It came as it always did, bringing a single rubber chappal, Sprite bottles without their caps, and torn plastic covers that looked like bubble gum explosions floating in the water. Ankle-deep in water, Amini stared glumly outside. She was recording frogs croaking on her mother's mobile. The first year, it had been exciting when the water came into the house, but now she was used to it.
Her mother would have disapproved if she was there. According to her, this would be like - what was her favourite example, again? Right. The Japanese tourists at the Louvre who stood in front of the original Mona Lisa and took a zillion pictures. Mother was never tired of saying, "Why? Why would anyone want an imitation over the original? Why?"
But she wasn't there and Amini had the house to herself. She spoke to the rain. She spoke to the frogs. One was inspired enough to hop into the room. "Keep it up. Volume up, just a little bit. Stand closer together," she said.
She counted the frogs and then arranged them in lines inside her head. And then, she made a face suitable for orchestra conductors and waved an imaginary baton with such rapid force that she soon collapsed in giggles. She didn't hear the phone hit the water.
The front door was open and the phone fl oated away slowly. It mercifully circled around one of the legs of a plastic chair. Amini was too busy to notice any of this, but the frog who was inside the room did. An ambitious frog, he swore that he would get the phone back for that nice girl.
Prithvi was standing on the road, looking mutinous. His was probably the only school that was open in the world, in the Milky Way, in the universe... and then, he stopped that line of thought because it wasn't making any sense anymore. His sprightly grandmother was waiting with him for the van.
"Only one more day, no? Just go! Then tomorrow we'll go out!" she said cheerily, her voice louder than thunder.
He tried to console himself by making squelchy noises with his not-so-white canvas shoes. Grandmother nudged him, pointing to something floating towards them.
"Is that a mobile phone?" grandmother asked, knowing very well that it was. She liked doing that sometimes and Prithvi almost always knew by the tone of her voice when she pretended not to know. Prithvi had enough time to catch it.
"Don't touch it!" she said, peeping at it, too." "Must be fi lthy."
"My shoes are filthy. And so are my socks. They're probably filling up with leeches right now."
"lugs."
"No leeches." The van is here!" She sounted too relieved, he thought glumly.
