Book Uncle and Me (6 page)

—

The News

FORTUNATELY, THERE
is no time for Reeni to stay upset.

She quickly tells me everything on the way inside from the balcony to the sofa, where we settle down to watch the TV news. The city was trying to fine us. Us! All the people in Horizon Apartment Flats. They were going to do this because they thought we had set up the lending library just outside our building compound. They called the library clutter.

Well, that was two things they got wrong! Reeni's daddy tried to tell them the library belonged to Book Uncle and not us. He tried to explain that it was not clutter.

“He didn't say nasty things about Book Uncle,” Reeni says. “You know he would never do that.”

Why would the city even care about Book Uncle's lending library being outside our building? We didn't mind, so why should anyone else? What is wrong with all these people?

“Don't worry,” I whisper to Reeni. “We'll do something.”

She looks as if she wants to believe me but she's not sure if she does. Truthfully, I don't know if
I
believe me.

There they are in a row, all the candidates. They begin with things I don't know much about, like what do they feel about the new Techno-Zone, and do they have a drinking water plan for the city? I should try to remember those things, in case I ever need to know about them.

Then the TV person says, “I understand you have all received letters about a certain gentleman in our city …”

“Mmm,” says Mayor S. L. Yogaraja, looking unhappy.

“… who runs a street-corner library,” says the TV person.

“Y-y-yes,” says another candidate.

“Something like that,” says a third.

“I wish to clarify,” Mayor SLY says, his hands making designs in the air. “This so-called Book Uncle person … he is, you know, not to put too fine a point on it, breaking the law. I have received complaints. We must make our city clean and green. Clean and green, yes. That's my motto.”

The TV person coughs. He turns to Karate Samuel. “And you, sir? Do you have anything to say on this matter?”'

“Yes, in
deed
,” says Karate Samuel, all bright and ready. “I have received many, many letters, even from children. About one Mr. Book Uncle.”

At last, at last, at long long last! I am so excited I jump up and down. My parents look at each other and they smile in that way grown-ups have when they're trying to understand kids, but really, it is too much for them so it's best to smile and carry on.

Karate Samuel is carrying on. “I understand Mr. Book Uncle makes it possible for children to get good books. Can you think of a better thing to do?”

The TV person says no, he can't.

“He is a symbol of our city's pride in elderly people, children and literacy.”

Karate Samuel pauses here, as if he now expects applause.

He has said some nice things about Book Uncle. That is a start. Slowly, I begin to clap my hands. Reeni sniffles, but she claps her hands, too. All at once our little flat fills with the sound of people clapping their hands.

I turn to see. Who else is here?

Why, the room is full. While we have been watching the news, it seems all the people who live in Horizon Apartment Flats have come to watch it with us. Even the newly-marrieds from 1B are looking at the TV instead of at each other.

“See?” I say to Reeni. “If one letter can cause a problem, many letters can make it right.”

She nods. But she still looks as if she's taken a step, expecting to find pavement under her feet, but it isn't there.

—

Just One Minute

THE NEXT DAY
Wapa comes home from work a little early. He offers to take me to the La-la-la Restaurant for mango ice cream.

“Yay! Ice cream? Can I call Reeni?”

“Of course.”

I ring Reeni's doorbell. She asks Arvind Uncle. He goes and gets his wallet. Which is how not two, not three, but four of us end up around a table at the La-la-la Restaurant, chatting over little bowls of creamy melt-in-your-mouth mango ice cream.

Ice cream is not the only thing to share. There is news as well. Reeni's daddy has a job! He is going to be working at the TV station. They needed an accountant and now they have hired him. He is excited, so Reeni is excited, too. And so am I, since that is how friendship works.

“Samples of new surprise ice cream for anyone?” the waiter says.

Reeni and I both want to try the new surprise ice cream. The waiter says he'll be back in just one minute.

As he disappears into the back of the La-la-la Restaurant, the talk at our table turns to Book Uncle.

“Would you believe the mistake I made?” Arvind Uncle says. He talks about that letter he wrote to Mayor SLY. “Bad mistake, I tell you. I was upset because our association got threatened with a fine of two thousand rupees for debris and clutter on the pavement.”

“Why?” Wapa asks. “Why would they suddenly decide to fine us?”

“Politics and crookedness, that's why,” says Reeni's father. He said that after he sent his explaining-not-complaining letter, he got suspicious. So he asked a few questions. He found out that a crew of city workers had been sent to clean up the street just outside the Palm Tree Hotel.

The Palm Tree Hotel is down the road from Horizon Apartment Flats. Why was the city suddenly so worried about the road outside the hotel? So Reeni's daddy found out who owns that hotel.

“It seems the owner's daughter is getting married and the future in-laws are coming here from Mumbai for the wedding.”

Naturally they're going to stay in that very fancy hotel that we walk past all the time but have never been in. They want to get the sidewalks cleared and cleaned in time for the wedding.

We know that Palm Tree Hotel very well. Whenever the pressure in our water taps goes down, Umma grumbles,
Look at the lawn of that Palm Tree Hotel! Look at those fountains. They're drinking up our water.

The just-one-minute waiter finally brings little sample cups with very pink scoops in them. Pomegranate. It tastes zippy and sweet.

“So who is he?” says Wapa. “The owner of the Palm Tree Hotel?”

Arvind Uncle lowers his voice. “You won't believe it. One of the reporters at the station told Shoba. It's the mayor.”

“The mayor?”

Suddenly an ice cream scooper has scooped a giant hole in my insides. “Mayor SLY?”

What? This is why he wants Book Uncle off the pavement at the corner of St. Mary's Road and 1st Cross Street? To clean up the street for his daughter's wedding?

“All the hoopla about fines and permits is just an excuse,” says Arvind Uncle.

It's unbelievable.

Book Uncle is not debris. He is not clutter. How can anyone say that about a lending library that puts the right book into the right hands on the right day?

That sweet and zippy pomegranate ice cream suddenly tastes flat.

—

One at a Time

“WANT TO BUY
some papaya?” Late that evening, the fruit man brings a bagful across the road. “Sweet and nice, guaranteed.”

“Not right now,” I say, “but wait till you hear this.” And I tell him about Mayor SLY and the wedding and the guests who will be staying at the Palm Tree Hotel.

The fruit man listens carefully. He wiggles and waggles his head to show me that he gets it.

“See that cart?” He points across the road. The fruit on his cart is arranged in perfect pyramids — guavas, sapotas, oranges, papayas. Each pyramid has many at the bottom, many more in between and one on the very, very top.

“How do you think you make a pile like that?” he demands.

“Carefully?” says Reeni.

The fruit man laughs. “One at a time,” he says. “One at a time. It's the only way. Come on. Get busy. Start piling up your fruit.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “What fruit?” He's speaking in riddles now, just like my parents.

“I mean you need people on your side,” he says. “So you must tell as many people as you can. We don't have much time left.”

He may be a riddle-talker, but the fruit man is right.

I get busy. I talk to Anil and Reeni. The people we know are kids, so that is who we tell. All day long in school, we tell-tell-tell. We tell our friends and classmates to tell their parents and their aunties and uncles and grandparents and friends and the people next door. Tell them that the only reason the mayor wants Book Uncle off the pavement is to clean up the road for his daughter's wedding.

How fair is that? Does the mayor think he owns every street corner? Is Book Uncle no more than debris? Clutter? Tell-tell-tell, we urge them. Keep up the telling.

In the next two days, we set out again and again, up and down St. Mary's Road.

“Don't vote for Mayor SLY,” we tell people. “Vote for Karate Samuel. He cares about Book Uncle. Didn't he say so on TV?”

By Sunday evening when the parrots have settled down to sleep in the raintree branches, we drag ourselves back to Horizon Apartment Flats. My feet hurt. Reeni has a blister on her heel. But we are wearing big smiles, because we have done good work and maybe, just maybe, Mayor SLY will lose this election, and Book Uncle will be back on the pavement with his books.

—

Counting Chickens

WEDNESDAY IS ELECTION
day. Umma votes. Wapa votes. They come back with little ink marks on their fingers to show that they have voted.

Reeni and I go up and down the stairs asking everyone in Horizon Apartment Flats.

“Have you voted yet?” “Have you?” “Have you?”

The newly-marrieds have voted.

“Yes, yes,” they tell us together, holding up their index fingers with the little inky marks for proof.

Shoba Aunty has voted. Arvind Uncle has voted, too. Reeni made sure of that. Chinna Abdul Sahib has voted.

Has Book Uncle voted? We race around the corner and all the way to his little house.

“Have you voted?” we ask him.

“What's the use?” he says.

“Book Uncle!” I cry. “You have to vote.”

With Reeni's help I tell Book Uncle all the things we have been doing to get his library back to its corner.

“If Karate Samuel wins, he'll let you put your library back. Don't you think you should vote for him?”

He looks at me through his thick round glasses.

“We mustn't count our chickens before they are hatched.”

“What chickens?” Reeni and I say together. Then I get it. These chickens are like marbles and bricks and flapping doves.

“Book Uncle,” I say, “forget the chickens. If you vote you will be one of those doves that managed to escape from the hunter.”

He stares at me.

“The doves,” I remind him. “In that book that you lent me.”

“You are right,” he says slowly, in a thinking-very-hard kind of voice. “I'll go now. Is there still time?”

“Yes,” we say. “There is still a little time before the polls close.”

We see him on his way. Then we head back, feeling as if we have done a full day's work. Reeni goes home. I go back to 3A, where Wapa is boiling rice.

“Where's Umma?” I ask. He tells me she's taken the phone to the shop to be repaired.

“It's lost its ring tone,” Wapa says. “But Nathan's Electronics said they could fix it.”

“Oh!” I cry. “We should have gone to the shops! We talked to lots of people but we didn't talk to the shopkeepers.”

The rice water boils over. Wapa says something under his breath, then turns it quickly into a cough.

“Talk to them about what?” says Wapa.

“About Book Uncle.” I explain about the fruit man's pyramids of guavas, sapotas, oranges and papayas, and getting big things done little by little and gathering the people we need. I tell him how I have been talking to people all day long, urging them to vote for Karate Samuel because he'll help Book Uncle and Mayor SLY won't.

Wapa turns away from the steaming rice. He leans against the kitchen counter and looks at me. He looks and looks. He looks at me as if I have suddenly grown wings and am about to begin flapping around the room.

I cannot tell if Wapa is smiling or serious. Is it possible to be both?

“Yasmin,” he says at last. “Election day is almost over. We'll know the results in a few more days. There's nothing else you can do.”

He is right. But still I go to my room and count the books on my shelf as if they've hatched into chickens.

—

Whose Victory Is It, Anyway?

IT TAKES TOO
many days for the election results to come out on TV. I think I will go crazy from all the waiting. Why can't they add up the votes sooner, now that everything is supposed to be double-quick with the Internet and all? Why are they so slow? People are always telling kids to hurry up. Now it seems as if the grown-up world has slowed to a crawl.

A whole week goes by the way snails are supposed to. Although really, I have never seen a snail. They don't just wander around in the city. I get grumpy thinking of all the things I have not seen and do not know. Including, now, those election results.

On Wednesday, at dinner time, I pull the clothes off the washing line. I wash my hands and put the plates out for dinner. Then I help Umma to put out rice and egg curry and crunchy fried yams and grated carrots with mustard seeds on top.

By the time we finish eating, it is dark. The breezes blow in from the faraway beach over the city rooftops.

Reeni comes over. I go up to the terrace with her and pick up the flowers that have blown off the raintree. Their puffy pink petals are turning limp. We roll them between our fingers and let the pollen streak our hands.

“Reeni! Yasmin!” Shoba Aunty is calling up from their balcony. “Come down. Come listen.”

We hurry down, startling the lizards that are busy eating insects around the terrace lights.

On TV they are announcing the election results.

“Oh, look, look, look!” Reeni shrieks and points.

By a margin of 3,879 votes — that is a lot of votes, isn't it? — KARATE SAMUEL HAS WON! It's all over the TV news and the radio news. Within minutes, it's also all over the people-shouting-to-each-other news.

We run up the stairs telling everyone. We run down the stairs telling everyone all over again in case they didn't hear it the first time.

“He won!” we tell Chinna Abdul Sahib.

“Perfect,” he says.

“He won!” we tell Shoba Aunty.

“We did it,” she says. Arvind Uncle beams. They are not fighting anymore, it's clear.

“He won,” we tell the newly-marrieds. They gaze happily at each other.

“He won,” we tell the istri lady, who is closing up shop for the day.

“Yes,” says the istri lady, closing the wooden doors of her ironing booth and clicking the lock. “But will he remember our Book-ayya?”

Her words sting. I want him to remember. I want it so badly that my stomach hurts.

What was the use of all that work? What if this Karate Samuel actor person who is now mayor forgets all about the one thing that everyone wants him to do? The one person we all want him to help?

Is the istri lady right? Will Mayor Karate Samuel forget about Book Uncle? Her stinging words buzz around in my mind like angry bees.

“You worry too much,” says Reeni.

“I know,” I say sadly. “I can't help it.”

I go back to 3A. The TV is off and my parents are quiet. Everything feels empty because everything is over. I go to my room and I look at all the books on my shelf. And I think,
What can I do now?

I pick up a book. It is the karate book that Book Uncle gave me. I should give it to Anil. He would like it. I open it. On the very first page, it says,
A true leader seeks to help those who are doing good.

Doing good. That's Book Uncle. A true leader. Isn't that what Karate Samuel wants to be?

I run to the kitchen and I pick up the phone that now has its ringtone back. I call Anil.

“Anil,” I say, “you know everything about Karate Samuel, right?”

“Almost,” says Anil. “Why?”

“Do you think he wants to be a true leader?”

“Of course he does,” says Anil.

“In that case,” I say, “we need to remind him. Are you with me, Anil?”

“Hiya!” Anil yells into the phone. Then he says, “Sorry, Yasmin. I did not mean to hurt your ears. It was just a karate way of saying, Yes, I'm with you.”

Karate Samuel did not win this election, I tell myself. Whose victory is it, anyway?

Ours, that's whose.
We
won this election. Now we have to make sure he does not forget Book Uncle.