The Blue Bedspread Read Online Free PDF Page A

It was already ten minutes to eight and it takes about twenty minutes to reach school. We have to be there by quarter past eight, in time for the Assembly when Sister Lucy, who is from Ireland and who is our principal, starts the prayers. God make me a channel of your peace, an instrument of your love.
    If we are late, we have to wait outside her office with our green diaries and at eight forty she comes back and is very angry. Her assistant, Miss Elisa Gomes, first stamps our diaries: Permission to attend classes LATE granted. And then with our diaries opened to that page we wait outside her office, all of us who have come late. Sister Lucy calls us in, without looking at us, one by one, and while she’s signing our diaries, she asks us why we are late. We always tell her that the bus was late. Or that there was a big jam on Amherst Street. She doesn’t know much about buses.
    I like to stand near the Ladies’ Seat because there are two girls who go to school, not my school, who are usually on the same bus. They have smart uniform: chocolate-coloured skirts and white shirts.
    One girl is very studious, she’s always reading a book which she keeps covered with brown paper. It’s not a textbook, it’s small, the size of a story book, and I don’t know what she reads. It must be a mystery book since she never once looks up, even if the bus brakes suddenly. I like her reading the book because she has short hair which falls across her face when she reads and it looks very nice.
    The other girl is not the studious type. She’s fashionable, she wears a shorter skirt and, at times, I have also seen her in a sleeveless shirt. She is not as beautiful as my sister but I like to watch her and I think I am in love with her. When I get married, I want my wife to be like her.
    One day, she was carrying a Laboratory notebook and I saw her name on the cover: Geeti.
    Maybe it was her friend’s notebook but I now always think of her as Geeti. Her arms have two tiny vaccination marks which we all have but which look extra good on her, her knees are also very smooth and they shine when light falls through the window. At times, when she turns to look out of the window, her legs turn and because her skirt is short, I can also see her thigh. Then I look the other way. I don’t want to make her self-conscious.
    When we boarded the bus today, Geeti was not there. The studious girl was standing, the bus was really crowded since these two girls always get seats.
    My sister gave the five-rupee note to the conductor who gave her two tickets and said he would give the change later. My sister then walked through the crowd in the bus to the centre.
    I don’t know why she does this but she always does this. She’s very bold, like a grown-up boy. I stand near the exit door so that when the school stop comes I can get down fast. On days if I get a seat which is far away from the door and the bus is crowded, I get up two stops in advance and start walking towards the door. But my sister is the exact opposite.
    Even when the bus is packed, she pushes her way through the people until she reaches the centre of the bus. And if she gets a seat, she will get up only at the last moment, just when the bus is about to stop near the school. One of these days, I think, she won’t be able to get down and the bus will take her all the way to Chowringhee.
    Today, she did the same thing. She walked to the centre and the bus was so crowded that after five minutes I couldn’t even see her. So I stood there, packed between several people, I could smell their sweat, they were so close, but I just stood there, fixed, always looking through the window because I didn’t want to miss the school stop.
    The conductor calls the stops aloud but I want to be sure. Bank of India, Bowbazar. Bowbazar is our stop from where the bus turns. Just before reaching Bank of India, there’s a very big hospital, the Lady Dufferin College and Hospital, with a very, very long boundary