Fifteen Lanes - S.J. Laidlaw Page 0,55

conversation remained stilted and limited. I wasn’t sure if it was the cultural difference or the language. I just knew they didn’t want to speak to me. With him they were voluble and uninhibited. It surprised me, given what Miss Chanda had said about their bad experiences with men. Clearly they could overcome that in the presence of a cute, not to mention famous, boy.

Mr. Donleavy had just told us our time was almost up when we heard loud voices from the floor below. Someone sounded angry. Too late, it occurred to me that we were trapped in that tiny windowless room, in a neighborhood that most Mumbaikars would never dare venture into.

Miss Chanda crouch-walked double time to the ladder. All of the other adults, including Mr. Donleavy, followed.

“Do you think we should stay up here?” I asked VJ.

“If there’s trouble, we’d be safer down there, where we can slip out the door.”

He went first and I followed, though a couple of kids squeezed in ahead of me.

The room at the bottom of the ladder was packed. I had to push myself between several unfamiliar women to get off the ladder.

A fleshy woman with a fierce look about her was shouting loudly at one of the NGO staff. There was a palpable feeling of discontent among the audience she’d brought with her. The NGO staff were looking nervous. I almost didn’t notice the young girl standing next to her. She was making every effort to back away from the argument, but there was nowhere for her to go. Her obvious desire to melt into the background was such a familiar emotion that I felt immediate empathy. In fact, her look of embarrassment and distress was so painfully reminiscent of the way I’d been feeling almost constantly for the past few days that I wanted to go to her. Slowly I worked my way through the crowd.

I couldn’t understand what the argument was about. They weren’t speaking English. The big woman was doing most of the talking. She seemed to be demanding something that Miss Chanda wouldn’t agree to.

I reached the girl and tried to catch her eye. She was staring resolutely at her feet. I doubted she spoke English, but she was in a school uniform and looked a little older than most of the girls upstairs, so I figured it was worth a try.

“Is that your mom?” I asked.

She looked up in surprise.

“No,” she said gruffly, and looked down again. Though it wasn’t a response that encouraged conversation, I’d just spent the past hour feeling expendable, and here was a girl who seemed as uncomfortable as I was.

“What’s she shouting about?” I persisted.

She glanced up again and away. I wasn’t sure if she was considering her answer or ignoring me. She was very thin, like most of the girls, with watchful, intelligent eyes.

“Why are you here?” she finally asked.

It was my turn to hesitate. The truth was, I wasn’t sure myself. The past hour had reinforced my skepticism that I could be helpful to these girls. While the little ones were friendly, the older ones, the girls I was supposed to connect with, had no interest in talking to me. I couldn’t imagine mentoring any of them.

“I have no idea,” I said honestly.

She smiled sympathetically and nodded in the direction of the angry woman. “She is asking them to help me stay in school.”

“Well, I guess we have that in common.” I smiled back.

“Your school is saying you must leave? What did you do?” She sounded genuinely intrigued.

Having started down this path of honesty, I found myself stuck. As much as I didn’t want to admit the truth, I didn’t want to lie to her.

“I took a picture of myself without my shirt on and sent it to someone I thought was a boy I knew, and he, or someone, sent it to every kid in the school. They even printed up a few hard copies and posted them around the halls.”

She giggled.

“It really wasn’t funny.”

She giggled again.

“Still not funny.” I tried to sound stern but fell short, mainly because I was shocked to discover my own spirits had lifted at her reaction. Maybe someday even I would see the humor in what I’d done.

“Okay,” I said, “fair is fair. I told you mine. Now you have to tell me what you did.”

“I got first in all my subjects.”

“Wow, your school is tough. In my school, the worst you’d get for good grades is a suspension.”

She laughed outright. Her