“Heave-ho!” Winnie hollered, and she and T.T. tugged while Ahmad threw himself backward. As he stumbled to the deck, whatever had been holding him broke free of the water’s surface and landed in the boat with a hard thud.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch,” a husky voice said from the bottom of the boat. “Oh, that was a mistake. That hurts.”

Ahmad rubbed his wrist and stared hard at the sodden mass on the floor.

“That voice. It sounds familiar.”

“What?” Winnie asked, but before she could do anything else, Ahmad was already stumbling forward. “Ahmad, be careful! We don’t know what that is.”

“I think I do,” Ahmad panted. It was definitely a human body: tall and lanky, with a damp thatch of hair that a skinny hand was brushing back. Underneath was a face he knew all too well, and a weary smile that still managed to be mischievous.

“What are you doing here?” Ahmad demanded, even as he couldn’t help but return a very astonished smile of his own.

Of all the people in the world he could have expected to see, here and now, his uncle wasn’t one of them.

But there he was, in the flesh.

Vijay Bhai cleared his throat. “I’m here to help you,” he announced, raising an arm. “Now, who’s going to help me up?”

CHAPTER NINE

IN TIMES OF TROUBLE, Ahmad had his own rituals to ground himself and keep his stomach from tying itself into knots and his knees from shaking: holding his Switch under the table during a difficult test, or popping a few chenna murki into his mouth and letting them melt into his tongue.

They weren’t meant to hold off the trouble he would inevitably get into, and they never did. But at least, while he focused on them, his brain had a chance to get itself into gear and maybe find a solution for him.

Now he stuck his hand into his pocket. It was a habit from when he was a little kid. But the marbles he was reaching for had been lost years ago. He wished he had them now, as he watched Vijay Bhai wring his hair out between his hands like a washcloth.

“Oh, that’s cold.” Vijay Bhai winced as water seeped between his fingers.

“Uh, Ahmad?” Winnie said slowly. “Who is this?”

“My uncle,” Ahmad responded. “Well, more or less.”

To be entirely accurate, Vijay Bhai was his aunt’s best friend. It was kind of weird, because he just didn’t seem the type to be friends with Aunt Zohra. She was tall, lanky, and awkward, and he was tall, lanky, and young. That was weird too.

He never seemed the right age to properly be an uncle, mentally or physically.