We returned to a full house. Mummy, Pappa, Nimita, Foi, and the three guests were in the living room.

Nimita was sitting up straight, as if she were afraid to breathe. It reminded me of the time when an inspector came to our school and I tried to look attentive and smart. Mummy, Pappa, and Foi were like the teachers trying to impress the inspector.

“What happened?” Mummy asked, but her eyes were saying, you’d better have a deathly good excuse for showing up here.

“Jeeta got hurt; I’ll take care of her.”

Mummy motioned with her hand for us to leave, and Mohini and I hurried through the room.

Silently, Mohini washed my elbow, put antibacterial cream on the wound, and bandaged it.

Then we waited in the bedroom for the boy and his family to leave.

They stayed for another hour. That was a good sign, I thought.

Not so.

The next day the boy’s mother sent a message telling Mummy and Pappa they were interested in Mohini, not Nimita.

“But Nimita was the one who talked to him,” I said to Mummy.

“Does it matter who talked?”

Nimita sat on a divan across from me, but I couldn’t tell what she thought about all this. Nimita and Mohini were best friends and they talked all the time, goos-poos, goos-poos. Sure, they told me things that were safe to announce to the whole world, but nothing special, secret, or scandalous. “Did he seem nice? Did you like him?” I asked Nimita.

“What difference does it make?” Mummy said.

“If Nimita didn’t like him, then—” I started to say.

“Choop ker, stay quiet! You’re the one who dragged Mohini home.”

“It was my idea to bring Jeeta home,” Mohini said.

“Yes, but who banged into a handcart?”

“It wasn’t planned,” I said.

“I’ve never seen a girl as heavy-headed and long-tongued as you are,” Mummy said.

Later, when Mummy was not around, I asked Nimita, “Aren’t you tired of seeing these boys? Don’t you get mad?”

Nimita was sitting on a stool facing the dressing table. She didn’t answer. Her lips were tightly pressed as she gave Mohini a glance in the mirror.

“Why don’t you talk to Pappa? Tell him to find out more about the boy before you meet another flaky fellow.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? Doesn’t it hurt to keep things all tightly knotted up inside of you? Doesn’t it suffocate you?”

“You learn to live with a knot inside yourself, and after a while it doesn’t bother you,” she said, and then covered her face with her hands.

“Jeeta, that’s enough,” Mohini said as she walked over to us. She stood behind Nimita and began unbraiding her hair.

I ignored Mohini. “I waste my arguments on unimportant matters. I’m not asking you to be like me, but what if something really bothers you—”