“Hey, slippery,” she barked, poking me in the arm with her fleshy finger. Ow. “You buy some bangles from me.”
When I shook my head, she plunked her reed basket on the ground and crouched beside it. The folds on her belly jiggled as she worked so that she looked like a big bowl of polka-dot Jell-O.
“I really don’t think—” I began, but she pretended that she couldn’t hear me. The woman dug through a sparkling array of green, magenta, turquoise, and gold bracelets until she found what she was searching for.
“I have your color!” she insisted, pulling out a dozen silver and pink bangles that she slipped on her own robust arm. As she slipped them off, she grabbed my arm and began shoving the huge bracelets over my wrist. Strange thing was, they shrunk to fit me perfectly.
“Uh, no, thanks.” I pulled the bangles back off and dropped them into her basket with a clatter. “I don’t like pink.”
“It’s not a crime to like pretty things.” I caught the lady peering at my scar, and I put my hand over my arm to cover it. The bangle seller shrugged her beefy shoulders, heaving the basket on her head again. “You should eat something, maybe then you wouldn’t be so grumpy.”
“I’m sorry, they were very nice,” I began. “Maybe in a different color …”
But she was already hawking her wares again. “EZ Fit bangles—for the generously proportioned and the skinny-butt offspring of slimy snake creatures alike!”
What the heck did that mean? I got the feeling that maybe the bangle-selling lady wasn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.
On the other hand, maybe she was right about one thing. I was pretty hungry. Maybe if I ate something, I’d feel less overwhelmed. As if on cue, my stomach moaned. I looked around at the signs on the shopkeepers’ stalls.
FRIED DRIED COCKROACHES. ALSO PILLOWCASES—DEEP-FRIED OR NOW, FOR YOU HEALTH NUTS, STEAMED.
As ravenous as I was, neither item seemed particularly appetizing. I stopped by a stall that was selling kati rolls—egg and meat with onions and chilis, folded into fluffy parathas, and then rolled up in a paper carrier. I inhaled the first one in about three bites and then bought three more with Ma’s rupees, eating as I walked. I rolled my eyes a little as they filled my mouth and stomach with spicy goodness. As I finished the last one, ineffectively wiping my oily fingers on the oily wrapper, something caught my attention.
Lazy? A slowpoke? Running from a rakkhosh? Try Mr. Madan Mohan’s motivational motion device!
(PATENT PENDING)
Huh. I had certainly run from a rakkhosh, and there was nothing to say I wouldn’t do so again in the process of rescuing my parents. This seemed like something I should investigate.
“Mr. Madan? Mr. Mohan?” I called from the counter.
From the back of the stall emerged a little man whose curling moustache was at least the length side to side as he was tall. He could barely peer over the counter, and stood on his toes to do so with an air of suspicion.
“It’s Mr. Madan Mohan, Esquire!” he snapped. “Well, what is it? I haven’t got all day!”
“Well, Mr. Esquire, I wanted to see your”—I paused to read the sign, not wanting to offend the shopkeeper again—“motivational motion device.”
“Hmm. I was just going to oil and curl my moustache,” Mr. Madan Mohan, Esquire, muttered. “What use have you for it anyway?”
“How can I know what use I have for it if I haven’t even seen it?”
“Then it’ll be just as well you come back tomorrow. Or better yet, next week.” The man took out a metal rod and began to pull down the corrugated shutters in front of the shop. “Maybe next month, there’s a good girl.”
I was getting irritated. “If you’re not willing to show it, how do you ever expect to sell it?”
“Sell it?” Mr. Madan Mohan, Esquire, put back up the shutters with a snap. “For money? Why that’s a splendid thought! Why didn’t I think of that myself?” The little man reached over the counter and pumped my hand. “There’s a reason that you’re in the business that you’re in!”
I snatched back my arm. “I’m not in any business! You’re the one in business. I just wanted to see what you’re selling—in case I need it to run away from a rakkhosh!”
“Yes, of course you do! Why didn’t you say so before?” His moustache quivered.
I rolled my eyes. Someone needed some lessons in basic capitalism. But before I could turn away, the tiny shopkeeper came out of the stall with the most amazing contraption.
A wooden frame balanced on Mr. Madan Mohan’s shoulders, and from the back of this frame rose a long stick extending beyond the man’s head. From this stick, parallel to the ground, was what looked like a fishing pole whose end dangled just beyond the man’s nose.
“What is that?”
“Just see!” He took a bag of potato chips from his pocket, attached it to the end of the fishing pole, then let the line out a little farther from a handle he held.
Even though he had just put them there himself, Mr. Madan Mohan, Esquire, went a little crazy at the sight of the potato chips. Glassy eyed and drooling, he started chasing the chips farther and farther down the street, as if not realizing that all he had to do was reel them in.
“Wait! Wait!” I ran after the little man.
He was so fast, it took me a few seconds to catch up with even his short legs.
“This is your invention? A fishing pole with a bag of chips at the end?”
“What do you know about it?” The shopkeeper seemed ready to keep running, so I grabbed the potato chips from the pole. This incensed the little man even further.
“Thief! Thief!” he shouted, his face purple.
“Wait a minute! Take the bag!” I thrust it at the man. “I didn’t steal anything from you! I was just wondering why anyone would need chips if they were running from a demon. I mean, wouldn’t that be motivation enough?”
“But they’re vinegar and chili flavored!” he said, as if this explained it all. Then his face turned purple again and he continued to shout. “Thief! Thief! You’re part of that band that stole my moustache last week!”
Mr. Madan Mohan, Esquire, yelled so much that a small crowd gathered. I tried hard not to laugh.
“This girl has stolen my moustache!” The man pointed a spindly finger at me.
A portly police constable pushed his way forward of the group. “Brother Madan, calm yourself. When did this theft occur?”
“Last week!” the little man shouted. “Yesterday! Tomorrow!” With each word, his moustache twitched and danced.
The crowd rumbled, and I felt my amusement congeal into fear. I heard someone hiss the word “stranger.”
The constable wrote down the shopkeeper’s accusations in a tiny notebook. In fact, the notebook was so tiny, he had to keep flipping pages with each and every word he wrote. “Last”—flip—“week”—flip—“yesterday”—flip—“tomorrow.” He mouthed the words as he wrote, sounding them out.