Book Uncle and Me

1: The Right Book
WATCH ME ZIGZAG after school, every single afternoon, between the bus stop and Horizon Apartment Flats. It’s where my best friend Reeni lives in 3B and I live in 3A. Reeni and I wave to our friend Anil. He karate-blocks and punches at us through the bus window. It’s his way to say Goodbye, see you tomorrow. The bus pulls off down the road.
“Bye, Yasmin,” says Reeni.
“Bye, Reeni,” I say.
She turns to go home. I go zig-zig-zag, off on my daily mission.
Mind the crooked tree. Mind the istri lady with her iron and heap of clothes. Mind the broken pavement and the pigeons cooling their feathers in mud puddles. Watch-watch watch…
And here it is! Book Uncle’s Lending Library on the corner of St. Mary’s Road and 1st Cross Street, with books spread out on planks of wood and a small tin can for donations, just to help out, if anyone wants to.
Here is the sign in faded old letters:
Books. Free.
Give one.
Take one.
Read-Read-Read.
Perfect!
In all of India, could there be a better corner lending
library than this?

2: Number One Patron
“HELLO, YASMIN-MA,” says Book Uncle. “How’s my Number One Patron?” I don’t know about Number One, but I’m sure I am Book Uncle’s busiest patron, as I mean to read one book every day. Every single day, forever. I started last year right after I turned eight. That already feels like a billion years ago, because now I am past four hundred. Books, I mean.
I return yesterday’s floppy paperback. Book Uncle beams at me through glasses so fat they make his eyes extra big and extra smiley.
“Did you like it?” he asks. He really wants to know.
“Of course,” I say. I always do. I always like the books he gives me.
He waves at the piles. “Take another, take another. Something different this time?”
He points to a thin book with a dark green cover. I take a look. It seems a little skinny.
I pick it up. I open it. And for the first time ever, in all the time I’ve been getting books from Book Uncle, I am not sure.
“It looks too easy,” I say.
“Short and sweet,” says Book Uncle. “Old Indian story. You can read it three times in a day if you like.”
I turn the book over and then over again.
“I can read bigger books,” I say.
Book Uncle looks at me sideways. He opens his mouth as if there is something he wants to say. Then he closes it again as if he has changed his mind.
Finally, when I think maybe he has forgotten I’m still there, he says, very softly, “Right book for the right person for the right day. As you know well, that is my motto.”
He’s right. It is. It’s a good motto. He has always given me the right book on the right day, hasn’t he? “I’ll take it,” I tell him.
I waste no time. As soon as I have stepped over the broken bits of pavement (which I really wish the city would fix so I could walk and read without worrying about where to put my feet), I start to read the book.
And I am sorry to say that I was right. It is a story for little kids, about a king of doves who gets himself and all his followers stuck in a trap set by a hunter.
At first I’m disappointed, but then I think I’ll keep going. Might as well find out what happens to those doves.
There they are, caught in a net! I turn-turn-turn the pages.
No escape, no escape. Try-try-try. Still no escape. Will they save themselves?
Hmm. This may be a book for little kids, but still, it’s giving me something to think about. It drives me crazy when a book does that.
All the way up the stairs to 3A, I worry about those doves.
I read the dove book once straight through, after homework and dinner, and I find out that the dove king and all his followers do get free! I know, I know. I’m giving away the ending. But here’s the thing. The point of a story is not the ending. The point is, What does it mean?
While I’m still wondering about that, my father calls me to see something on TV.

3: Swirling T-shirts
“IT’S A T-SHIRT-FOLDING contest,” Wapa says. He makes room for me on the sofa.
“They fold T-shirts?”
“They do. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”
“Wapa,” I say, “why would anyone want to take part in a T
shirt-folding contest?”
“See for yourself,” he says. “There are all kinds of crazy people in this crazy world, my Minu.” My mother laughs. “Including those who sit around watching those crazy people fold T-shirts.”
A whistle tweets. A dozen people on TV make a dozen rainbow-colored piles of T-shirts, their hands flying as fast as Anil’s karate punches. It makes me dizzy to watch those swirling T-shirts. The room spins around me and the air is full of T-shirts and there is no ground under my feet anymore.
I gasp and clutch at the sofa. Wapa pats me on the shoulder and the room steadies.
The whistle blows again. Everyone stops.
The winner has folded thirty T-shirts in sixty seconds. That is only two seconds per T-shirt.
“That is fast,” I say, able to breathe again. “Blink of an eye,” says Wapa.
How long would it take me to do a thing like that? Many, many blinks, I think. Which reminds me of those doves and their king and the hunter. Where were these T-shirt-folding people with their flying hands when the doves needed help? Wait. That is in a story and this … is real? Give me a story any day.
Umma says, “You people want to practice folding clothes? There’s a whole clothesline full on the terrace.”
Wapa turns off the TV. The phone rings.
“I’ll get it,” he says. He picks up the receiver with a cheery “Hello!” But in a minute his face changes, so I know who that is. When he hangs up, he says, “You know who that was.” Wapa’s big brother, Rafiq Uncle, always has that effect on us.
“He’s coming to visit us?” asks Umma. Wapa nods. “But he’s coming on business. Maybe he’ll be so busy he won’t have time to criticize.”
My mother shakes her head, as if she knows that Rafiq Uncle will always have time for a few well-chosen words to put her in her place. She goes into a flurry of worrying about all the things in the flat that will need to be dusted and mopped and polished. Suddenly the only tube of toothpaste we have left, squeezed half empty, that wasn’t even a problem until now, becomes just another sign of her bad housekeeping.
“I’ll get some more,” Wapa says. He escapes, leaving me to the mercy of Umma’s duster.