No Ordinary Day by Deborah Ellis

Author:Deborah Ellis
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd.
Published: 2011-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

8

Beautiful Blood

IT WAS A BIT OF A WALK.

Dr. Indra did not try to hold onto me or make me walk where she could see me. I tried walking behind her and she just kept going. She didn’t even look back to see if I was following her. I could have run away any time.

I decided to walk beside her.

She talked to me about what it was like to be a doctor. She said she had to study very hard for a long time. She said she didn’t think she could ever learn everything she needed to know, but now it was all in her brain, ready for whenever she needed it.

“It’s what I’ve always wanted to do,” she said. “When I was young, all my friends would spend their spare time at the movies. I spent mine with my biology books and volunteering with a street clinic.”

“I’ve never been to the movies,” I said.

“I enjoy them now,” Dr. Indra told me. “Now that I am doing what I was meant to do, I can take time for things like movies.”

She didn’t offer to take me to the movies. That was another point in her favor. When I was living at the railway station, a man took a boy I borrowed with to the movies and I never saw him again.

I decided I would trust her enough to let her take me in a tuk-tuk, as long as I sat on the outside.

Dr. Indra waved her hand, and a tuk-tuk pulled out of traffic and came right over to the curb. She got in beside the driver and I squished in beside her, right against the outside railing. We sped off at first, but soon got caught up in the start-and-stop traffic.

I didn’t care. I was enjoying myself.

I had hitched rides on the backs of tuk-tuks before, crouched on the bumper with my face pressed against the dusty metal. Sitting in the front was much more fun.

We hit a patch without traffic and the tuk-tuk took off. I swayed into Dr. Indra as the driver swerved his three wheels to zip between a bus and a truck full of melons. Horns blared at us.

I stood up and started to hang off the side to make faces at the other drivers. Dr. Indra pulled me back in, but she did it in a nice way, so I didn’t mind.

We got stopped by some cows right in front of the sometimes friendly tea seller. I leaned over the doctor to yell at him and wave.

He didn’t notice me. He was too busy looking miserable because his older brother was back. His brother was counting up the little clay cups and comparing his total to something written on a piece of paper.

I watched the older brother put the paper in his shirt pocket, pick up a stack of the clay cups and wave them in the tea seller’s face. He lost his grip and the stack of cups started to teeter. Then, one by one, they fell to the sidewalk and smashed.

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