At dinner that night, Olivia mentioned Dev and told the others how hard he had cried over skinned knees and palms and a torn pants leg.
“He ripped his pants?” Tisha asked. “Well, that’s why he was so upset.”
“The school requires the children to wear uniforms,” Delilah said.
Melanie nodded. “It’s a huge expense on poor families. Huge. Dev probably has one shirt and one pair of pants.”
“Buying another pair,” Tisha said, “would be like a whole ’nuther back-to-school shopping trip for us back at home when we were little. It’s just too big an expense. And unexpected. He might very well have gotten in trouble when he got home. Some of his tears may have been due to anticipating his parents’ reactions.”
“This is awful,” Olivia said. How many shocks could she take? “Why does the school even require it? I thought we’re here to help these kids get ahead. Not cause additional burden on the families.”
“Hey,” Tisha said, “it’s free otherwise. A school that teaches their kids and makes them fluent in English, all at no cost? The uniform is each family’s investment. Something so that they have some sort of stake in the kids’ educations.”
“And they do have their pride,” Aubra weighed in. “If they can’t buy new, embarrassment alone might cause them to pull the boy out of school.”
“Pull him out? That’s such an overreaction!” Olivia said. “Can’t his mother sew the rip? Surely the moms here can sew.”
“Of course. And then every day he will arrive in the same pair of torn and repaired pants. And everyone will know his family can’t afford a second pair.”
“But if all the children are in the same boat, who cares?”
“It’s an accepted illusion. They can all pretend to have five sets of clothes, until something shatters the fiction.”
“The red rain stained all their shirts. They didn’t all freak about that.”
“Bleach,” Melanie said. “A white shirt can soak in bleach.”
“So if the parents are too embarrassed about not being able to buy another pair, they’ll just keep him at home? No more school for him?”
“Well, not here anyway,” Aubra said.
The tears she’d interpreted as an extreme overreaction to a skinned knee actually reflected his fear of getting in trouble combined with the knowledge the torn pants might result in no more school for him. These kids deserved a break. She lost her internal struggle not to get involved and turned to Chris.
“Would you please drive me to the market again?”
She expected him to be mildly annoyed, but Chris looked downright delighted to be recruited as chauffeur again. Trips to the market was turning into their thing, which of course Aubra noted.
“You two sure do find a lot of reasons to go to the market together.”
Whatever. Let her be irritated. What difference did it really make? She needed to go to the market, and everyone had been abundantly clear that Chris needed to accompany them when they went. The other girls could come if they wanted to. Nobody was stopping them. But no one spoke up, aside from Aubra’s snide comment.
At the market, she bought a couple of new soccer balls, some jump ropes, and an actual cricket set for the boys. After a moment’s hesitation, she asked for a second set for the girls. She would learn the basic gist and rules of the game and then teach the girls so they could play too. She would make mistakes and get things wrong, but after all they were only playing during recess. No one was trying to qualify for any world championships here.
At the tiny pharmacy, she requested a huge box of bandages, resulting in some confusion over what exactly she was asking for. Chris interceded and told the man behind the counter she wanted plasters.
“They use the British term here,” he told her. “Aubra filled me in. Now you’ll know for next time.”
While the man went to retrieve the plasters and other assorted first-aid items she’d asked for, she debated whether or not to open a discussion about Chris and his admirer. Her questions might be interpreted as a way to gauge his interest and availability for herself. Which wasn’t the case at all. But there was a chance he was utterly oblivious to Aubra’s obvious-to-anyone-else affections. Maybe she’d be doing Aubra a favor by letting him know and giving him a nudge. Although honestly, she couldn’t believe anyone could be that clueless. Finally, she decided to simply plow ahead.
“So. Aubra is nice.”
One side of his nose wrinkled, and his brow furrowed. “You really think so? She’s a little bit of a diva truth be told. Too high maintenance for me.”
Oh. That shed some light on things. He was aware of her interest. “Well, I don’t know her that well. She’s been nice enough to me though. Gives me chocolates on girls’ nights.” She left out the bit about the passive-aggressive comments and behavior. “I guess you already know she has a crush on you.”
It wasn’t a question. She looked down at the counter and then examined all the medications on the shelves behind it very closely, uneasy about making eye contact.
“I know. I feel bad about it, but it just didn’t work out. Like I said, she was just too high maintenance for me. And wanted to move way too fast. When she started insisting I go to England to meet her parents, I had to break it off. I just wasn’t ready for that, you know? And I don’t know how I would have handled an international relationship like that after teaching here ends. I mean, I told her I wanted to keep things light.”
Well. This shed a whole new and much brighter light on the situation.
“You guys dated?”
He tipped his head, confusion in his eyes. “I assumed you knew. Figured the other teachers would’ve filled you in on the gossip.”
No. Not a word. She didn’t know what to say. Hearing him say Aubra wanted to move too fast and that he wasn’t ready for a serious relationship made her think maybe she’d been misreading cues. Maybe he was simply a really nice guy who liked helping people.
The man behind the counter returned with her antibiotic ointment, pain relieving cleansing spray, bandages, thermometer, and other assorted items. She picked up a pouch to store everything in and added that to her pile of purchases. She would keep them all in her classroom and function as school nurse as long as she was here. And then leave it with her replacement when she left.
A pastel package caught her eye. “And I’d like some pads, please,” she told the vendor. She wanted to see these things herself. She glanced sideways at Chris, but he didn’t cringe. If he was at all bothered by her request, he hid it well.
However, as nonchalant as Chris appeared to be about the subject matter, the man behind the counter tensed. His lips flattened into a line. Without a word and without looking directly at her, he went to the shelves and pointed. She asked for one of each, curious if every option was truly as bad as the other teachers had led her to believe. The vendor’s attitude confused her. Why should this be any different than her request for a box of bandages? Or the packages of tissues he’d retrieved for her? No one was ostracized and given the cold shoulder for buying toilet paper. Why did female hygiene products carry such a stigma?
She had been taught as a young girl to “be discreet” with her pads and tampons and to keep them out of sight. It wasn’t something discussed ever. She could even remember her mom burying packages in the shopping cart underneath other items in the basket. Why were girls and women made to feel embarrassed about their bodies? This seemed akin to the unspoken agreement that everyone pretended the children all had entire wardrobes of clothes at home, even though everyone knew better. Girls and women should pretend not to have periods and refrain from discussing anything about them or brandishing product in plain sight that would then dispel the fantasy? She never felt the urge to trumpet her time of the month or discuss details about it. But no woman or girl should feel shamed or ostracized for it.
The man returned to the counter with one of every type of pad sold at this rural little market and dumped them beside her other purchases as if he expected them to contaminate him. He took out old newspaper and quickly wrapped each package, hiding the product from view, then tallied her total and accepted payment, though not with a smile.
“Wow,” she said as they walked away. “He turned downright chilly, didn’t he?”
“That was a lot of pads.” Chris laughed. “Maybe he was afraid you were about to bleed all over the sidewalk in front of his shop.”
She couldn’t help but laugh too. “Where can I buy school uniforms?”
Her question appeared to give him whiplash. “We’d need to go back to the more upscale market where we got your clothes when you first got here. There’s a bigger and slightly nicer pharmacy over there too. I don’t know if you need more pads, but you’d be able to get nicer ones. Maybe some overnight options if things are that dire.”
She caught the gleam in his eye and burst out laughing. Okay, there was a difference between being comfortable with pads and making suggestions and knowing where to buy the better options. And joking about periods like they’re no big deal. “I’m not . . . these aren’t all for me. I’m trying to figure out how to help Aditi. And eventually the other girls.”
“I figured. I’m only teasing you.”
“Still, how do you know where the best pads are? That doesn’t seem normal.”
“The other teachers talk. Remember, I drive them around. We’ve even driven all the way to Kochi to stock up on crates of them. I felt like a smuggler.” He laughed again. “Sorry. This just doesn’t bother me.”
“No, please don’t apologize. It’s refreshing.” Scott hadn’t been nearly so easy-going. She’d never thought much about it, but the squeamish attitude was downright silly in retrospect. Were smart people disturbed by periods? She almost laughed out loud at the thought of asking him that. And the look on his face if she’d turned his own weapon on him.
As they turned to leave, she spotted a young girl walking with a man and woman and did a double take. “Aditi!”
The girl turned at her name.
Olivia hurried to her. “I’m so happy to see you! I have another book for you.”
“Hello, Ms. Montag,” Aditi said. The girl’s demeanor seemed far more subdued than it had been in class.
She held out a hand to the woman she presumed to be Aditi’s mother, who balanced a baby on one hip and clutched a toddler by the hand. “Hello. I’m Aditi’s teacher at the school. I’m so happy to meet you. She’s a wonderful student.”
The woman stared at the ground.
“No, Auntie. No English,” Aditi said.
The man interceded. “Aditi does not go to school now.”
The scowl on his face unnerved her. “I understand that, but maybe you could reconsider. She’s very smart and has so much potential. And I have another book for her—”
“No!” the man insisted. He grabbed Aditi and pulled her away. “No more school. And no more books with girls learning magic and tricking people. She stays home now.”
Learning magic and tricking people? Oops. He didn’t approve of the book. Still, Aditi deserved to return. “If you give her the chance, she can be so much more than a wife and mother. Please think about it. Wouldn’t you like to see your daughter be a doctor or—”
“No more!”
The man’s tone startled her into silence. Her heart thumped against her ribs, the scared-rabbit thumping she remembered from her childhood when her father screamed at her mother and threw her around the house.
She watched in silence as the man led his wife and children to a pale blue scooter. They all piled on it and rode away.
Dumbfounded, she stared at Chris.
“Sheesh. He reminds me of some of my mom’s boyfriends,” he said, patting her on the back in a gesture clearly meant to comfort her.
“Yeah. Reminded me of my dad too. I’m so glad my mom got away from him.” They walked in silence. Her thoughts dove back into her childhood memories, landing on the time her father scooped her up off the floor where she played with toys and shoved her on a shelf in a closet. He’d closed the door, telling her she could stay there until she learned a lesson. She’d been about three years old at the time and had no idea what would happen to her as she cowered on a high shelf in the dark. She’d cried and cried. Her mother eventually found her, pulling her off the shelf and into a crushing hug, crying until tears soaked her hair. And then of course came the screaming match with her father and the subsequent lashing out. Thinking back on it, she knew her father had been drunk and spoiling for a fight. Locking a toddler on a shelf in a closet, terrorizing and scarring her for life, had been a means to getting what he wanted—an excuse to fight with Mom, which then gave him an excuse to smack her around. But why? Why did he drink? Why did he abuse them instead of cherishing and loving them? Why couldn’t he face down his demons and be a man instead of making himself feel stronger by picking on the weak? Only, as it turned out, her mom wasn’t weak after all. She was the one who found strength to stand up and make life better.
Chris nudged her with an elbow. “You okay?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. Just remembering things I wish I could forget.”
“I understand that. Try not to let that guy get to you.”
They passed a newsstand. One of the newspaper headlines grabbed her attention.
SCIENTISTS BAFFLED BY RED RAIN—CAUSE UNKNOWN
Cause unknown? How could that be? She stopped and picked up a copy and scanned the article. The inexplicable downfall had been on her mind since the day the sky opened up and drenched them all with crimson droplets, staining their clothes rust red. And no one could explain why?
SKY RAINS BLOOD
Another headline in a different paper. She picked up a copy of every English-language paper available at the newsstand, determined to learn everything she could about the bizarre phenomenon. She should look it up online as well, in case she could find more up-to-date information than what trickled down to this little community.
“Have you heard anything more about this?” she asked Chris. “It would be nice to know what we were drenched with.”
He shook his head. “From what I’ve heard, no one seems to know anything.”
“How can that be?”
“I guess some things just defy explanation.”
That wasn’t good enough for her. She needed to know what it was, what caused it, what happened. Was it toxic? Harmless? How would it affect her later? She’d had her fill of hearing that sometimes things just happen, and we don’t know why. She needed a why. “Just because” wouldn’t cut it.
She paid the man for the papers and clutched them to her chest until they were back in the car. While Chris drove to the more upscale market, she devoured the front-page story, but was disappointed. The article revealed that scientists at Kerala University had been unable to definitively determine what stained the rain red. It detailed some tests they’d run, but that was all. An article in another paper hypothesized that the red rain was the result of dust storms in Saudi Arabia. And a third paper postulated that the unidentifiable material found in the rain must be extraterrestrial in nature, perhaps introduced into the atmosphere by a meteorite.
Extraterrestrial living cells from a meteorite? The article went on to claim that scientists had not been able to match the material extracted from samples of the red rain to anything on the planet. Could that be true? She read and re-read the articles, hoping for something to offer a glimmer of explanation.
Nothing. No one understood the bizarre phenomenon. She refolded the paper and leaned back, closing her eyes. Weary of nothing making sense in her life, she needed someone to figure out what had happened. She needed answers and resolution.