The Flower Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

arm-load of bedsheets in a corner, lifted the big iron kettle from the woodstove and was on her way out when she saw him.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” she asked suspiciously.
    â€œNothing,” he replied in an aggrieved tone. Couldn’t a person just sit without being asked why?
    â€œWell, don’t get into trouble and don’t go inside the house,” she instructed.
    â€œAmmi?”
    She looked back at him.
    â€œHas the baby come yet?”
    She shook her head in exasperation. “What’s it to you? Now stay out of trouble,” and she was gone.
    It was everything to him. There hadn’t been a new baby in the house as long as he could remember, and he was excited. He had already decided that this baby was going to be his special friend. He thought about digging up his two rupees and buying the baby a present, but then changed his mind. England was more important. Besides, when he got back he could buy the baby all the presents it wanted.
    He stood up. There was still the business of the red-and-green-checked shorts on the croton hedge to take care of.
    THE CORRIDOR WAS long and dark. Chandi edged his way along until he reached the dining room. The dining table was there, a huge ebony affair with six carved legs that ended in lions’ paws. The twelve chairs around it also had lions’ paws. He was slightly afraid of those paws although he knew they were wood, because once he had dreamed that they had come to life and grabbed him.
    In spite of the large vase of fresh flowers on the sideboard, the dining room looked dark and gloomy. It was deserted.
    There were four doors leading off the dining room. One to the side veranda where the ginger beer was, one to the far end of the driveway, one to the pantry and one to a small guest bathroom. They were all closed. The long corridor that connected the dining room to the drawing room, the one where the bedrooms led off, was dark and silent.
    Chandi tiptoed to the bay of windows that overlooked the garden, trying not to make his ankles creak, which they did anyway. He slid behind the curtains and pressed his nose on the thick glass windowpanes, trying to spot the croton hedge. The still-pouring rain made visibility difficult and he couldn’t see very far, which was both good and bad. It was good because nobody looking out of the dining room window would see his shorts. It was bad because it meant he had to venture even farther into forbidden territory.
    Everyone had to be somewhere, and if they were not in the kitchen and not in the dining room, then they had to be down the other corridor.
    Having come this far, he knew he had to keep going. He silently slipped down the dark corridor like a small ghost. Past Anne’s room, the door to which was shut, past Jonathan’s room, which was empty, past the seven other bedrooms used for guests who arrived in their loud cars with their loud offspring. Then the set of rooms that the Sudu Mahattaya and Sudu Nona slept in. After that, the corridor widened into the large, formal sitting room, where the Sudu Nona held court on evenings when people came to visit.
    Everything was quiet, even his ankles thankfully.
    The scream was so sudden that it made him scream in fright too, but it was so loud that it drowned out his own scream. A spider scuttled out of a corner and made its indignant way to another corner. Chandi pressed himself against the wall, trembling, as the scream tapered away into a thin, high wail.
    Quietness descended on the corridor again, like a thick choking cloud. It was almost as terrifying as the scream. He felt a coldness on his legs and discovered he had wet himself.
    The kitchen was too far away now, so he had to keep going toward the living room. He took two trembling steps forward, and froze as the darkness ahead was suddenly broken by a tiny, trembling light.
    He had just enough time to make out the Sudu Mahattaya’s dim form before the match went out.
    And then another