I looked at them again. Other children were running around, some through the verandah, so that, in passing, they could spy on us. These just looked a little quiet and lost. After all, you might not feel like running around every tiffin time. You might want to do something quiet and peaceful. It seemed to me that H’s unwellness was something of that sort as well.
“Do you want to read a book?” I asked. They nodded enthusiastically. So, they took off their shoes and arranged themselves on my dari while I looked at what I had. I decided to read them a story, since I felt in need of some energizing, myself. I found one about two cars, red and green, who go on a night-time race (I can’t remember the name at the moment).
They enjoyed it. H took his own book, but kept peeping over and joining in the commentary as we read. The others laughed and cried, figuratively, through the race, cheering on the cars and predicting which would come first.
When it was over, I realised that it was very quiet outside. Tiffin time was over! I rushed them off to class. That was an excitement in itself, to have gotten late because one was reading during tiffin.
At the end of the day, when the School was milling around generally, waving to parents and dragging backpacks and bumping into each other, two of the gang ran up to me and handed me colourful pictures of – guess what – cars. I put them up in my office.
