Smiling, Deepa set the note inside her desk. Her new friend hated writing. She could multiply four-digit numbers in her head in seconds but found the process of composing a sentence downright painful.

Deepa smoothed out the letter to John and Nora, added, I wish we could have gone with you. She signed her name.

Madam Grover’s chappals shuffled toward the back of the classroom. The pleats of her light blue sari lined up like neat rows of desks. Three minutes until class ended. Then Bala and Anil, their family’s new automobile driver, would arrive to whisk Deepa directly home after school. She would remain there for the rest of the day, trapped between the stuffy walls of their home. The garden was her only freedom, the watering of the plants her only unmonitored, unchaperoned act.

Two minutes left until the end of class. Too little time for recitations. Relieved, Deepa folded her poem in half. She leaned over, opened her satchel.

“Deepa,” Madam Grover called. “If you have time to pack up early, then you have time to recite your poem to the class.”

Deepa blushed. Muffled giggles erupted from the desks around her. Surya, Deepa’s academic nemesis, turned around, snickered. She and Surya were always competing for first rank. As it stood, Surya was ahead of Deepa by two points.

“Deepa,” Madam Grover repeated. “Please, stand at the front.”

Deepa shut her eyes. Of all the things she had to read aloud! She pushed her chair back. It ground against the floor, like pestle against mortar. As she made her way to the chalkboard, she felt Surya’s stare burrow into her back. Deepa turned around slowly, unfolded the paper, lifted her face to her classmates.

A sea of eyes blinked and settled on her. Relief swept their faces. Deepa’s reading would exhaust the last moments before the bell rang. It would rescue them from doing their own recitations.

A bead of sweat rolled from Deepa’s armpit to her elbow. The words on the page blurred, returned to focus. Her fingers gripped the edge of the paper, trembled in her hand. She could recite Emerson and Wordsworth in her sleep, recite them to the entire student body with confidence. But her own poetry was different. So raw and uneven and uninspiring, she thought.

Patri flashed Deepa a smile, nodded.

“Quickly, Deepa,” Madam Grover said, leaning over her desk. “Begin.”

“Yes, Madam Grover,” Deepa said. She cleared her throat. “‘Night Notes’ by Deepa Khanna.”

Pen to paper, paper to pen

coaxing my heart with ink

the shade of midnight.

Shapes shift

under the moon’s glow,

unfolding

musical lyrics,

sweet sounds bringing

you to me, me to you.

Verdant leaves

cradle dew drops

in their veins,

our only witnesses.

She dropped her hand, looked up.