The following Monday, Vicky’s blues hit a crescendo. He didn’t want to get up. Anu coaxed him saying the little puppy at the school would be waiting for him. That got him till school. She made sure they were a good twenty minutes early. To her distress, there was no puppy. Anu looked under the drain and over a compound wall, with Vicky trailing and mimicking her actions. No sign of the puppy. Vicky crawled back into the car. Anu heard the first bell ring and her heart started pounding. The coordinator had reprimanded her in a gentle voice that Vicky cannot miss the assembly every day.

‘I think the puppy went to its mom. It will back in the afternoon.’

‘Okay. We will wait here then.’ Vicky was clear about his decision.

‘Vicky, it will be too hot to wait here. You get inside the school till the puppy is back.’

‘No. I will not go until the puppy is back.’

‘If you don’t go to school, how will you get a job? How will you get a house?’ Anu tried reasoning now.

‘I don’t want a job. I already have a house.’ Then he added. ‘Rakesh also does not like this school.’

‘Is Rakesh your friend? He will be waiting for you, Vicky. Go now.’ Anu tried every arsenal in her kitty.

‘No. Rakesh has many other friends.’

Anu’s patience started to wear thin. But losing it with Vicky had no happy ending. He would wail and then she would have to coax him for another hour. Maybe she should put him on the school bus but she laughed at the thought. Unless the bus driver got a crane to separate Vicky from her, the boy wouldn’t get inside that bus!

Leaning against the car, Anu looked at the imposing and cold school building. Its high compound walls, the security guards pacing as they did in front of the Buckingham Palace—the school felt intimidating to her. What about her poor Vicky? She looked at him slumped in the backseat. Her heart melted. Vicky was hyperactive and never gave them a moment of peace, but he was never morose. He hardly cried but in the last month, he had cried enough for a year.

Anu made up her mind. Right then and there. She picked up the phone and called Sumitra aunty. After a ten-minute chat, though Sumitra aunty wasn’t at all convinced by Anu’s plan, she agreed to help her.

Anu turned to Vicky. ‘Fine then. No school today. We will go someplace else.’