The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,26

and they had definitely never messed up my name before. “Ma, Baba, listen, I need your help. Lalkamal is in trouble …”

“Who?” said Ma vaguely.

I squinted harder at her. So weird. What was going on here? My eyes fell on the hall calendar, where Ma always crossed off the days as they passed. It was the same day in early February that I’d last been home. The wormhole must have brought me back to the exact Monday morning I’d gone off to school and then found myself in the Kingdom Beyond. No wonder they were acting all blasé. They probably hadn’t even noticed I was gone.

“So much has happened! I can’t believe I’m finally home!” My eyes filled with tears as I took in the familiar split-level. Huh, that mini chandelier was new. And why did the house not smell the same? Usually it was either my mother’s cooking or her sandalwood incense. Now the house smelled like vanilla air freshener.

“Shake it off! Shake it off, young lady!” Ma said, patting my back with stiff fingers. I took in with a start that her usually short and unpainted nails were long, fake, and bright red.

That’s when I realized just how different my parents looked. Ma’s long hair was all cut and curled like some kind of American sitcom mom’s, and she was wearing an ugly polyester business suit with shiny brass buttons that matched the ones on Baba’s equally ugly blazer. I blinked hard, feeling like I must be having a nightmare. I’d never seen either of them in clothes like this. Usually, Ma wore comfortable cotton saris and Baba old kurta-pajamas. And certainly I had never seen either of them wearing their shoes inside the house!

“Karen!” Baba shouted again, stomping a booted foot. He was holding his mouth so tight as he spoke, his lips were unnaturally thin. “What is the matter with you, my girl? So much inappropriate emotion.”

“Wha-at?” I stuttered. Usually, they would be suffocating me with hugs and kisses. Ma and Baba didn’t just look different; they were acting ridiculously different too. In fact, their coldness was so opposite to anything I knew, I felt even more tears rising to my eyes.

“You won’t believe what happened!” I tried again. “In the Kingdom Beyond!”

“Kingdom Beyawnd?” Ma wrinkled her nose as she typed furiously into her cell phone. “I don’t want to hear about that old place! We live here now, in New Joi-sey!”

“I had to save Neel,” I tried to explain. “From an underwater detention center. And there was a game show … a fight. Wait, but you saw some of that on the satellite. Lal’s been captured and is somewhere here in New Jersey. And now it looks like Sesha’s up to some new plan. I don’t exactly understand, but it has to do with something called an Anti-Chaos Committee.”

“Oh, you’re right on that score! The Kingdom Beyond’s one place that’s always chaotic! Such a dirty, old, backward dimension!” Baba said in a fake-hearty way. “Aren’t you a lucky girl to be growing up here and not there?”

“What do you mean?” In a million millennia, I would never have expected to hear such negative stuff about the Kingdom Beyond from my parents. They loved their homeland. Their main wish had always been for me to embrace all the different parts of my identity and be proud of my heritage. “You don’t believe that!”

“We’re Am-ree-kans now.” Ma clucked her tongue, fluffing her stiffly coiffed and hair-sprayed hair. “It’s the land of opportunity, doncha know!”

“I’m not saying we’re not, o-or it’s not,” I stammered. “But there’s nothing that says we can’t be proud of all the different parts of who we are!”

“Oh, that hyphenated identity stuff? So old-school! There’s only room for one winner! And that goes for countries and identities double time!” said Baba, now occupied with his cell phone too. “If there is an Anti-Chaos Whatchamacallit, then it’s exactly what the Kingdom Beyond needs! About time somebody got rid of the chaos and whipped that place into order!”

“We’re talking about Sesha here!” I tried to say, but my voice was seriously shaky. I’d faced down monsters and fought demons, but seeing my parents act like this, and hearing them say this awful, self-hating stuff about our home dimension, was more frightening than anything I’d ever encountered.

“Time for school now!” said Ma, snapping the wad of gum in her mouth. “Hop to it!”

“No lollygagging!” added Baba. “And don’t worry your pretty little head about the politics over