The Flower Boy Read Online Free PDF Page A

Jonathan had never spoken to him. He, like his sister Anne, was a quiet child, and spent his time reading or kicking a ball around the lawn by himself. Once Chandi had seen Jonathan and had wished he would ask him to come and play, but Jonathan had not even noticed him. So Chandi had stood there quietly and watched.
    Jonathan had seemed lonely.
    RIGHT NOW, CHANDI was lonely.
    The rain was still lashing down like a thousand whips on a buffalo’s back. He crept out, made his way to the drain and stepped into it. He almost lost his balance but managed to steady himself. The water rushed in its haste to make way for more rushing water, and the drain seemed wider and deeper than he remembered.
    At the kitchen steps, the drain continued but Chandi stopped. He cocked his head like Buster sometimes did, and listened hard, but all was quiet. Straightening up, he dashed inside the kitchen and into their room. Thankfully, it too was empty. If Rangi had been there, it would have been okay. Leela would have gone straight to Ammi and told her.
    Shivering now with cold and reaction, he hastily dried himself and pulled on another pair of shorts and another too-small shirt. This pair of shorts was brown. The shirt had once been gaily striped in sky blue and white. Many washings and dashings against the stone at the well had faded it to a watery blue. There were two buttons missing midway and his stomach showed through the gap.
    Chandi felt better. Then he remembered the red-and-green-checked shorts on the croton hedge. His shirt would have long been buried by mud, but the shorts would be lying there like the proud standard of a rebel army. He wondered if they could be seen from the house. He hoped not, because if they could, he would have a lot of explaining to do. He almost started out again to retrieve them, but then thought it better to lie low for a bit, so he sat on the kitchen step and stared out at the rain.
    AT THE FAR corner of the back garden, the vegetables gave way to dense green foliage near the gray cemented well. The trees grew close and blocked out the sun, ferns of different kinds grew out of the cracks in the cement, and vines and creepers twisted languidly around the trees, some hanging down like leafy green curtains.
    Frogs croaked, lizards lifted their chameleon heads to listen, and the gentle rustle of the trees was occasionally broken by the sudden flight of some exotic bird. One almost expected to see a gnome scuttling away into the undergrowth, or a couple of fairies swinging from the vines.
    This was where Chandi washed in the mornings, and bathed in the afternoons with his mother. Leela and Rangi bathed later in the day, after their housework was finished.
    Chandi loved his baths. For about half an hour each day, he had his mother’s undivided attention. And at the well, she changed.
    Not into her diya reddha, which she wore while bathing, but into another person. A person who talked and listened and laughed. Maybe pulling up water in the leaky aluminum bucket helped rid her of the tensions of the day. Perhaps it reminded her of when she was young and her mother had bathed her, probably at a well just like this one; whatever it was, Chandi loved her. Not that he didn’t anyway.
    He would strip naked and watch while she wriggled, with skill born of years of practice, out of her blouse and brassiere and reddha and underskirt, into her old tattered diya reddha, her bathing cloth. She would lift up her arms and slowly, gracefully release her long black hair from its tight knot. Then he’d crouch down on the clean concrete and watch her drawing up the water, the muscles of her strong brown arms rippling with the effort of pulling.
    The first bucketful was always a shock, and he would gasp and blow as the ice-cold water rained on him. Ammi would laugh at him, with him. She’d pretend to pour slowly, and then suddenly empty the bucket on him, her dark brown eyes dancing with mischief. He’d squeal