Boys without Names Read Online Free PDF Page A

massive wheels could grind anything that came in its path. A chill passes through me. This boy must do this every day and very carefully or else.
    â€œOr else” is too scary to think about.
    After the fast train passes, ours gets going. “We have a green signal,” Sita cries.
    â€œYou’re a smart girl,” Card-Man says.
    The chai boy is still waiting between our train and the next set of tracks. I take my seat. “Why is he not going back?” I ask Card-Man since he seems to have all the answers.
    â€œHe is waiting for the slow train that comes from the opposite direction. It will stop like ours and he will get on. Then he will go to his tea stall to refill his carriers with fresh glasses of chai for the next train.”
    â€œHe owns a tea stall?” I ask.
    â€œNo. He works for someone.”
    I just hope he doesn’t have to do this all day long, every day.
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    Baba dozes off. Naren and Sita want Aai to tell them a story, so she does. “Once in a forest, there lived a timid rabbit. She was afraid of getting lost, so she stayed close to her home by a banyan tree. One day a storm swept through the jungle. The wind hissed and howled. The trees swayed. Their trunks and branches cracked and whipped. Then something fell smack on top of the rabbit’s head. It startled her. ‘Oui maa!’ she exclaimed. ‘A part of the sky must have fallen on my head.’”
    â€œBut it hadn’t. Silly rabbit,” Naren says.
    â€œDon’t talk in the middle,” Sita says, “or else I’ll seal your lips with nimba gum.”
    â€œWhere’re you—”
    The big man sleeping across from us opens his eyes and gives the twin a stern look. They both fall quiet. Aai continues. “Just then a twig above her snapped. ‘The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Run, run, run,’ the rabbit said, scampering as fast as her little legs could take her.”
    Aai used to tell me stories while I helped on the farm, and it made the weeding and harvesting go faster.
    I have heard this story many times over, and my mind wanders off.
    Outside, the land flies by. We are far away from our village and our neighbors. Mohan and Shiva must have left for school. If they don’t see me at school they might come by on their way back to see me. How will they feel when they find out we have left? They won’t know where we have gone for sure, but it wouldn’t be hard for themto guess, since Jama lives in Mumbai. Where else would we go? I wonder if they might be a little jealous like I was when Mohan visited Mumbai with his older brother.
    Maybe they would be mad at me. When Shiva’s father died he was so angry he wrote Baba in the dirt and spit on it several times. Then he cried like a baby. I don’t want to make my friends sad and upset. I wish I could have written them a note explaining why we had to leave. Then they would have understood. But I didn’t do that and now if they are angry with me, they might write my name and spit on it, too.
    I just hope Baba and Aai find good, steady work in Mumbai so I won’t have to worry about anything except my studies. Maybe Baba will find a job like Jama and will have money to buy new clothes for all of us and I can get books to read. I won’t have a nimba tree by the pond, but the books will help me do the same—get away from everyone. Maybe we might go see a movie and meet a film star. What would I say if I met Shahrukh Khan?
    As the train slows down, so do my thoughts. The next station is Thane. Card-Man hands the deck of cards to me. “They’re yours,” he says.
    â€œBut…”
    â€œNo problem,” he says. “Keep them and play with your brother and sister. And if they don’t want to, you can always play solitaire like I taught you.” He winks at me.
    â€œAre—are you…” I am so shocked that I don’t know what to say. This stranger has