by Varsha Bajaj
“Yes,” Mr. C says. “I am sure I can find the recipe in Grandma’s old book. I will make one for Chris—and I will make one again for you, Karina, when you achieve your goal.”
Mr. C leaves, and I help Karina gather her pictures. She keeps the photo of the night sky that I picked on top of the pile. We both stare at it again. “Do you ever wonder if Venus is home to anyone?” she asks.
“I think it’s like eight hundred sixty degrees up there,” I say.
“Yes,” she says. “You would have to be a tardigrade or something to live there.”
I can’t believe Karina knows about tardigrades too. “Yeah, those creatures can live anywhere—hot or cold. They’re so amazing,” I say.
And this is amazing too, I think. Karina and I bonding over microscopic animals that can live in extreme conditions. Who knew she’d be fascinated by the weird stuff I like?
I walk home bouncing my basketball, thinking that it’s nice to have neighbors you can talk to about everything from sports stars to the actual stars.
It’s cool to think about stuff bigger than ourselves.
CHAPTER 9
KARINA
NOW THAT PAPA has found his calling as a math tutor, he is no longer as focused on his to-do list. Papa says he thinks he should have been a math teacher all along, instead of an engineer.
The only problem is that I have to hang around after school on tutorial days. I say I will be fine at home alone, but Papa disagrees. He does not want a discussion.
So I tag along on Tuesdays and Thursdays, do my homework in the cafeteria, and afterward, we take Chris home.
It’s funny how it took Papa coming to live with us for Chris’s family and mine to become friends. It’s hard to remember how we barely used to talk to each other.
Thursday afternoon, Chris, Papa, and I are walking to our car together. It’s one of those beautiful autumn days when you want to take a million pictures. The light is warm and golden, and there are a couple trees that are changing colors, which is actually kind of rare in Houston, Texas.
We walk across the empty soccer field and out onto the street that runs alongside it—the street where Papa parks when the parking lot is full.
I tell Papa I’m hungry, and he hands me the bag of strawberries and blueberries he had brought for us to snack on.
I pull out a carton, and Chris, Papa, and I stop in the shade of a large tree and all take handfuls.
“Papa,” I say, “when you make Grandma’s cake for us, will you make sure to put a ton of strawberries on top?”
“Yum,” Chris chimes in. “I’m going to work hard for that cake. And, Karina, that picture you posted yesterday of those geese flying in a V was a winner. I can see it hanging in the gallery now!”
“Thanks!” I tell him. “I’m glad you liked it—and that you both have such faith in me.”
I reach for more berries and lick the juice that trickles down my chin.
All these berries must remind Papa of a picture book we used to read together, because he says, “Remember you used to call me your ‘Papa Bear’?”
Chris is grinning wide. “Papa Bear? I want to hear.”
“Aw, come on, I was just a baby,” I say.
“One berry, two berry, pick me a blueberry,” Papa recites.
I loved that book. The rhythm of the chant still gets me. Who cares if Chris hears?
“Hatberry, shoeberry, in my canoeberry,” I say.
“Under the bridge and over the dam,” Papa and I recite together. “Looking for berries, berries for jam.”
The innocent rhymes make the berries taste sweeter.
“Mathberry, cakeberry, I cannot wait berry,” I say, improvising now.
We are having so much fun that we barely notice the car that crawls by.
When the driver slows down next to us and lowers his window, we expect him to ask for directions, but instead, he pulls the car over ahead of us and gets out.
He surveys the three of us: Chris, Papa, and me.
He walks up to Chris. “You okay?” he asks. Then he reaches over and musses Chris’s hair.
It’s weird, creepy, the way he touches Chris.
“Sure,” Chris says, ducking away. “Why?”
The man spits on the street.
“You know this man?” Papa asks Chris.
“No,” Chris replies, and we all keep walking.
Then the man turns to Papa.
“You far from home?” he asks Papa.
“No, sir,” Papa says.
I clutch Papa’s arm. The bag of berries swings between us.
The man has now dashed ahead of us and is walking backward so he can watch us. He is tall, his eyes are blue, and he smells. And he is prancing on his feet like a fighter throwing punches.
“I think you’re very far from home, sandman,” he says. “Very far.”
It’s that moment when the man turns into a monster.
He spits again, this time on Papa’s shoes.
Despite it being warm out, a chill goes down my spine.
“Hand me the phones,” the man barks.
When we don’t, he pulls out a knife. He’s well within striking distance of Papa.
Everything changes. Everything.
We toss our phones at him, and he hurls them into a bush by the side of the road.
We keep walking, and the man circles us like a vulture homing in on a carcass. His knife glints in the light.
Houses line the street opposite the soccer field, and I see our car at the end of it. But I don’t see a soul other than us. I pray that someone will come out with their trash or to walk their dog.
I wonder what the man will do if we make a run for it. Now I reach for Papa’s hand and hold it like a lifeline in case the man tries anything.
“You Arab!” he shouts. “Dirty trash! Muslims! Go home!”
I glance at Papa’s poker face. Chris is now holding Papa’s other hand.
The man comes close to me. “You angry or something, doll?”
“Don’t touch her,” Papa warns, steel in his voice.
The man shifts his attention to Chris. He is obviously no longer concerned about Chris being safe.
“You a Muslim lover?” he says, and pushes Chris down on the pavement.
“Leave the children alone,” Papa says, and steps forward. His tone says he has had enough. But in the face of the threatening knife, there is not much he can do.
“What will you do if I don’t, old man?”
In sheer desperation, I throw my backpack at the man, hoping that the knife will fall from his hands. It doesn’t.
He growls and then rushes toward Papa.
“Karina, Chris, run!” Papa yells.
Our attacker is not having that. He looks toward me. “You move or try anything else,” he says, “and he is dead. You want that?”
I shake my head. Chris and I are rooted to the spot.
We wouldn’t leave Papa anyway.
Now he shoves Papa hard. As Papa hits the pavement, it feels like a majestic oak has fallen.
The sound of his body hitting the ground makes me sick.
I stifle my gasp as the man kicks Papa.
I don’t even recognize the scream that rips out of me.
CHAPTER 10
CHRIS
WHEN THE GUY first approaches us, I think maybe he’s someone my parents know. Sometimes I forget random adults. Then he touches my hair in a strange way—and I’m sure I’ve never seen him before.
When he asks me if I’m okay, I’m confused. Why wouldn’t I be okay?
Then I notice his sneer and his darting eyes, and alarm bells ring.
I’ve played so many video games with bad guys in them, but nothing in my make-believe world has prepared me for this. In the games, I drop-kick monsters
, slay them with swords and karate chops—all with the click of a controller. In real life, my self-defense skills are limited to two lessons at the YMCA.
And in those games, the monster looks evil. He doesn’t wear a plaid shirt and jeans, and drive an ordinary gray Ford Taurus.
My heart feels like it’s gonna pound right out of my chest when he calls Mr. Chopra nasty names.
Then he turns on me, pushes me down, and I break my fall with my hands. The burn’s intense as the pavement cuts into my skin.
When the monster pushes Mr. C, for a flash I imagine I have the power to cushion his fall and turn the hard ground to soft sand. But I have no power.
I wince as I hear his body smack the ground.
“Terrorists don’t belong here,” the man says as he gives Mr. C a kick.
I want to leap onto the man’s back and pummel him. But he’s got that knife, and I’m afraid for us all.
Then I hear the best sound—the rolling of a trash can. The lady pulling it sees us and starts yelling. “Henry! Henry, call nine-one-one!”
The monster retreats. The sound of his boots on the pavement is sharp. Running. Fleeing. Cowardly.
The lady pulls out her phone and takes a picture of his escaping car. Her husband comes out. Says help is on the way.
Karina kneels over her grandfather. “Papa,” she says, “an ambulance is coming. You’re going to be okay.”
But Mr. C doesn’t look right. His leg’s at a funny angle, and I’ll never forget his moans of pain.
I’m praying, God, please let Mr. C be okay.
I need to call our parents. I remember that the monster threw our phones into the bushes. I will my legs to move. The bushes are scratchy, but I don’t care. I dive in and find the phones. I call my parents and Karina’s dad. I barely recognize my own trembling voice.
The ambulance and the police arrive.
They put Mr. C on a stretcher.
As they’re loading him into the ambulance, all the parents arrive.
Karina’s dad jumps out of the passenger seat, leaving his door wide-open, and races to his father’s side. I hear him speaking to Mr. C in Hindi. Then he climbs into the ambulance too.
From that point on, it’s all a jumble. A police officer talks to me. So does a paramedic. Mom keeps hugging me and squeezing my arm, and Karina’s mom hugs her close too.
An EMT instructs our moms to follow the ambulance to the hospital. Karina’s mom looks stunned. The paramedic asks her if she’s okay, and Mrs. Chopra sits for a minute and drinks some water.
Karina’s gone back to the spot where Mr. C fell. His Gandhi-style glasses are shattered on the street. One of his sandals lies there too. The berries we were eating are strewn all over. The burst strawberries look like splattered blood.
Karina stands there among the wreckage, holding herself tall, and takes pictures. At that moment, I’m so proud to be Karina Chopra’s friend.
The police are taking pictures too. Then they pick up Mr. C’s glasses and sandal and put them into a plastic bag.
At the hospital, Karina takes pictures of my scraped hands and scratched-up arms, and then we are all separated. I feel every scratch and cut on my arms and my face as they are cleaned and disinfected.
“How come I didn’t feel all these scratches when I dove into that bush?” I ask the nurse.
“That was your adrenaline kicking in,” he says.
Someone gives Mom a card for a counselor, in case I want to talk to someone about what happened. Then I’m released. I see Mom clutching the card.
Before we go, I ask the doctor, “Are they okay?”
He knows that I mean Karina and Mr. Chopra. “They are,” he says. “We’ll take good care of them. Don’t worry.”
At home, Mom and Dad hover over me. Mom sits on my bed and strokes my hair like I’m a little kid again.
Back then, I worried about monsters under my bed, not monsters on a street in my neighborhood.
* * *
It’s so hard to sleep—every time I close my eyes, I see the monster. I hear his voice.
I remember the way Mr. Chopra’s leg looked. I hear him moaning. Will he have to have surgery?
I try to count sheep. But counting makes me think of numbers, and numbers make me think of math, and math reminds of Mr. C.
We laugh a lot, Mr. C and I.
How or why would we find anything funny with math? But we do.
Mr. C uses all kinds of interesting examples when explaining numbers and their relationships. He even figured out a way to use my favorite team—the Rockets—to help me learn. We made a box-and-whisker plot using the height and weight of Rockets players. For real.
So, yeah, we have a good time, Mr. C and I.
I’m so wound up that I decide to call Matt. It’s 2:36 a.m., but he’s my person. Who else would I call at this hour? The phone rings a bunch of times, and in the quiet of the night, it sounds really loud.
Finally, Matt answers. “Chris?” he says. “What is it?”
I tell him everything, and he listens without breaking in. I’m glad he realizes this is a story that can’t be interrupted.
When I’m done, I feel emptied out.
“I wish I was home, Chris,” he says.
“Mr. Chopra is a good man,” I say.
“I know he is,” Matt says.
We are silent.
“This sounds like a hate crime. That man targeted Mr. Chopra because of his race, and because he thought he was Muslim.”
“Matt, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t stop him.”
I punch my pillow. The unshed tears finally roll down my face.
It’s like Matt knows it. He doesn’t say a word, but he is there, on the other end of the phone.
At last, I pull myself together. “I don’t know how he’s doing,” I say. “I wish I’d stayed at the hospital. But Mom said there was nothing I could do till tomorrow.”
“Mom’s right,” Matt says.
“Matt, his leg looked awful—”
“Chris, you need to rest,” Matt says. “Get some sleep now, okay? You need to be strong for your friends.”
He’s right, of course. “Good night,” I say.
“Love ya,” Matt says.
CHAPTER 11
KARINA
MY TEETH CHATTER. It is not that cold in the hospital, but I cannot get them to stop.
Mom bundles me in the warmth of a blanket. Dad makes me drink some hot chocolate from the vending machine.
He holds my hand. “Karina, you’re safe.”
Are we, though? We thought we were safe a few hours ago, when we were innocently walking to our car, reciting rhymes from an old picture book. I hear the hurtful words that were flung at us. That man is still out there in the world. How can we be safe?
“We don’t really know that we are safe anymore, do we?” I say to Dad.
Immediately, I regret saying that, because he looks so miserable. He holds me close, and for a bit I listen to his heart beat.
We don’t have much of an update on Papa yet. They are x-raying his leg. We do know his blood pressure is dangerously elevated.
Time marches on, even if it feels like our lives have been put on pause.
My stomach growls, and we remember we haven’t had any dinner. Dad gets us some granola bars, but they taste like ash to me.
Finally, the attending doctor comes in to see us.
The first thing I notice are his blue eyes—like the man who attacked us.
I force myself to look at the doctor. His lips are moving, but I am hardly listening. I take in the rest of him. He is tall and pale, like he has never seen the outside of this hospital. His stethoscope hangs on his wrinkled white coat. His hair is thinning, like Dad’s. His touch and tone are so different from the other blue-eyed man.
I must see beyond his eyes, I tell myself. I must.
I remind myself that all brown people are not terrorists and that all people with blue eyes are not mean haters.
I try to focus on the present, and I hear him say, “Your daughter is exhausted and in shock. I’m going to give her something to help her sleep. You can take her home, but please don’t hesitate to call if you need anything else. We are here to help.”
I don’t want to leave without seeing Papa, but they are doing more tests on him and trying to stabilize his blood pressure. The doctor insists that I need to go home and rest.
Dad stays at the hospital, and Mom and I drive home.
On the way home, I worry about Chris. He got pushed to the ground and called names. But he didn’t run. He stood by us.
That Chris is all right.
I hope he is okay.
Once we’re home, Mom offers food, which I refuse. She gives me one of the pills from the doctor to help me sleep, with a glass of milk.
It is way after midnight when I get into bed, so it’s Friday already. I remember that I have a science test on Venn diagrams in six hours. I need to wake up in five hours to make it to school. Then my head hits the pillow, and the world spins away.
I wake up flailing, gasping for air. In my nightmares, I was fighting an enormous dragon-like creature that spat fire, wore a plaid shirt, and yelled, “Go home!”
Before the dream fades, I murmur, “This is my home.”
I look at the glowing numbers on the clock and sit up. I can’t believe my eyes. It is eight thirty. Mom did not wake me up for school.
“Mom,” I call. “Mom.”
She hurries in as if she has been waiting for my shout.
“You’re awake!” she observes, as if she’d had some doubt that I would ever wake up.
“It’s so late,” I say. “I missed the bus!”
“It’s okay,” Mom says. “I thought you should skip school and we could go see Papa.”
I nod like that is no big deal, and she fills me in. “Papa has fractured his femur, which is the bone in his thigh—the longest bone in the body. The doctors need to insert a metal rod to help hold the bone in place while it heals. Surgery is scheduled for later today. We’re lucky he didn’t hurt his head.”
