American as Paneer Pie by Supriya Kelkar

Author:Supriya Kelkar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2020-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

chapter EIGHTEEN

As the lights twinkled brightly on the large artificial Christmas tree in the family room behind us, I stared at the table full of food laid out before me, Kendall, Aidy, Harper, and Harper’s six-year-old brother, Harrison, in the Walbournes’ small kitchen. It was loaded with candy and chocolate and an extra-large cheese pizza. I smiled, thinking about how Dad used to teach me the order of the planets by reciting a song that said, “My very educated mother just served us nine pizza pies.” After I reminded Dad that Pluto had gotten kicked out of the planet club, he ordered a “pizza pie” in its honor, and since then, every time Aai made pizza, Dad would start the meal by holding his slice up against ours as if we were clinking glasses, but instead of “Cheers,” he’d say, “To our dear friend in the sky, good old pizza pie.”

I reached for a can of pop in between bites of piping hot pizza. Aai normally had us avoid cans because of some chemical they leached, but she wasn’t here and I was thirsty.

Seated by the sliding-glass door, through which I could just barely make out the river in the darkness, Harper was wrapping a gooey strand of cheese around her finger like a bandage. “We have to beat Preston tomorrow. They beat us at every swim meet last year. Tomorrow, it stops.”

“For sure,” said Kendall, chewing on some candy. “Hey!”

Harrison swiped the candy off Kendall’s plate and put it on his pizza. Kendall playfully rubbed Harrison’s blond hair as he swallowed his mutant pizza down.

“That is disgusting,” laughed Aidy.

“He’s always putting the grossest stuff on his pizza,” said Harper.

“You ladies want anything else to eat?” asked Mrs. Walbourne from the kitchen.

“No, thanks,” I said as the fizz from the pop tickled my throat.

“Mm-kay,” she responded, her head inside the fridge.

I gasped when I saw the large navy-blue magnet on the open refrigerator door. It said, DON’T LIKE IT?

“What’s wrong?” asked Harper.

“Bit my tongue,” I lied. My third lie of the night. I was getting to be a little too good at this. But if Mrs. Walbourne had a Winters magnet up, did that mean she didn’t like me? That she thought my parents were stealing everyone’s jobs? I tried to figure out a way to casually mention the fact that Aai no longer worked at the plant, but Harrison spoke up first.

“What are you getting for Christmas?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Harrison. Santa hasn’t come to my house yet,” said Aidy.

“I’m getting LEGOs,” Harrison responded, in between bites of chocolate cheese.

“What do you want Santa to bring you, Lekha?” asked Aidy. “Sorry. Is it against your religion to celebrate Christmas?”

I took a big gulp of pop, hoping I wouldn’t burp from all the bubbles I was swallowing. “It’s not against my religion. But it’s not really a holiday for my religion,” I said softly, hoping Mrs. Walbourne wasn’t going to say something to me.

“Yeah, Hindi people celebrate Diwali,” said Harper, trying to show off what she had heard in Mr.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.