Read Online Miss Timmins' School for Girls by Nayana Currimbhoy - Free Book Online Page A

I walked past them. “She’s being arrested,” I heard them say. But I was learning to live in the fishbowl and did not even look at them.
    The hawaldar, a wiry mountain man with bowed legs, was waiting outside the pantry. Bearers in white uniforms were pumping hissing pressure lamps to light the dining room. The hawaldar was dressed in khaki shorts and carried a large black government-issue umbrella. He sprang up when I arrived and opened the umbrella like a sail over our heads as we launched into the churning night. I knew at once that I should have worn gum boots.
    We sloshed through the lantern-dim bazaar and turned right just before the municipal park. The Woggles, as the girls called Inspector Wagle and his wife, lived in a pink and white house behind the bazaar on the way up to a plateau called table-land, past the cemetery, but before the big fallen boulder that was said to have crushed a marriage party many years ago.
    The Woggle came beaming up. He had on his uniform pants, but had changed into a blue bush-shirt and worn rubber slippers. There was a kerosene lamp on the dining table. A dark, fat boy with bad skin was sitting beside it, poring over a thick book. He did not look up. “This is my youngest, Kushal,” said the Woggle. “He is almost sixteen, goes to Sanjeevan School. My older two girls are twins. Yellow and Pinkie. They are in college in Poona.” I could smell the fish frying in the kitchen.
    A sofa set with plastic covers on the back to keep off oil stains, a glass showcase cupboard with figurines and photographs, a gleaming white fridge standing proud in the dining room. Their home was my home. I slipped into the role of being the good Maharashtrian girl as into a soft slipper. I neatly presented them with the cushioned version of my life. My father was from Dharwar, he worked with Chitnis Transport. No naval references.
    Mrs. Woggle had graying hair, which she tied in a low bun. Tendrils of curly hair escaped the bun and framed her face. A coarse gray hair curled out of a wart on her chin. She brought out our plates with green chutney fish and kokum curry with rice. We ate slowly, talking as the food dried on our hands.
    â€œThe twins, they were so alike, absolutely, so I always dressed them in yellow and pink. So it was simple, Yellow and Pinkie,” she said. She ate delicately, resting her fingers, fanned out like a flower, on her steel plate between bites. You just had to weep for poor Yellow.
    The rain thundered around us, the lanterns flickered in the wind, and the evening had a special glow. The Woggle, it transpired, had been the head inspector in Panchgani for eighteen years, the only policeman in long pants since 1956. His children had grown up here. “It is a quiet place,” he said. “We don’t even have a jail. We keep them in lockup in the police station overnight, and then drive them down to Vai in a jeep. Just the petty criminal classes, you understand. Never a murder, or anything, in all these years.” He spoke proudly, taking a measure of responsibility for Panchgani’s good conduct.
    After dinner, the tubelight blinked on, though the rain kept its steady pace. “Come as often as you want, you are like our Pinkie and Yellow,” said the Woggles, screwing up their eyes in the sudden brightness as they saw me to the door. The hawaldar had been smoking a bidi on the bench in the veranda. He jumped to attention and obligingly, under the watchful eye of the Woggles, ferried me across the puddles in their compound. Just after we turned the corner to the park, I realized that I had left my little red purse behind. And so we had to trudge back. The hawaldar muttered under his breath, but gamely held the umbrella up.
    The pink house was blazing. Even above the pouring rain, I heard the scream of “Kill me! Kill me now and be done with it!” It was a banshee scream, torn from the soul. I saw the tense torso of Mrs. Wagle