Animal by Munish K. Batra & Keith R.A. DeCandido

Author:Munish K. Batra & Keith R.A. DeCandido [Batra M.D., FACS, Munish K. & DeCandido, Keith R.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781680571622
Publisher: WordFire Press

Chapter Fifteen

21 April 1979

Bhatnagar family estate

Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

Kai never got to see Daddy very much.

Mommy had explained it once. Daddy’s job was in Peking. But Mommy’s house was in Shanghai.

So they lived in Shanghai. Kai didn’t understand why they couldn’t have a house in Peking or why Daddy couldn’t have a job in Shanghai, but Mommy said that that was the way it was and then she got that look on her face that she got when she was upset, and Kai didn’t say anything else.

But he thought it was stupid. Because he barely ever got to see Daddy.

At least he had Nandita. Daddy was always in Peking working, and Mommy was always doing things with other grown-ups.

Nandita, though, was always there for him. Kai couldn’t remember a time when the dog wasn’t there. Mommy wasn’t always around, and the governess wasn’t always around, but Nandita? Every time Kai wanted to play with someone, she would galumph up to him and play with him and lick his face and run with him and let Kai ride her—though Mommy didn’t let him do that anymore, she said he was too big—and all that.

Nandita was the best. As long as Kai had Nandita, he was happy.

This Saturday morning, though, he wasn’t happy because the governess was making him do schoolwork. Kai was apparently very smart, whatever that meant, and because of that, he had to go to school and go to classes with a bunch of six-year-olds. The five-year-old Kai thought that six-year-olds were dumb, but nobody asked him.

It was bad enough that he had to go to school for five straight days, but here it was Saturday, and he still had to do stuff for school!

So he sat in his room writing words on a piece of paper, making sure they were between the dotted lines. Kai didn’t understand what he would need penmanship for anyhow, and it was a stupid word anyway. It was just writing.

The door to his bedroom opened, and the governess, Miss Lim, stuck her head inside. “How is it coming, Chanan?”

Kai hated that name. Kiara, his older sister, always called him Kai, which was short for Kayaan, his middle name, and he liked that better than Chanan. Chanan sounded stupid.

So he didn’t answer, because he didn’t like that name. He just kept writing.

“Chanan!” Miss Lim barked, and this time he did look up, because her voice got all scary.

“I’m doing it!” he whined.

“Good. When you’re finished, you may go outside and ride your tricycle in the yard.”

Kai sat up in bed and bounced on it. “Can Nandita come with me?”

Miss Lim frowned. “Well, I don’t know …”

“Please?”

“I suppose she could use a good run.”

“Yay!”

“But you must finish your schoolwork first!”

“I will.”

Kai lay back down on the bed and hurried through the rest of his penmanship homework.

He wrote a bunch of things outside the lines, but he didn’t care. The teacher would probably tell him he did it wrong, but so what? Writing between the lines was stupid.

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