Sic reads aloud from a book of Indian legends about when Shachi tied a thread around her husband Indra’s wrist to boost his powers of mind and help him defeat demons. The story sounds a bit like a Marvel comic, but that’s probably just the way Sic says it.
“I thought the party was about brothers, not husbands,” mutters Aspen in Sumac’s ear.
She shrugs, watching Grumps and wondering whether anything could boost his powers of mind at this stage. Thinking about her own demons of nastiness and meanness, she tells them: Begone!
Oak finds having his Rakhi threads tied on a hoot and keeps hiding his fat wrist behind his back so it takes all the girls and women a while to get it done. Aspen does vicious tickle attacks while tying hers on the boys and men in her family, so that slows things down too.
“May all be happy,” Dada Ji recites,
May all be free from ills,
May all behold only the good,
May none be in distress.
At which point, PopCorn starts crying.
Grumps turns his head away, looking mortified.
“You no need to pee now,” Brian tells PopCorn.
“That’s a relief,” he whispers, and blows his nose.
“And then you pray for your brothers’ well-being and happiness,” Dada Ji tells the women and girls. “May you be well and happy —”
“May you be well and happy,” they chorus.
Wood and Aspen exchange hideous grimaces from across the grass.
“And then, menfolk, you take this pledge. I vow to protect my sisters —”
“I vow to protect my sisters,” they chant.
“Protect? Isn’t that a bit patronizing?” Catalpa wants to know.
CardaMom claps a hand over her black-lipsticked mouth.
“— and help them to climb over any obstacles —”
“— and help them to climb over any obstacles —”
“Or kick them over,” yells Catalpa.
Aspen laughs and does a karate kick, accidentally getting Dadi Ji in the stomach.
There’s a last-minute kerfuffle when Brian insists on being a brother and having threads tied on her. But then she wants to tie one on Oak too, because “I be sister and brother.” Then Aspen remembers that Slate and Opal probably have litter-and hatch-sisters that they miss, though tying bracelets on a rat and a parrot is likely to be a fiddly business. Luckily Sumac has extra Rakhi in her pocket and hands them out to anyone who wants one, because really, who cares so long as the threads get tied.
Authors steal ideas all the time. But like the tiny family in Mary Norton’s series The Borrowers, we prefer to call it borrowing. Here’s a grateful shout-out to the folks, young and old, from whom I’ve borrowed most: Debra Westgate for professional advice on kids in all their wonderful oddity, and Gráinne Ní Dhúill, Aoife and Fionnuala Westgate for snail races; Astra Vainio-Mattila (reader extraordinaire and member of my first-ever Focus Group); Helen, Asa, and Sophie Thomas, and Julian Patrick for tales of Camp Wanapitei; Tamara Sugunasiri for asking for a book like this (I planned it over the course of one of your great dinners); Derek Scott for Pied Piping, plus Maya Scott (Focus Group member) for teaching yourself to read and shaving your head at three; Laurent Ruffo-Caracchini for making teenage brilliance likable; Tracey “Trace the Ace” Rapos for your ink; my niece and goddaughter, Dearbhaile Ní Dhubhghaill, for your passions for animals and Elvish; our Montreal family (Jeff, Declan, and Lo?c Miles, and especially Hélène Roulston for MaxiMal calm); Holly Harkins-Manning and Richard, Owen, Silas, Duncan, Malcolm, Seamus Finnegan (Focus Group member), and Charlotte Manning, for making more look so much merrier; Alison Lee and Sarah Redekop, especially for brainstorming tree names for the Lotterys on the train to Menton; novelist Amanda Jennings for putting the name of her goddaughter Seren Johnson in this book as a fund-raiser for CLIC Sargent (the UK’s leading cancer charity for young people); Sidney and Madeleine Gervais, and thanks so much Kelly Gervais for driving me around Parkdale in search of Camelottery; Ali Dover for sanity-saving hilarity and dispatches from the wilder shores of parenting and woo, plus Zelda Dover for inimitable scowls; my sister-in-law Bernie Donoghue for endless patience; Ashlin Core (Focus Group member) for mismatched socks; Kate Ceberano for your daughter’s “imagic that”; Vivien Carrady and Sheldon, Desana, Seth, and Alex Rose for sudden headstands and grace under fire; the Bélanger-Ferrés (Danièle, Stéphane, Loup-Yann, Guillaume, and Tristan), as well as Samantha and Mallory Brennan and Jeff, Gavin, and Miles Fullerton, for showing how families can cherish everyone’s talents; Bipasha Baruah, Paul Perret, and Ahaan Perret Baruah for doing it your way; Eric Gansworth, Roberta Duhaime, and Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich for reading the manuscript and giving me the benefit of their kind advice; and Caroline Hadilaksono for the glorious illustrations.
A special thanks to my parents, Frances and Denis Donoghue (who’d have preferred to have two rather than eight, but love us all unflaggingly), and my beloved Chris, Una, and Finn Roulston (Focus Group member) for daily inspiration and laughs.