The Best Day of My Life by Deborah Ellis Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t see a man. He was probably off looking for work.
    I folded the blanket into a tidy square and put it on the ground in front of the mother. She was almost too busy to notice. The children noticed, though. They reached out and patted the blanket with their tiny hands, then snatched their hands back, as if they weren’t sure they should. They giggled, then patted it again.
    I moved on.
    A bicycle came by pulling a cart piled high with bales of rags. I felt like taking a ride so I hopped on the back. I rode in style all the way to Baithakkhana Bazaar before the bicycle man realized he was pulling more weight than he needed to.
    â€˜Off! Off! Off!’
    I jumped off, smiled and made the namaste. So he had to make the namaste back, and we parted on good terms.
    I walked up a few more streets, through the tight markets under the highway flyover, then finally I hit Vivekananda Road.
    The tea seller who was sometimes friendly had a stall just outside a cake shop. I liked seeing the little cakes and sweets, so pretty with their colors and decorations. They looked like flowers or treasures from a jewelry store. If I ever got the chance to taste one, I would feel like a queen.
    The tea seller had just brewed a fresh pot of tea. The steam rose as he poured it from one pot to the other, mixing the milk and tea and sugar.
    I could almost taste the hot tea going down my throat. It would give me a warm happy start to the day. I wouldn’t feel so hungry with a bit of tea in me.
    I stood right beside the tea stall, ready to ask for a blessing, when I hit the first bit of bad luck for the day.
    The tea seller’s older brother arrived in a rickshaw.
    The brother owned the tea stall. He was always in a bad mood.
    The brother saw me and started yelling at the tea seller.
    â€˜Look how these urchins approach you! Totally without fear. No wonder I am not making enough money. You give away all my profits. You are a thief! Show me you are not a thief, or I will take this stall away from you. I don’t care if you are my brother.’
    The tea seller looked at me. I knew he was about to yell at me even though he didn’t want to.
    I shrugged a tiny shrug to let him know that it was okay, so he started to yell at me to get away and never come back. Then, in a way his brother couldn’t see, he gave me a bit of a hand movement that told me, ‘Go and wait nearby. This bullock of a brother is leaving soon.’
    So I backed away and went to sit in a nearby doorway. I watched the metal workers hammer and solder long pieces of metal into railings and bed frames and kept an eye on the older brother, who was waving his arms around and spewing out all sorts of angry words.
    Finally the brother called over the rickshaw puller who had been waiting patiently (and who certainly wouldn’t get paid for all the time he had wasted waiting). He got back into the seat and the rickshaw puller heaved the rickshaw into a run. They disappeared among the cars and carts.
    I went back over to the tea seller’s stall.
    â€˜I can’t give you any tea,’ he said in a sad way, not mean. ‘I have to account for all the cups. The number of cups and the money in the box must balance. My brother will check.’
    That seemed like a small problem.
    The cups were small and made of clay. When someone was finished drinking, they threw their cup to the ground. Someone else had the job of going through the streets and collecting the broken cups so they could be taken back to the potter. The potter turned them back into clay, then back into cups again. There were dozens of broken cups lying around on the ground.
    I found a cup that was not broken, picked it up out of the gutter and presented it to the tea seller.
    â€˜Your brother does not measure tea, does he?’
    â€˜That cup is dirty.’
    It was. I rubbed it with the sleeve of my kurta, the same one given to me when I first got to the city. The kurta was dirty,