I made a little gagging sound. Zuzu knew perfectly well that I was allergic to anything remotely princess-y. It was probably because of my parents’ obsession, but I couldn’t stand princesses of any culture. Whether in saris and bangles or tutus and tiaras, the thing that really got to me about princesses was all that self-righteous, Pepto-Bismol-pink-coated prettiness. And of course all that waiting: waiting for princes to come, waiting for fate to change, waiting for rescue to swoop in. Just thinking about it made my throat feel like it was closing up.
“It’s my birthday, and you’re going to make me choke on my own bile.” I squinted my eyes against the morning sun, wishing for the quadrillionth time that my mother would let me have curtains on my windows. But she’d somehow gotten it into her head that it was healthier for young people to sleep in the moonlight.
“Oh, I think you’ll survive that, Princess Pretty Pants.” I imagined Zuzu pushing her hipster-red glasses up her pert nose. “But Ms. Valdez might impale you with her protractor if you miss the math test today.”
Gah. I finally registered the time. “Oh, man, I’m totally late!”
“Ahde! Schnell! You better hurry, babe!” Zuzu chirped. “But don’t you fret, this is going to be the wildest birthday ever!”
I had no idea then just how right she would be.
Forget a special birthday outfit; I threw on my favorite pair of jeans and a black T-shirt, and quickly braided my dark hair so that it covered the weird scar I had on the back of my neck—one of the two that my parents swore were nothing more than big birthmarks. I tied a bandanna over the even uglier scar, the one on my upper arm that looks like a pair of saggy glasses, and then, for double protection, threw on my favorite black hoodie. I ran down the stairs, ignoring the odd expressions on my parents’ faces, their strained birthday greetings, even the elaborate breakfast of puffed luchi bread and potatoes Ma had made for me.
“Kiranmala—” Baba began, but I cut him off.
“You know …” I snuck a few chocolate cookies from the pantry into my pocket. “I was thinking, tonight, for trick-or-treating, I might go as a vampire.”
“There is not enough fiber in that, darling.” Baba’s sharp eyes hadn’t missed my contraband breakfast. “Roughage is very necessary for good digestion.”
Ignoring Baba’s worries about my digestive system, I shoved a cookie in my mouth, then slipped on my favorite shoes—bright purple combat boots Zuzu and I had found at the thrift store. I threw my backpack on my shoulder and hoped Ma wouldn’t yell at me too much about not eating the food she’d made.
“You don’t have to buy me a vampire outfit, maybe just some fake plastic teeth?”
My mouth was all thick with chocolate, and I wished I had time to pour myself something to drink.
“What is this vampire-shmampire?”
Ma handed me a glass of lactose-free milk as she asked this. I was expecting the milk to be accompanied by a “you better eat a proper breakfast” death-glare, but Ma seemed too tired to scold. There were circles under her caramel-colored eyes, and the normally tidy bouffant on her head was a bit lopsided.
“Oh, you know what a vampire is.” I bared my teeth, doing a bad impression of an old movie monster. “I vant to suck your blood.”
Baba shook his finger in mock jocularity. “A vampire is a second-rate monster, if you ask me. Now, a rakkhosh—that’s a monster with some chutzpah!” My father loved using expressions he learned from his customers. “Suck your blood? A rakkhosh will suck the very marrow from your bones and then use your finger as a toothpick!”
His laugh, which jiggled his paunchy belly as usual, seemed a little forced. While this all struck me as weird at the time, I just chalked it up to my parents’ baseline weirdness.
“My piece of the moon, my garland of moonbeams,” Ma began as she took my empty glass. “There is something …”
She was going to start in on the whole Indian princess routine, I knew it.
“Don’t worry about the vampire thing, Ma, it was just an idea.” I turned the front door handle, ready to jet. “I’m going to be late for school.”
“Kiranmala, wait,” a voice called, but I didn’t respond.
I stood on our porch, looking out over our totally bare front yard. The contrast between our rickety fixer-upper and all our neighbors’ McMansions hit me. Everyone else on the street had manicured lawns with pruned hedges and flower beds. Us? Barely skeletal hedges and raggedy trees. I blushed, remembering how Jovi had once asked if lawn maintenance was against our religion.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the school bus turn onto the street.
“Princess …” Baba called.
“In the name of the Garden State Parkway, how many times do I have to tell you guys?” I jogged down the front steps. “For the last time already, I am not a princess!”
Ma looked stricken and I wondered if the words had come out harsher than I intended.
The regret nipped at me, but I didn’t have time to make nice like a good daughter now. “Look, I have to go, okay?”
That was when I heard the bus door open behind me with a whoosh. I sensed more than saw the kids on the bus taking in my family scene—Baba in his ratty, too tight kurta; Ma in a blinding, bright yellow-and-green sari, her bare, ringed toes peeping out from beneath the frayed hem. I felt the heat of mixed emotions flood my cheeks. Why couldn’t they just be like everybody else?
I rushed to get on the bus. But in my hurry, I tripped in the snake ditch—the long, shallow trench that Baba kept dug around our yard to protect us from Parsippany’s nonexistent cobra population.
I could hear kids on the bus snickering and kept my head down as I took my seat. I only looked up as the school bus pulled away to see both my parents standing in the driveway. I couldn’t hear them, and through the thick pane of glass, their faces looked strange and distorted.
All day long, the guilt churned in my stomach. I couldn’t shake the memory of my parents’ anxious expressions. What had they wanted to tell me? Well, maybe this would convince them to let me have a cell phone, like every other twelve-year-old kid in the universe. I planned my argument all day at school with Zuzu, who was obsessed with languages and loved using long, complicated words to get her way.
“Mobile telecommunications are a critical component of modern society,” I rattled off as I opened the front door that afternoon. But I stopped mid-argument. The house was strangely still.
Ma and Baba never both worked on my birthday. At least one of them was usually waiting inside the door to ambush me with food and presents. Where were they?
I took off my boots and crossed into the kitchen, noticing the back door was propped open at an odd angle. I knew that the hinges were old, but this was ridiculous. One more item to add to the list of things that needed fixing. I shut it the best I could behind me, and stepped back into the house.
That’s when I noticed that Ma’s normally spotless kitchen was a mess. The kitchen chairs were this way and that, with one upside down near the door, like someone had knocked it over as they ran.
My heart started beating so loud, my head felt like a drum. I’d seen way too many television crime dramas not to think that maybe someone had broken in.