The Chaos Curse (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond #3) - Sayantani DasGupta Page 0,53
to Tuni.
“Of course it is!” Tuni declared. “You all are way too cynical! I blame it on your generation using too much social media.”
“No such thing as true love,” said Bunty. “Only heteronormative rituals created by a capitalist patriarchy to reinscribe its institutional power.”
“Um, right,” Lal agreed uncertainly. “What the tiger said.”
“Whatever this is,” I said slowly, “it can’t just be them deciding to get married because they fell in love. There’s clearly some evil plan going on here.” I whirled around to face Neel. “I know! Your mom must be a part of this Anti-Chaos Committee!”
“What?” Neel looked startled. “I don’t even know what that is.”
“That whole being on our side and rescuing us stuff must have been an act before!” I sputtered. “Maybe she was faking wanting to save you so bad from demon detention. Maybe she and Sesha staged that whole fight in his undersea detention center …”
“Wait. Hold it right there, Kiran. You think it was an act that my mother was willing to give up her life—sacrifice her soul bee—to save mine? And that she staged the fight with Sesha, the fight where Ai-Ma, her own mother, died to save her?” Neel snapped. “No way. That’s sick!”
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t know how supervillains think!” I protested. My brain was working hard trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. “It would be gullible of us to think Pinki’s suddenly become all nice and heroic, wouldn’t it? I mean, the Anti-Chaos Committee is all these baddies from all different cultures trying to collapse the diversity of the multiverse’s stories. It would be just like her to be a part of that!”
“But I can’t imagine my mom would be involved in something like that!” Neel countered.
“Brother, she did try to eat both me and Mati,” Lal reminded him. “Only a few months ago.”
“And she is kind of mean,” Tuni added. “Plus cruel, sadistic …”
“Not to mention seriously bloodthirsty and power-hungry,” I volunteered.
“Okay, great, thanks, everybody, for your input,” Neel snapped. “Never mind I was just starting to think I could have some sort of relationship with my mom, what with Ai-Ma being gone and everything. Way to point out how that’s never going to happen.”
Lal, Tuni, and I exchanged guilty looks. I wasn’t sure what to say to that. There were a few seconds of awkward silence before K. P. Babu came to our rescue.
“Yes, well, never mind all that now. Supposition will only get us so far. It’s time to gather some more data and then send you all back home to do some hypothesis testing!” the elderly professor exclaimed.
“All right, gang, so let’s go gather some data and test some hypotheses!” said Sadie, clearly all pumped up at the science talk. “Time to go to the atom smasher! Woot!”
From who knows where, she produced a wheelchair with a Smarty-Pants Science Corporation logo on the back. We helped the injured Lal into the chair, and Sadie took charge of pushing it out of the break room and down a long lab hallway.
As we all walked, K. P. Babu turned to Bunty and asked, “Now, tiger, tell me the secret to your killer serve. How do you get that topspin?”
Lal and Sadie were at the lead, while Bunty, K. P. Das, and Tuni were chatting in happy tones about table tennis. So that left Neel and me to walk quietly together at the end of the group.
He wasn’t looking at me, and I felt a twinge of guilt at how upset he seemed. “Neel, I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, really, but I can’t think of another explanation as to why Pinki would want to marry Sesha.”
“Feelings hurt? My feelings aren’t hurt, what makes you say that?” snapped Neel in a way that kind of proved the opposite point. “No, Kiran, you’re right, as usual. Once a villain, always a villain. My mom’s obviously marrying Sesha to be a part of his latest dastardly plan. I’m probably just not thinking straight. Being in that detention center obviously messed me up bad. Gosh, I can’t even trust my own judgment anymore.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean any of that,” I protested.
“No, seriously. I’m so, so glad you’re here to set me right,” Neel said, still refusing to look at me.
“It’s just a theory,” I said, trying to be nice. “Like K. P. Babu said, we should gather some more facts or whatever before we assume our theory’s right.”