Frostbitten: The Complete Series (30 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
A KIND SOUL

I have an appointment,” Tarun said between breaths.

“Name?”

“Tarun Mumbar.”

“Your appointment was twenty minutes ago.”

“I know—I’m sorry. I got caught up, but I left early enough that…”

The receptionist cut Tarun off. “Just have a seat, please.”

“O—Okay,” Tarun said.

He looked around the small waiting area. There were only a couple of seats—one of which was already taken by a cute little blonde girl. He sat down next to the girl and started to rub his hands together, trying to get his blood flow moving again. He blew warm air from his lungs onto his frigid hands.

The cute little blonde looked over. “Give me your hands,” she said softly.

Tarun looked up. The girl was wearing a hood over her short, wavy blonde hair. Her eyelashes were dark—almost jet black, but she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Her lips were plump and smooth, and her skin was a perfectly consistent peach colour. She was beautiful—a natural bombshell.

Tarun hesitantly gave the girl his hands. She firmly grabbed onto them and squeezed her fingertips. She was warm—incredibly warm. Her body heat quickly began to thaw Tarun’s frozen joints. She gently rubbed up and down the length of Tarun’s fingers, sending warm pulses of energy through Tarun’s body—a strange foreign kind of warm energy.

Tarun’s body began to relax. He stopped shaking and he suddenly felt warm.

He laughed. “I’m not used to this cold,” he said in his thick Indian English combination accent.

“It takes some getting used to,” the mysterious blonde said.

The girl continued to rub Tarun’s hands, warming him further, and relieving his anxieties.

“You’ve got a lot of tension in you. You’re very nervous,” the beautiful blonde said.

“I just really want this meeting to go well.”

“Don’t be so nervous. Just relax,” the girl said. “Whatever happens in there happens for a reason.”

Tarun smiled. “You’re a believer in fate?”

The girl smiled. Her smile was enough to turn any man into a drooling dog. “How can you not be?” she asked.

Tarun stared into the girl’s eyes—quickly getting lost in her mysterious splendour.

“Tarun Mumbar?” a chubby man, dressed in a black dress shirt said as he stood in the doorway to the meeting room.

The girl released Tarun’s hands. “Just relax, Tarun,” she said.

“How—How did you know my name?”

“He just said it out loud,” the girl said.

Tarun laughed at his own expense. “Right—I’m an idiot.”

“No you aren’t. Good luck.”

Tarun smiled and followed the man into his office.

“My name is Richard Friesen. I’m the head of admissions here at SBU.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Friesen.”

“I understand that you’re looking to study at our little school here.”

“That’s right, sir.”

“SBU might be small, but you’d be surprised to know that we maintain one of the highest GPA’s in the country. We hold a rigid admission standard, and we have one of the highest employment rates upon graduation.”

“Yes—I know, sir. I’ve done quite a bit of research on the school. I’m very excited to be considered.”

Richard Friesen looked down at a copy of Tarun’s transcript. “Your grades are very good.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s difficult to get grades like this in British schools. You should be very proud.”

“Oh—I didn’t go to a British school, sir.”

“Are you not British?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh, excuse me. Your accent must have fooled me. Australian?”

“Indian, sir.”

Richard went silent for a moment.

“The province I was raised in was predominantly English. Most of the British people there stayed after India’s independence.”

“Oh—So your first language is English?”

“Yes… Well, no—its Hindi, but I can speak English fluently.” Tarun laughed. “You might even say that I can speak English better than most English speakers.”

Richard subtly rolled his eyes. “Right…” he said.

Tarun was suddenly struck with a sense of nervousness. “I hope that’s not an issue?”

“Well—I don’t know how they do things over in India, but here in Canada, we have certain requirements—English equivalence requirement.”

“Like I said, I’m totally fluent in English. I might even know it better than Hindi. I mean—you yourself thought I was literally English.”

“Also,” Richard continued, ignoring Tarun. “There is a list of countries with respectable education systems—Education systems that we recognize as equivalent or near enough to our own. It’s easier for us to look at a foreign transcript and decide if someone meets our qualifications.”

“Most of India has a very strong education system.”

“Most.”

“Well—The province I’m from has very good schools. A lot of respected scientists and researchers came out of my province.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Mumbar, that’s irrelevant, as India isn’t on the aforementioned list of countries.”

“O—Okay,” Tarun said.

“These grades—on this transcript, mean nothing to me. There could be nothing but a’s on here, and it wouldn’t make a difference.”

“There are nothing but a’s…”

“Like I said—It doesn’t make a difference. They might as well be j’s or Hindi scribbles or Batman symbols.”

“But certainly they mean something—surely there is someone you can contact who can explain the course differences, or something.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Mr. Mumbar. That’s not to say that you cannot go to SBU though.”

“Okay,” Tarun said, clinging on to the little bit of hope that was being offered.

“We have other programs here—High school upgrading courses.”

“You—You want me to retake high school?”

“You wouldn’t have to retake all of it. Just the courses that are requirements for the major you are hoping to study. What major are you hoping to pursue?”

“Astrophysics.”

“In which case, you would need to retake your twelfth grade Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Math, Calculus and English.”

Tarun’s head was spinning at the concept of redoing six courses that he’d already completed. But Tarun was smart—and he knew it. He knew that the work would be a breeze. But the thought of pushing his dreams back another year or two was discouraging.

“How do I sign up?” Tarun asked.

“I can give you all of the forms that you need. The next round of classes won’t start until the spring, so I recommend you try to ‘improve’ your other university qualifications in that time.”

“Improve my other qualifications? What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s difficult to say, in your position.”

“Why?”

“How can I put this? SBU likes well-rounded students. We like students with musical talent, or entrepreneurial skills. We like students who volunteer and contribute to the community.”

“Okay—Sure. I used to play soccer—maybe I can find a soccer club here. And I will look into volunteering opportunities around town.”

Richard laughed. “You won’t find any soccer around here, Mr. Mumbar. I’m afraid you’ll be lucky to find anything that isn’t hockey.”

“Oh. Well I can look into that. Maybe I’ll be good at it,” Tarun eagerly suggested.

“But also—more than anything, we like a good, hard-working Canadian student. Someone with that—Passionate Canadian spirit.”

Tarun stared at the administrator for a moment, processing what he was saying. “Sir—I am Canadian,” Tarun said. “I have my Landing Papers right here.”

“Right—I’m sure that you are.”

“I am,” Tarun said, getting defensive.

“Right.”

Tarun’s frustration was starting to get the better of him. He was on the verge of having a mental breakdown from all of the “less than subtle” ignorance. Tarun studied all of the Canadian immigration tests for months, and he made a point of learning all of the Canadian societal norms. He called Canada his home, and respected the country; it’s beauty, and all of its opportunities more than most “Good, hard-working Canadians”.

“Take home these course applications and bring them in before the New Year. Or even better, fill them out today, and if there’s an opening in one of the classes, maybe you can get started early. If you do well in all of these classes, you just might have a shot at SBU.”

The word “might” stung.

Tarun took the papers and stood up, without responding. There was no sense in arguing—it wouldn’t get him anywhere. All he could do was ace the classes and hope that they accepted him.

“Have a nice day, Mr. Mumbar.”

“Thanks,” Tarun said as he walked out of the office.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
ALWAYS KEEP YOUR HEAD UP

Tarun walked over to the little waiting area, where the cute little blonde was still sitting and waiting. He sat down and placed the forms on his lap. He read over them.

“You shouldn’t let him talk to you like that,” the pretty girl said.

“What?” Tarun asked.

“The way he talked to you—that was rude. He’s a racist slime ball.”

“Oh—I don’t think he was trying to be racist. He meant well.”

The girl smiled.

“How—How did you know what he was saying in there?” Tarun asked.

“I don’t know—the walls here are really thin, I suppose.”

“Oh. Weird.”

“One day, when you’ve discovered the next theory of relativity, you can rub it in his fat ignorant face.”

Tarun laughed. “Thank you,” he said genuinely. “But it’s just the time and the way that he was raised. It’s not his fault. One day this won’t be an issue.”

Tarun looked over at the silent girl. She was smiling at him, with her beautiful smile. “I just wish sometimes that the world was filled with more people like you. I admire your strength—I really do. You’re very humble and very courageous.”

Tarun blushed. “I’m afraid I’m not the best at taking a compliment.”

“And you’re modest,” the girl finished.

“Sometimes when life deals you certain cards, you have no choice but to keep your head up.”

“Well, make me proud and always keep your head up, okay?”

Tarun’s entire coy face was red with embarrassment. It wasn’t every day that a beautiful woman showered him with compliments. The girl looked into his eyes as she smiled, admiring Tarun’s humble traits.

“Megan Gold?” Richard Friesen said, as he walked back out of his slimy den of ignorance.

“That’s me,” Megan said to Tarun. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Likewise,” Tarun said as he watched the beautiful blonde enter into the administration office.

“I’ll see you around, Tarun Mumbar!” Megan called out with a smile on her face.

Tarun smiled at the beauty. “Wow,” Tarun muttered to himself, still in shock that someone so beautiful could be so nice and respectable.

He finished filling out the course applications, writing “As soon as possible” into each of the start dates. Tarun was smart enough that he could balance all of the classes at once, if need be—He had, after all, finished them all with flying colours before.

He hurried home to help his father with his ambitious and slightly illegal renovations. When Tarun returned to his house, Vish was drenched in water.

“Dad! What happened?” Tarun asked in his native Hindi tongue.

“The manual said to turn off the water and give it two hours to drain before changing the main stack. I saved two hours.”

“You’re going to kill yourself, you know that—right?”

“A wise man once said that you can live a lifetime in a minute. I just bought myself one-hundred and twenty lifetimes.”

“Did the same wise man say to rip piping out above your head that could be filled with boiling water?”

“Why would it be boiling? I’m not running heat to anything.”

“We have a tenant, dad! He could have been taking a shower or doing the dishes.”

“Oh, right.”

Tarun walked into his suite to grab a towel for his father.

“So are you official an SBU student?” Vish asked.

Tarun handed his father the towel. “Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“They need me to finish a few courses first.”

“A few courses? But you’ve finished every course there is to finish.”

“It’s complicated.”

“So they said no?”

“Yeah—For now.”

Vish stared at his son for a moment. “So why do you look so happy?”

“Huh?”

“You’re grinning like Charlie Sheen in a whore house,” Vish said.

“Do you even know what you just said?” Tarun asked, laughing.

“Yes,” Vish said sternly. “I watch TMZ.”

“Since when?”

“In The West it’s important to stay up to date with the celebrities—Very important.”

“Right…”

“Do you know who Jennifer Aniston is currently dating?”

“No, dad. I don’t.”

“You need to know these things here, son.”

Tarun tried his best to hold back his laughter.

“Did you know that George Clooney is getting a divorce? That didn’t last long, did it?” Vish said in a shockingly serious tone.

Tarun burst into laughter.

“What?” Vish said, confused. “I’m just trying to embrace the culture.”

“You’re doing a great job, dad. Really—you are.”

“Come help me move the hot water heater,” Vish said, ignoring his laughing son.