“Nikhil!” I yelled. “Go away!”
“You go!” replied my brother
But, of course, neither of us could go, because we had homework to do and only one desk to do it on. Amma walked in and stopped, as if she’d smelt something bad. “Now what?” she sighed.
She knows us so well! “Nikhil and Nikita are silent only when they quarrel!” she says.
Both of us told her and Amma clapped her hands to her ears. “Remember,” she said, “Leela Aji is coming...” Leela Aji is Amma’s aunt and she was coming to stay.
“Nikita’s turn on The Berth!” Nikhil grinned. The Berth is the divan bed, as narrow and uncomfortable as a railway berth. We’ve both fallen off it more than once and we hate it! But, every time we have guests, one of us has to take “The Berth”.
“Why can’t we each have a room?” I groaned.
“And one for guests,” Nikhil added. It was the one thing we agreed on.
Memories
The second was that Aji was a darling; so we avoided quarrelling in her presence. She may have caught us hissing or making faces at each other but she didn’t pay attention. She was smart and fun and so it was strange the way she mixed up our names.
“Nikki!” she would call, and both of us would go running. The last time she was here, I rushed into the living room and found Nikhil there.
“I didn’t mean to call you both!” Aji said. She needed help with a Sudoku puzzle. I giggled to see her ask Nikhil, who was terrible at puzzles for help. To my surprise, he turned out to be good. Now Aji could just call him when she needed help. But she still called, “Nikki!” and both of us went running.
This time she needed my help with the crossword. Me! I’ve never done a crossword. Nikhil showed me and the three of us had fun working on it. After that, we both ran when we heard Aji call, “Nikki!”
Aji gave us gifts before she left, a Sudoku puzzle for Nikhil and a book of crosswords for me. I wondered how Aji could have got us the perfect gifts when she seemed confused about who was who. Had she been pretending? But why?
A few days later, our parents told us that we were moving to a bigger house and all thoughts of Leela Aji’s forgetfulness were pushed aside. The best part was that we would get a room each.
“But when we have a guest…,” Baba said.
“…one of you will have to give up your room and share!” Amma said. “Promise?”
Of course, we promised. Relatives rarely visited us. We would deal with it when they did. That was our plan — one that we both liked.
To be continued.
