by Sheela Chari
Neela looked up to see Lynne staring at her, as if she was about to say something, but at that moment Ms. Reese told everyone to be quiet, and Lynne looked quickly away.
“By the way, congratulations to Neela and Lynne for their perfect scores,” Ms. Reese said.
“Spelling maestros,” Matt hooted.
“Geeks,” Amanda said. Then, as if she remembered she still needed something from Neela, she smiled at her to show it was a joke. She ignored Lynne.
Neela squirmed. It was one thing to get a good score on her quiz, but another to have Ms. Reese tell the whole class. She glanced at Lynne to see how she felt about it. If Lynne cared, it didn’t show on her face.
After homeroom, Neela was about to leave for the class next door when she noticed the business card Amanda had given her was missing.
Penny, who was waiting for her, said, “Aren’t you coming?”
“Did you see that card Amanda gave me?” Neela asked.
Penny shook her head. She got on her knees and helped search around the desk. “Are you going to talk to Amanda’s mom?” she asked.
Neela shrugged. “Not unless my missing veena suddenly turns up.” Saying that made her feel bad all over again. It sounded so improbable when she heard the words out loud.
“Well, the card isn’t here,” Penny said.
“It’s so strange.” Neela remembered placing the card on top of her desk next to her folder. The folder was there, but the card was gone.
“Maybe Amanda took the card back?”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Neela said. Just to mess with me. But she didn’t say that last part out loud, because she knew Penny and Amanda were friends.
The two girls hurried off to their next class. Neela had better things to think about than Mrs. Bones’s photo shoot. And being late once today was already enough.
“Sree, stay with Neela and me,” Mrs. Krishnan said. “Don’t run off; the church people won’t like it.” She said this to Sree every time they went somewhere, but it didn’t make any difference since he always ran off anyway.
Neela watched her mother as they walked up the steps to the church. She was remembering what her mother had said last night, about how she didn’t want to look for the veena anymore after they searched the church. For a moment Neela was tempted to say, Mom, I know about the curse. But she decided to wait. Now they were here, she wanted to first see what they might find. Besides, she had been eavesdropping, and she knew that was something her mother hated.
“Let me do the talking,” Mrs. Krishnan said to Neela when they got inside.
“But I’m the one who saw Hal,” Neela said. “Unless there’s something more you know about him or my missing veena.” She couldn’t help adding that last part, wondering what her mother would say.
Mrs. Krishnan glanced wearily at Neela. “I didn’t mean that. Just, you tend to…”
“What?”
“Nothing.” She sighed. “Adults just talk better to each other. You can watch Sree.”
Neela frowned. At least I don’t keep secrets, she thought. Maybe that was what her mother meant, that adults were better at keeping things from each other.
When they reached the office, they found two women sitting at L-shaped desks, illuminated by the glow of their table lamps. One had mousy hair, and both sides of her desk were piled high with things: papers, books, several boxes of candy, even a half-opened garbage bag filled with clothes. The other woman was plump, with salt-and-pepper hair and a shirt that was very ironed and very white. On one side of her desk a nameplate read MARY GOODWIN, CHURCH SEXTON. Neela looked, but she didn’t find a nameplate for the mousy-haired lady. It was probably lost somewhere under the mound of things on her desk.
“Can I help you?” Mary Goodwin asked.
“We seem to have misplaced my daughter’s instrument.” Mrs. Krishnan said.
“We think maybe somebody here took it,” Neela added.
Mrs. Krishnan gave Neela a withering look. “She means the church is the last place it was seen,” she said quickly.
She described what had happened yesterday.
Neela bit her lip. Fine, maybe it was better her mother talked. At least it gave her a chance to look around the office. Not that it was the most exciting place, with two vinyl chairs the color of seaweed, and a melamine coffee table that had seen better days. Behind Mary Goodwin’s desk, a poster of a big sunflower read “Jesus Loves You!”
“I’m sorry,” Mary said, “but we haven’t seen anything like that at all. In fact, I left early yesterday, so I wasn’t here.”
“And I can’t think of anyone named Hal working at the church,” said the lady behind the pile of clutter.
Mary nodded. “Julia’s right.” Her gaze fell from Mrs. Krishnan’s face to Sree, who was holding his mother’s hand, his hair, as usual, over his face. “Aren’t you cute?” she said expressionlessly. Sree didn’t say anything. It was as if he could tell she didn’t mean it.
“Sree,” Mrs. Krishnan murmured, pushing his hair back. “He’s shy,” she said to Mary.
“But there was a man named Hal,” Neela insisted. She couldn’t believe it. Someone here had to know who he was. “He was tall, kind of old, well-dressed, and he made me hot cocoa. He used this teakettle with a dragon on it.”
“Oh, the teakettle,” Julia said.
Mary stopped. “Why, yes, we do have that. But no one ever uses it—it’s an antique.”
“Mary’s nuts about that teakettle,” Julia said. “Wasn’t it made by a monk?”
A flush crept into Mary’s face. “It comes from a turn-of-the-century monastery in England, handmade by a Benedictine monk.” Her voice trailed off. “Excuse me, dear?”
“Neela,” Mrs. Krishnan said.
Neela had spotted something on Mary’s desk, on the other side of the computer. She held it up, a piece of embroidery stretched inside a pewter frame. “It’s a dragon,” she said.
Mary leaned forward and took the frame from her. “I’m sorry, dear, but this has been in the family for a long time. Delicate, you know.” She opened a drawer and stored it inside. “Now, what was I talking about? Oh, the teakettle.”
“Maybe it was an intruder,” Julia offered.
“Oh, yes,” Mary said, fixing a firm look on Neela. “An intruder.”
Neela was amazed by the way Mary had snatched the frame from her. The embroidery looked fairly new—not at all like a family heirloom—with a stitching of a dragon that was like the one on the teakettle. The dragon seemed to be part of something that looked like a shield from the middle ages, bordered by ornate patterns and a pair of swords crossed at the top.
“An intruder?” Mrs. Krishnan repeated.
Julia made a little clucking sound. “That’s awful. And he used your teakettle, too, Mary.”
“Well, it’s not my teakettle,” Mary corrected. “But you’re right. It is awful.”
“We haven’t had an intruder in years,” Julia said.
Sree tugged on his mother’s hand, bored. “Just a minute, Sree,” his mother said.
“Hal wasn’t an intruder,” Neela said. “He knew where everything was. He acted like he belonged here.”
“Ah, well, he was a smart intruder,” Mary said.
Neela was about to say more when she felt her mom’s hand press her shoulder, so she kept quiet. She was sure they were wrong about Hal. Besides, Mary was hiding something. What was there in that embroidery she didn’t want Neela to see? Was it the dragon?
Mrs. Krishnan handed a piece of paper to Julia. “That’s our contact information. Please let us know if you see or hear anything about the veena.”
Julia smiled and took the sheet from her. “Veena,” she repeated, looking at the word on the paper. “I’ve never even heard of such an instrument before. Have you, Mary?”
If Mary heard Julia, she pretended to ignore her. Instead she began to rearrange the three loose papers on her immaculate desk into a new stack. Meanwhile, Julia dropped the
contact sheet on the top of her mountain of papers. Neela wondered if it was the last time anyone would ever see it.
“Would you mind if we have another look around?” she asked glumly. She was beginning to think she had reached a dead end.
Mary rose from her desk to show them to the door. “Of course not, dear,” she said. As she crossed the floor, Neela heard it: phsst phsst.
Neela stopped and stared at Mary Goodwin’s feet.
“Mary, your shoes squeak something awful,” Julia said. She had noticed Neela staring. “I’ve been telling her to get them changed. I can hear her a mile away.”
“Oh, well, I’ve had these for so long,” Mary said, waving her hand as if to shoo Julia.
Neela looked up at Mary. “And you weren’t here yesterday, were you?” she asked.
Mary paused. “That’s what I said, dear. You ought to pay attention so that others don’t have to repeat themselves to you.” She pointed out the door. “The kitchen is that way. Best of luck finding what you’re looking for.” She said the last sentence with a sense of finality. Everyone could tell she was really saying good-bye.
“She was so unhelpful,” Mrs. Krishnan said, after they were in the hall.
Neela glanced behind her. “Be careful what you say,” she said in a low voice. “This place echoes like a cave.”
Just then, without any warning, Sree ran down the hall into to the vestibule.
“Sree, come back!” Mrs. Krishnan called out. “Now what?” she said to Neela, exasperated.
They had stopped in front of the kitchen. “I’ll be in here looking,” Neela said.
Mrs. Krishnan nodded. “All right, I’ll get Sree. Don’t go anywhere else. I don’t want to search for you afterward.” She disappeared into the vestibule.
As Neela entered the kitchen, she thought again of Mary. So that funny sound yesterday was Mary Goodwin’s shoes. Which meant Mary had been standing outside the kitchen door. Had she looked in? Had she seen Hal? What if Mary was the one who had taken her veena? Maybe she had peeked in the kitchen, saw Neela having cocoa, and then took the veena from the closet and ran off with it.
Neela sighed. But that explanation sounded so…ridiculous. How on earth could Mary have planned that, when Neela’s coming to the church was purely an accident? It made no sense. At any rate, Mary had lied when she said she wasn’t in the church yesterday afternoon. And she had snatched away the embroidery because there was something in it she didn’t want Neela to see.
Was Mary’s behavior a clue? Neela wasn’t sure. But as she looked around the kitchen, she began to feel another wave of despair. Not only had the office failed to provide any real information about Hal or her veena, but the kitchen was swept clean, the counters spotless. What could she possibly find there?
The only thing in sight was the dragon teakettle, which was up on the shelf. She walked over to the other side of the kitchen and carefully lifted it down. The weight of the kettle made her swing it momentarily before setting it on the table. It was heavier than she imagined. She looked again at the kettle, at its webbed wings and the handle, which she now saw was a tail with a point at the end. This time she also noticed that the dragon had only two legs with claws at the ends of its feet, and that its face looked like a bird’s.
Come to think of it, didn’t the dragon on her own veena look the same way, with the same bird face and wings? Or maybe all dragons looked like that. She had no idea. She tried to think back to Mary’s embroidery. It seemed as though that dragon had looked like a bird, too.
Down the hall she heard her mother’s voice, then footsteps coming closer. Neela picked up the kettle quickly to return it to the shelf, and in her haste, banged it against the side of the counter. The next thing she heard was the sound of metal hitting the kitchen floor. She looked down. The dragon head had broken off! Horrified, she picked it up, knowing any minute she was about to get caught. Then it was too late because the footsteps had arrived at the doorway, and she glanced up miserably, expecting to see her mother.
But it was not Mrs. Krishnan. To her surprise, standing in the doorway was Lynne, from school.
“It was an accident,” Neela sputtered. She felt as if she had been caught with her pants down.
Then something strange happened. “Slide it back on top of the teakettle,” Lynne said. When Neela could only stare at her, Lynne walked over and took the kettle and dragon head from her. She inserted the head along a tiny groove until the girls both heard something click into place. “It’s supposed to come off,” she explained. “You just loosened it.” She reached up and set the kettle back on its shelf.
Neela was still staring agape at Lynne. Before she could speak, they heard Mrs. Krishnan’s voice, this time closer, until she appeared in the kitchen. “So, did you find anything?” she asked Neela, Sree in tow.
“No, nothing here.” Neela flashed an uncertain look at Lynne.
“There wasn’t a rabbit,” Sree announced, as if that had been weighing on everyone’s thoughts.
Mrs. Krishnan glanced at Lynne curiously. “Are you a friend of Neela’s?”
Lynne pushed up her glasses and nodded. “We’re in school together. I’m Lynne.”
“Is this your church?” Mrs. Krishnan asked.
Lynne shook her head. “I’m just taking an after-school class here.”
“Me too,” Neela piped up. “Except mine meets on Tuesdays.”
“Mine meets today. Photography.”
“Watercolors.”
After that, there wasn’t much left to say. Neela stared at Lynne’s face, which was half covered by her mass of dark curls. She was still trying to figure out why Lynne had come to the kitchen in the first place. “Well,” Mrs. Krishnan said at last. “Nice to meet you.”
As they left the kitchen, Neela couldn’t help glancing back at the teakettle on the shelf. There was something important about it. Maybe something Mary didn’t want her to know. And now Lynne was connected to the teakettle, too.
That evening, a bunch of things happened. First, Neela’s father filed a police report.
“A what?” asked the clerk at the police station when Mr. Krishnan explained what had been stolen. Neela, who went with him, listened as he patiently spelled out the word.
Mr. Krishnan was given a form to fill out, and a case number when he was done.
“We’ll call you if we find anything,” the clerk said, without looking up.
Her father didn’t have much hope. When they returned home, he said, “I don’t know what they’ll do about it.”
Then the family had a conversation about “What to Do Next.”
“Let’s play Transformers,” Sree said. He held a toy up in his hand as if he was ready to pound it into someone.
“We can search the church again,” Neela said. “We can also put an ad in the paper.”
Neela saw her mother purse her lips but say nothing.
“Those are all good ideas,” Mr. Krishnan said. He sighed as if he didn’t have any good ideas of his own.
Neela thought this was the moment to tell them that she had heard what they said the night before. Her parents would be annoyed for a minute or so, but then they would have to tell her about the curse. And she was dying to know. But just as Neela was about to speak, the phone rang.
Mr. Krishnan went to answer it. “Hi, Amma,” he said.
Neela gulped. She listened as her father talked to Lalitha Patti. He said pretty much what he had the night before, except with the added bad news that the church hadn’t turned up anything. “I’m sure we’ll find it,” he said again and again. But it sounded even less reassuring today, especially when he kept repeating “I’m sorry” in between.
Neela stole a look at her mother. Was she still planning not to look for the veena anymore? Mrs. Krishnan’s face was tight, even a little angry, but as soon as she saw Neela watching her, she relaxed her expression and began straightening the items on the coffee table. “Sree, don’t throw your Transformer around,” she
said, a little too sharply.
“Neela, here,” Mr. Krishnan said. He held the phone out to her.
Neela looked beseechingly at him. Was there some way out of it? In her father’s eyes she saw that the answer was no.
She wiped her hands on her pants and took the phone. “Hi, Patti,” she said. She tensed, waiting to hear a sobbing person on the other side.
But surprisingly, her grandmother’s voice was calm. “Neela, how are you? You’re safe? Nothing happened to you?”
“Uh, no,” Neela said, startled.
“Good,” Lalitha Patti said. “I don’t want you to feel bad about this. I know you probably think it’s all your fault.”
“But it is all my fault,” Neela said. “I’m the one who lost it.”
“It isn’t so simple. You might have left the veena alone in the church. But maybe you were destined to do it.”
“I was?” Neela blinked. She glanced at her parents, who were sitting on the couch with Sree. What did Lalitha Patti mean? Was she talking about the curse? “Are you saying it’s okay the veena is gone?”
Lalitha Patti sighed. “What’s done is done.”
“But what if there were some way to get the veena back?”
Lalitha Patti paused. “Do you know who took it?” There was a faint hope in her voice.
Neela looked again at her parents. “Not exactly.”
“Forget about the veena.” Her grandmother lowered her voice a notch. “Unless you can’t.”
“But—” Neela was about to say more, when her father interrupted.
“I have one more thing to ask her,” he said.
Wordlessly, Neela gave him the phone.
“June or December,” she heard him say. “We’re still deciding.”
Neela went to the living room and frowned at the empty spot where her grandmother’s veena used to be. Her conversation with Lalitha Patti had unsettled her. Even more puzzling were her last words: Forget about the veena. Unless you can’t. Was this her grandmother’s secret way of telling her to keep looking?
