Read an Excerpt
When the World Went Dark
The times were dark, alarming, threatening. Clouds of fear kept people bolted and barred into their own homes. You couldn’t open a window to draw in a deep breath. You couldn’t trust anything that anyone else had touched. In fact, if you remember, you couldn’t even put a toe out of your front door.
Swara should know because she tested it out.
Ruth was the one who’d thrown her the challenge. She claimed to be her best friend, although you might doubt it after this. They lived in apartments opposite each other and often they sat cross--legged on their doormats and chatted, yelling to and fro. It was Ruth who said, “Swara, you cannot put even a toe out of your door.”
Swara scoffed at this. “Why? What if I do?”
“Try and see. It is banned! There is a high--tech app that will make your toe shrivel up and fall off.”
If you’ve been almost nine, like Swara was, you know what absolutely had to be done if such an out-rageous challenge was thrown down. Swara, quite naturally, had to still her beating heart, hold her breath, kick off her slipper, and wiggle her big toe an inch out of her open door. It did not fall off and land on the doormat. It stayed firmly on her foot.
“You are full of lies, Ruth!”
“I am not. I am the Ruth, the whole Ruth, and nothing but the—”
“Fine, but my toe is fine too. It is my toe, the whole toe, and nothing but the toe.”
“It will not be for long. Keep watching it. Over the days, it will turn red, purple, black, and then fall right off. Just you wait.”
Swara retreated, scared. And began to watch the toe for signs.
The times were like that, as we’ve mentioned. Dark, alarming, threatening times.
And then, of course, school was closed—-out of the blue! No waking up to a screaming alarm clock, or drinking milk while sleepwalking, or pulling on the uniform and buttoning it wrong, or running down to catch the yellow school bus and missing the favorite seat.
Like most kids, Swara spent the first week playing, eating, and sleeping and, like most kids, got fed up with it all. Nothing fun was on the Allowed List. No playing downstairs, no eating out, no meeting friends. To add to her dismay, her toe sported a smallish reddish spot one morning, which turned her as white as a sheet (just a saying). She held her toe in one hand and hopped over to Appa, who examined it and opined that it was a harmless insect bite and would disappear soon.
“My toe? My toe will disappear?”
“No, Swara, the red spot will disappear,” her father said.
What was high up on the Rotten List was that she couldn’t visit her favorite person in the world, her paati. Not Madurai Paati, her father’s mother, but Pitter Paati, her mother’s mother, who lived on the outskirts of Bengaluru. In the same city and not visit-able! V. Stupid (Very Stupid)! Everyone waslocked down—-Pitter Paati; her grandpa, Thaatha; her uncle and aunt, whom she called Anand Maama and Maami; and the twins (her V. Annoying cousins). The whole city was locked into their houses.
The whole world too, from what the TV showed. You could see people in Italy singing and waving while hanging over their balconies. Swara made a point of letting Ruth know that no one’s arms were turning purple, shriveling up, and falling off.
She video called Pitter Paati many times a day, to show her a new poem, the suspicious red--spotted toe, the view of no one on the streets outside, a line of ants creeping toward the dustbin, her fake mustache, anything actually. PP was always interested in whatever Swara was up to.
*
You had better know some more about Pitter Paati. It’s essential that you do, because you may see then why Swara wouldn’t believe what happened next.
In fact, if you peek through Swara’s V. Private diary—-which is an invasion of privacy—-you’ll find an old poem she began.
Pitter Paati was full of fun.
She brought me up from when I was one.
Because Amma--Appa went to office.
She’d stopped rhyming because nothing rhymed with office or with what came next, except muzzles . . .
She was full of games and puzzles (see?)
And she loved crime thrillers
and detective fiction (still no rhymes).
And we sat for hours while she acted out her favorite detective stories starring Feluda, Karamchand, and, most of all, Miss Marple, who she said was an old woman like her and smarter than everyone, like her. She called me her Little Miss Marple.
“You got it wrong, Pitter Paati,” Swara objected when she was little. (As she would remind you, she was old now—-almost nine.) “It’s Little Miss Muffet.”
“Did she also solve murder mysteries?”
Swara thought it over. “No. She wasn’t brave. She ran away from a tuffet because of a spider.”
“That’s it, then, you are too brave to be sitting on a tuffet, whatever that is . . . or to be afraid of the lovely species around it.”
“I don’t think a tuffet is an actual stool thing; I think they couldn’t rhyme either.”
Thereafter, PP called Swara Little Miss Marple, but because she was so tiny then, it seemed more appropriate to call her Little Miss Marble. After all, Swara had called her grandma Pitter Paati for years, though it meant nothing and just conjured up the sound of rain. Special people, after all, deserve special code names.
It’s V. Important that you understand all this about Pitter Paati, because you will then understand that she wouldn’t just disappear one day without telling Swara.
Would she?
A V. Ridiculous thought, really!
*
A couple of days into the lockdown, Pitter Paati fellsick. She often fell sick. She would sing songs of rhyming complaints featuring her chest pain, migraine, and forgetful brain. She had a handful of colorful tablets on her bedside table, which were to betaken with every meal. This time, Anand Maama said, it was more serious. Neither her fever nor her cough would go away.
Amma looked worried, so Swara told her not to worry; she’d make PP a fantastic Get Well Soon card. These fantastic cards had always worked in the past, and she’d Gotten Well Soon as ordered. In fact, Pitter Paati had insisted that it was the cards and not the medicine that had worked miracles.
Swara went at it with military discipline. She drew one card a day, with rainbows and puppies (there was no harm in hinting to Amma--Appa just how much she wanted a puppy). Rishi said that her puppy looked like a pig. She told Rishi that he was a pig. That’s the kind of thing you could tell your bothersome brother, even if he was many years older. Honestly, she wouldn’t have minded a pig either. She wouldn’t share it with Rishi, though.
Her cards had long poems (because PP didn’t mind that she couldn’t rhyme), which she would show and read out to Pitter Paati over video calls. This time, however, Pitter Paati seemed to always be in bed, even in the middle of the morning, when she had usually been such a fizzy--busy person. She kept coughing over the calls, so Swara had to stop (reading) and continue when Pitter Paati stopped (coughing).
Swara regaled her grandmother with her own made--up detective stories starring Miss Marble and her pig--puppy. She sang for her on video calls. She complained about Ruth and Rishi.
One morning later that week, Anand Maama said Pitter Paati couldn’t take her call because she was overly tired.
Swara was V. Angry with her uncle, but he insisted that Pitter Paati was too sick. He said that they were concerned she could have caught the virus because some visitors earlier had tested positive, so she needed to go to the hospital, and they were taking her right then. He told her not to worry, as the doctors were excellent and would cure her soon.
On the TV news, they told everyone to wear masks to save themselves.
Of course! That was the only thing missing, the only thing Swara hadn’t done till then. She told Amma the next day that she would make a mask to save Pitter Paati. Appa helped her make it, and Swara drew a big smiley face on the front and a big red heart around that.
“Why have you added this little dot?” her father asked.
“It’s me. Little Miss Marble. You won’t get it. It’s a secret Pitter Paati and I have.” She folded the mask and gave it to Appa, who promised that Swara’s mother would drive over and give it to PP that very evening. Amma had gotten herself a pass to travel. She could step outside the house without risking her toesfalling off.
Swara tried waiting up for Amma’s return, but when she got back home, it was very late, and the almost-nine--year--old had fallen asleep at the dining table (and was magically carried over to her bed, as usual).
Early the next morning, when she bounded out, Amma, Appa, and Rishi were gathered around the dining table. Swara went straight to the point. “Did you give Pitter Paati my mask?”
No one said anything. No one looked at her.
“Amma?” She tugged at her mother’s sleeve, noticing that it was the same kurta she’d had on theprevious night. “What did Pitter Paati say? Did she wear my mask? Did she notice Little Miss Marble on it?” Then, as a big lump knotted in her stomach, she demanded more frantically, “Amma! When are the excellent doctors sending her home?”
Amma put her face into her hands then. Appa pulled Swara over, cupped her face, and said softly, “There’s something you have to know, Swara.”
“No. Let Pitter Paati tell me. When is she coming home?”
“Pitter Paati is not coming home, Swara. She’s gone.”
V. Ridiculous! The things grown--ups say sometimes.
“Where did she go?” Swara asked. Where else could you go from a hospital if not home? The lump grew heavier because she was old enough to guess. Almost nine.
“She caught the virus. Her heart was too weak. I’m sorry, Baby.”
“I am not a baby. Her heart isn’t weak. She has the strongest, biggest, kindest heart ever.”
They sat silently. The big fat liars. All of them. And it wasn’t even the first of April.
“Where did she go?” she screamed and screamed at them.
The Making of a Detective
Then the calls began. Almost nonstop. On Amma’s phone, on Appa’s phone, on the landline. Amma held up her hand to wave away many of them. No, she didn’t want to talk. Then they’d ask to speak to Rishi and then to Swara.
Be strong, Swara.
You must move on now. Don’t look back.
You must act like a big girl now. (She was almost nine, she’d reply first and later realize that they weren’t interested in what she had to say, not really, not like Pitter Paati was.)
You must be strong for your mother.
This too shall pass. (Said another uncle, who always called to report about his kidney stones and when they had passed.)
Your grandmother would have wanted you to carry on.
She was a wonderful lady.
Remember, Swara, we are with you. (They were not; they were in lockdown elsewhere.)
They were all liars. Idiots. Fools. Swara’s grand-father loved to use the wordfools. Thaatha would read the newspaper and look up and say, “Fools!” Or he’d watch politicians give speeches on TV and say, “Fools!” Even when there were people jogging in the park on a sunny or rainy day, he’d say, “Fools!”
Thaatha didn’t call. He didn’t want to speak to anyone either. Swara was made to speak to the twins, though, her V. Annoying cousins who lived with Pitter Paati. Wasn’t it unfair that Kriti and Kolam got to spend all that time with her when Swara was the one who tried so hard to make her Get Well Soon? Additionally, they were four--year--olds, so they could not even speak coherently. It was an insult to her dignity to have to talk to them about anything as important as this. She tried putting up her hand too, saying, “I don’t want to speak.” But of course she was made to. Everyone bosses around an almost-nine--year--old.
“Hello,” she said, going straight to the point. “I hope you don’t believe that Paati has gone off, because she hasn’t.”
“My tooth fell off,” Kolam said.
“Did you get a puppy?” asked Kriti.
“No.” Swara kept the conversation serious like any older cousin should. “Look, you have to help me. Everyone is telling lies. Paati has not . . . not . . . She’s just not gone off like they say, okay? Will you help me search for her?”
“She’s gone. To the hospital.”
Swara dropped her voice to a whisper. “She must have left clues. Will you go look under her pillow?”
“I have to wash hands,” Kolam complained.
“I cannot go swim,” Kriti complained.
“You got a puppy?” Kolam asked.
Fools! She disconnected the call.
She didn’t mind taking Zarir’s call. Zarir was her double friend—-from school and from their building. His father was a doctor in the hospital, and he said he’d heard about her grandmother.
“Will you ask your doctor father where she’s gone?” she asked him with hope in her heart.
“H--huh? Where?” Zarir stuttered and muttered, and she got mad at him. She had to get mad at someone. She couldn’t keep hoping and then hitting a dead end each time.
“Your father is a useless doctor if he can’t even get people well soon, and it is all his fault that everyone is getting sick and not getting better. If he really was an excellent doctor, he could make them Get Well Soon.”
Zarir screamed back. Not nice words.
“Fool!” she shouted. “You are a fool. Your father is a fool doctor. His hospital is a fool hospital.”
Zarir’s mother came on the call then. Dr. Mariyam Aunty was a doctor too, the kind who talks to you to treat you. “Swara, dear one”—-dear one was usually followed by unhelpful advice, Little Miss Marble thought—-“why don’t you write a letter to your grandmother? Tell her everything you want to. It may help you.”
“Thank you very much for calling. Have a good day. Press the red icon to disconnect.” Swara congratulated herself on being formal and polite.
The other calls kept coming in.
What she had to do: Be brave. Be strong. Be positive.
What she could not do: Be sad. Cry. Think of the past.
Fools!
She got so angry that tears began to prick her eyelids, but of course, she couldn’t cry because that would mean she believed what they said about Pitter Paati. And it was V. Obviously not true.
Pitter Paati wouldn’t just leave her and go, without even telling her where. It was V. Ridiculous. V. Impossible! She wouldn’t do that. The detective stories fan that she was, the least she would have done was to leave Swara clues.
That was it: clues that no one was smart enough to find, except Little Miss Marble. She would bring back her favorite person in the world.
