Bhangra Babes (9 page)

“You've been a tong lime,” Auntie said. “I mean, a long time.” She giggled.

“It doesn't seem like you missed us much,” Geena said sternly. A nearly empty bottle of wine and two glasses stood on the coffee table.

“Is that the time?” Mr. Arora began smoothing his creased shirt and flattening his ruffled hair. “I must be going.” He staggered a little as he got to his feet.

“Actually, we wanted to talk to you about Kiran,” Geena said quickly, elbowing me in the ribs. “Amber's got something to say.”

“Why me?” I whispered. But I guessed it was as good a time as any, now that Mr. Arora and Auntie were a little merry. “Well, yes. About Kiran …”

“Yes.” Mr. Arora shook his head. “Very sad. Very, very sad.”

We looked confused.

“What is?” I asked.

“Her father getting killed like that.” Mr. Arora hiccupped gently. “He died in a car crash about six months ago.”

There was stunned silence for what seemed like a very long time.

“Y-You didn't tell us
that,”
I stammered. My formerly good opinion of myself had suddenly plunged right down into the basement. I felt horrible. Awful.

“That's terrible,” Jazz said, her eyes wide.

“I wish we'd known before,” Geena whispered.

Mr. Arora suddenly looked stricken with guilt. “I wasn't meant to tell you,” he mumbled. “Only the teachers were supposed to know.”

“I'm sure the girls won't say anything,” Auntie broke in. “Will you, girls?”

“Of course not,” I assured her.

Mr. Arora gave a dismal sigh. “Kiran's mum says she's withdrawn totally since it all happened. Gone off the rails a bit. I was hoping that you three might— Well, you know what it's like… .” His voice tailed off into another hiccup.

I consulted Geena and Jazz with a look. We needed to discuss this.

Mr. Arora reached for his jacket. “I shouldn't have said anything,” he fretted. “I'm a terrible head of the lower school.”

“No, you're not,” Jazz said loyally. “You're fantastic.”

“I'll walk round to your parents' with you,” Auntie offered. “Unless you girls need me here?” She threw us a searching look.

“We'll be fine,” I said. Once I, for one, had stopped feeling like just about the most evil person in the whole world …

“We shouldn't beat ourselves up about this,” Geena argued as we went upstairs. “After all, we weren't to know.”

“But we didn't make any effort to find out if Kiran was really a pain in the butt or if something was bothering her,” I replied gloomily.

“We've only known her five minutes!” Jazz pointed out. “Well, five days, actually.”

I slumped onto our bed. “It didn't stop us making our minds up about her straightaway, though, did it?”

We were silent for a little while.

“It must be awful for someone to die so unexpectedly,” Geena mused. “I mean, one minute they're there; the next, they're gone. At least with Mum, we knew it was coming for months.”

“Is that any better?” Jazz asked.

We sat there in silence again. Now I was thinking about Kiran
and
Mum, and feeling much the worse for it.

“We'd better decide what we're going to do,” I said,

swallowing down a hard lump in my throat. “I suppose we ought to try harder with Kiran.”

Jazz fidgeted around on the duvet. “I don't want to seem callous and self-centered,” she muttered, “but what about Rocky?”

“Oh, I reckon that bad feeling between him and Kiran will all blow over in a couple of days,” I said, with more hope than confidence.

“And besides, I don't think we can get
too
friendly with Kiran too quickly,” said Geena thoughtfully. “She might get suspicious. And then Mr. Arora would get into trouble for telling us.”

“So we try to get to know Kiran slowly and we keep Rocky sweet in the meantime.” I grinned. “If anyone can do that, we can.”

Overconfident? Us?

When Monday morning came round, we were all fired up and ready to do the best we could. But the first obstacle we had to overcome was Kim. Along with her new assertive nature, she had also developed a nose for intrigue to match that of a tabloid journalist.

“There's Kiran,” Jazz whispered as we sat in the playground before morning lessons. “Should we go over?”

“No, just wave and smile,” instructed Geena.

We waved and smiled. Kim stared at us, and Kiran looked startled. She nodded ever so slightly and turned away.

“What are you doing?” asked Kim.

“Just saying hi to Kiran,” I said nonchalantly.

“Come off it,” Kim replied. “What's going on?”

“Nothing,” I said with mock amazement.

“You've got an extremely overactive imagination, Kim,” added Geena.

“I need to have, to keep up with you three,” Kim said rudely. “Come on. You couldn't stand Kiran last week. What's changed?”

“All right, if you must know.” I sighed. “Mr. Arora told Auntie about Kiran, and Auntie had a go at us for not making more of an effort. So there you go.”

Kim still looked suspicious. “Your left eyebrow's twitching.”

“What?” I put my hand up to my face.

“It always twitches when you're lying,” said Kim. “What's the
real
reason?”

Casually I covered my eyebrow with my hand. “That's it,” I said. “Nothing more to tell.”

“She's coming over!” Jazz hissed.

Kiran was indeed coming toward us.

“I found your
Julius Caesar
notes, Kim,” she said, handing them over. “They'd fallen down behind the book cupboard.”

Kim looked pleased. “Thanks.”

“How are you doing, Kiran?” I asked in what I hoped was a friendly but not overly chummy voice.

Maybe I overdid it a bit because Kiran looked surprised. “OK.” She grinned. “Sorry about your date with lover boy on Saturday being ruined.”

She was getting right up my nose, as usual. “You

really do look sorry,” I snapped. “And it wasn't a date. Ow!”

Geena and Jazz had both elbowed me discreetly in the ribs. Not that discreetly. It still hurt.

“Don't mind her,” Jazz said. “She got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.”

“Yeah, sorry.” I managed to force the words out. “I didn't mean to be a grouch.”

Kiran stared at me. Next she turned her attention to Geena, then to Jazz. For the first few seconds we stood up under her intense scrutiny, then we began to wilt. We blushed. We cleared our throats, shuffled our feet and tried not to look guilty. That never works, does it? You just end up looking
twice
as guilty.

Kiran sighed. “You know, don't you?”

“Know what?” I asked lightly.

“You know what I mean,” Kiran said tensely. “And if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you.”

“What's going on?” asked Kim, looking confused.

“We don't know anything,” Geena jumped in.

“But if we did know something, we wouldn't tell anyone anyway,” said Jazz anxiously.

Kiran shrugged. “I know you know,” she said simply. And she walked away.

“Well, I don't know
anything,”
Kim wailed. “Will somebody please tell me what's going on?”

F
rom then on, Kiran simply refused to speak to us. She came up with various techniques to avoid us, which included getting to school late and leaving as soon as the bell rang, wearing headphones and listening to music on an MP3 player during breaks, and asking all our teachers if she could sit elsewhere in their classrooms instead of with me. She completely blanked us for the whole of that week, and we had no idea what to do next.

Of course, we had to confess our lack of success to Mr. Arora, although we didn't tell him that Kiran had guessed we knew her secret. We thought that might be a bit much to cope with for a man who already looked as if he were under a death sentence. Auntie-ji had been throwing her weight around again—this time, Bollywood karaoke and

fire-eaters at the reception—and Mr. Arora and Auntie weren't getting on too well again.

We got an unexpected breathing space, though, when Kiran didn't turn up at school the following week. Someone else had started delivering our newspapers, too. It was now Thursday, and she'd been absent for the past four days. Mr. Arora had told us that Mrs. Kohli had phoned the school office to say that Kiran had flu.

“I don't want to sound mean and selfish,” Jazz began as we met up in the playground to walk home at the end of the day.

“It doesn't usually stop you,” I replied. “Go on, force yourself.”

“But it's been lovely not having to worry about Kiran for the last few days,” Jazz went on. “It means we've had more time to get to know Rocky.”

“Yes.” I thought dreamily back to a certain romantic moment behind the canteen. No, not
that
kind of romantic moment. Rocky had given me a lecture on the history of hip-hop and bhangra, and I'd stared into the fathomless depths of his chocolate-brown eyes and not listened to a word he said. “I think he likes me.”

“Wishful thinking,” Geena scoffed. “I'm utterly certain he likes me best.”

“And what do you base that on?” demanded Jazz.

Geena's face took on a gooey, lovesick smile. “He gave me half his Mars bar yesterday.”

“Ooh, start planning the wedding, then.” Jazz sniffed disparagingly. “He told
me
I was the prettiest.”

“He did not!” Geena and I said together.

“The truth always hurts,” Jazz replied smugly.

“He's definitely playing us off against each other,” I mused as we wandered over to the gate.

“Well, it's not surprising, is it?” Geena pointed out. “What boy wouldn't enjoy having three gorgeous girls competing for his attention?”

“And after all, it's only a bit of fun,” said Jazz.

We glared at each other with narrowed eyes.

“I know that,” I replied. “I just wonder if maybe we should play it a bit cooler, that's all.”

“There he is!” Geena cried.

Rocky had come out of a side entrance and was heading toward the gates. “Out of my way!” commanded Jazz, dropping her bag in all the excitement.

Of course, we ignored her. Geena and I hurried after him, leaving Jazz to pick up her spilled possessions. But we were too far away to catch him. Rocky swung open the door of a sleek silver Mercedes waiting at the curb and climbed in. As we watched, with disappointed faces, the electric window slid down, and Rocky waved as the car purred away.

“That guy's got a big head,” muttered a familiar voice beside me.

“Explain yourself, George,” I said coldly. “Do you mean that Rocky's head is literally of a larger-than-average size, or are you implying that he thinks too much of himself?”

“He thinks too much of himself,” George said in a belligerent tone. “And I'm not implying it. I'm stating it.”

He turned and walked off, leaving me with several witty put-downs teetering on the tip of my tongue.

“Poor Georgie,” said Geena. “A touch of the green-eyed monster, I think.”

“He can't talk about big heads,” I muttered. “The way he's been chatting up girls here, there and everywhere.”

Geena sighed. “Amber, don't you know anything about love? He's doing it to make you jealous.”

“It's working, then,” Jazz sniggered.

“Don't be ridiculous,” I said tartly, stomping out of the playground. Geena and Jazz followed me, whispering and giggling like two five-year-olds.

Things did not improve in any way when we arrived home. No sooner had we set foot in the front door than, one by one, we were grabbed and pulverized in a crushing embrace.

“Hello, girls!” Auntie-ji cried joyfully as my head disappeared into her large bosom. “I thought you were never coming home!”

“So did I,” said Auntie grimly. She looked as if she'd gone ten rounds with a heavyweight boxer and been battered to a pulp.

“Well, now, this is my plan.” Mr. Arora's auntie plumped down on the sofa, pulling Jazz with her. “We've got a couple of hours before the shops close. How about we go out and look for your wedding outfits?”

The three of us turned and looked anxiously at Auntie. She'd promised to take us shopping for clothes on Saturday and round things off with a fancy

meal at a posh restaurant. We were so looking forward to it. We waited for her to tell Auntie-ji exactly this.

“Well, actually—” Auntie began.

“Oh, come on, we've got time.” Mr. Arora's auntie looked eagerly at us. “It'll be fun.”

We stared hard at
our
auntie. She was never slow to make her feelings known—oh, no—but this time she couldn't seem to get the words out. I could understand why. Auntie-ji's face reminded me of a puppy with big brown eyes, pleading to be taken for a walk.

“I suppose we could just go and have a quick look,” Auntie agreed weakly.

“Splendid!” Auntie-ji bounced to her feet. “We'll go right away.” And she began dragging Jazz over to the door.

“We need to change—” Jazz began, trying to pull herself in the opposite direction. She didn't stand a chance.

“No time!” Auntie-ji roared, flinging the front door open. “Let's get going.”

“But we can't go to the Broadway in our school uniforms!” Geena said, aghast. “It's embarrassing.”

“Nonsense,” Auntie-ji called over her shoulder. She and Jazz were already halfway down the garden path. “You're very smart.”