part, why, let me see your beating heart!”
“Ai-Ma!” Neel protested.
But I had an idea. I grabbed the biggest ruby from my pocket. It was the size of a small lunch box, and gritty with sea salt and sand. I rubbed it off the best I could and shoved it toward the old rakkhoshi.
“Anything for you, Ai-Ma!” I said in a low voice.
The crone held the ruby up to her eyes, and murmured, “So hard and large and red, and still I want my grandbaby’s head? Oh, what have I done, what did I do? You must be my grandson true!”
Returning the ruby to me, Ai-Ma grabbed us each in one of her gangly arms and drew us up to her chest, crooning, “Oh, my darling pom-poms, my shriveled beanpoles, my scrawny-crow grandbabies!” Ai-Ma rocked and sang. “I am Ai-Ma, mother of mother, for Lalu and Neelu, there is no other!”
I held my breath as the crone cooed at us. It was more than a little disturbing. Finally, she put us down.
“Come, my honey-drenched num-nums, my caramel boo-boos. It is time for Grammy to finish her nap. Neelu, you rub old Ai-Ma’s feet, and, Lalu, you pull out her gray hairs.”
Ew. Really? I grimaced, but Neel gave me a warning glance. It was obviously too dangerous to do otherwise. The prince took a big bottle of mustard oil and began rubbing the crone’s warty feet, while I sat by her head, massaging her greasy scalp and pulling out long gray hairs one by one. They were hard, the texture of steel guitar strings, plus they were slippery, so it wasn’t easy. A few times, I had to use both hands, with my foot on her head for leverage. Ai-Ma didn’t seem to notice, but smiled blissfully and kept her eyes shut, like we were giving her some kind of five-star spa treatment.
Her snores shook the gorge for about half an hour, but then, with a mighty shake, she was awake again. Ai-Ma snorted and hacked, then asked, “What can I do for my grandbabies who have traveled so long to visit me?”
“Oh, we couldn’t ask for anything, Ai-Ma,” Neel protested, still rubbing the noxious stuff into her feet. He stared at me with big eyes.
“Oh, no, how could we, Ai-Ma?” I added in my fake princely voice. My arms were aching from massaging the crone’s head, and I had more than one cut on my hands from pulling her awful gray hairs.
Without warning, Ai-Ma sat up. Neel and I both tumbled off her.
“Oh, shame shame, puppy shame, all the donkeys know your name!” she protested. “How can this be? My grandbabies must have a gift from their Ai-Ma—I have prepared no food, I have no new clothes or toys to give you. Please, please do not embarrass an old woman. What can Ai-Ma give you?”
“Well, Ai-Ma,” Neel suggested, “you could take us as far as the border of Demon Land.”
“Done!” Ai-Ma promised, scooping us both into her giant arms.
The rakkhoshi walked us through the desert of Demon Land for seven days and eleven long nights. Her arms were large enough to be warty hammocks, and Neel and I each rested in the crook of an elbow. As comfortable as a warty hammock may sound, let me assure you it was hard traveling. The only trees on our path grew thorns or poisonous-looking pods. There was little water, even less food, and no respite. Ai-Ma grew tired once or twice, but I was so nervous of what would happen if she stopped, that I kept telling her stories from back home. Appropriately adapted for a demon, of course. In most of them, Jovi was a greedy khokkosh.
As we left the desert, I was shocked to see such wanton waste, filth, and destruction everywhere the rakkhosh had been. There were piles of Styrofoam cups, mountains of single-use drink bottles, and plastic cola six-pack holders that no one had bothered to cut through.
“Demon Land needs a better recycling program!” I protested. “Look at those plastic rings; if ducks get caught on them, they might choke and die, Ai-Ma!”
“Well, I certainly hope so,” the old woman responded, her eyes a little glassy. Her long tongue was drooling like a dripping faucet on my turban, “Oh, grandbaby, forgive me, this nose of mine keeps making me think of roasted goose, partridge pie, chickadee stew!”
The turban almost jumped off my head in fright, but I held it on tightly.
After seeing almost no one on our long walk,