Kage was a legend. Among the small clique of private schools that formed our community, Kage was the pinnacle of cool, our very own shaggy-haired, sooty-eyed rock star. He was an irresistible combination of talent and irreverence that had all the girls vying for him. The ones who stood a chance, anyway. The rest of us just talked about him. A lot.

Button and I talked about how we didn’t really buy it. He felt like an act. Sure, he had that alluringly messed-up thing going for him—rumour had it, because his parents were in the middle of a nasty divorce—and by all accounts, he could give most professional singers and guitarists a run for their money, but we figured he was too popular to be authentic.

Will come home with you after school. Mum thinks I’m going for the creative writing competition, remember? If she sees me come home and you picking me up, she’ll wonder why the school didn’t provide transportation.

Cool. I told Budhon Da to make biryani for lunch.

Awesome. And listen, you better actually win the creative writing thing tomorrow. My mum will suspect something if I don’t bring home a cert f cate to show her. But where the hell am I going to get a participation cert with my name on it? You win a medal and I’ll distract her with that.

So no pressure.

Lots of pressure. My neck’s on the line, that much pressure.

Shit. Not good.

Just win.

Shamiana is the highlight of the school year. We wait for that giant orange-and-blue canopy to be glimpsed above those forbidden grounds, for the old iron gates to be opened up to us. Open up, open up, let us in, we want to let you—shhhh.

We have these fests, and the chosen schools pit against each other over four heady days. The best of us are determined by picks and lots, teachers’ favourites, and chance and luck. And we’re sent off to learn about healthy competition. But we are too young; we thirst for glory, not lessons. For a variety of reasons, ranging from pedestrian desires to please parents, to utilitarian needs to save our skins, we throw healthy competition to the winds and fiercely play, write, click, paint, sing, dance to win. We need to know we’re going somewhere. We want to win to predict the future.

And we want to mingle with the other, forbidden, sex. The boys will take their chances with the prettiest skirts, jubilate success and blame failure, and we—well, we will look. At those boys, those boys in uniform. Uniforms that counterpoint ours. Hot blue-and-white linen, stripes, loosened ties. We’re separated; our worlds are twined silver cages.

Time to open up the cages—let us out, see what happens.