Rickshaw Girl by Mitali Perkins

Author:Mitali Perkins [Perkins, Mitali]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781607345077
Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing
Published: 2007-02-04T13:00:00+00:00

Nine

THE IDEA CAME WHEELING into her mind as though it had been waiting for the chance. She was still the best alpana painter in the village, wasn’t she? Surely painting rickshaws wasn’t much harder than designing alpanas. Why couldn’t she work for the rickshaw painter in exchange for the rickshaw repair?

Think this through, Naima, she warned herself sternly.

Men in the village sometimes traded work with each other. Saleem had burned garbage the week before in exchange for roof repairs on his family’s hut. The rickshaw repair shops in Naima’s village always hired a boy or two as helpers.

Naima pulled the white ribbon from under the sleeve of her salwar kameez. After tying it in a bow around her braid, she swung the braid in front of her shoulder and waited for Saleem to drive by. She saw his eyes widen as he picked up her signal. Making sure Mother and Rashida were still asleep, she slipped away to meet him.

The banana leaves stirred up a breeze as Saleem pushed through them. “Naima! I was so glad to see that ribbon again. Why have you been avoiding me?”

For the first time in her life, Naima couldn’t meet his eyes. “I—I—er … “

“Are we still friends?” Saleem asked.

Naima looked up and saw the familiar nut-brown face, the dark eyebrows that met in the middle of Saleem’s forehead, the almond eyes full of concern. “We’ll always be friends,” she said.

Saleem’s teeth gleamed like the inside of a coconut. “So what’s your new plan?” he asked.

“How’d you know I have a plan?”

He shrugged. “I’ve known you ever since you were born, Naima. Some of your ideas are crazy, but you always think of something. And a few of them are really good.”

“They are? Like what?”

“You invented that new color for alpanas by mixing crushed marigold petals with papaya rinds, remember? That’s one reason you won the prize last year. And you came up with our secret signal, too. Which nobody’s figured out yet.”

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