traumatic.

But none of it mattered anymore because I was home. And as the saying went, there was no place like home.

I stood in the front hallway of our house, hugging Ma. Everything was so confusing, and I was so darned cold. But her body was solid and warm and safe. I hugged her even tighter, feeling myself start to warm up. It wasn’t until a few seconds had passed that I realized she wasn’t hugging me back.

“Who was that boy?” Ma asked, and I wondered if she was upset I’d been talking to a boy we didn’t know.

“I’m not sure. A relative of Jovi’s maybe?” I wiped my runny nose on my sleeve. “Listen, Ma, I have so much I need to tell you …”

“Well, he’s very handsome. That blond hair! Those blue eyes! Just the kind of boy you should make sure you catch!” said Ma in a tone so unlike her usual self that I wondered again if the frost was somehow affecting my hearing. No way was my prim and proper immigrant mother telling me I should “catch” a boy! And just because he was blond and blue-eyed!

But I didn’t manage to say anything because, just then, Baba’s voice made me look up.

“Karen?” he said, coming down the short set of stairs. “Why were you outside without a coat? What will the neighbors think?” And this time, there was no mistaking it. He’d said “Karen,” not “Kiran.”

I squinted at him and then back at Ma. My parents had always been weird, but something was way off. This was so not like them at all. They’d never cared what the neighbors thought,