Free The Flower Boy by Karen Roberts Page A

Krishna and the three girls who helped around the house.
    To Chandi, who had pushed himself as far into his mother’s reddha as he could, the scene before him looked like something out of a storybook. The family, the tree, the roaring fire, the bay window. It was a perfect picture, marred only by the unmatched grapes hanging around the door.
    He fixed his gaze on Rose-Lizzie, who seemed more interested in the shiny tree. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed her to look at him.
    He opened his eyes and found her dark blue eyes fixed on him in an unblinking stare. He stared back, then blinked. She blinked back. He blew out his cheeks. She blew out her cheeks. He stuck his tongue out. She did the same.
    He regarded her gravely and she regarded him gravely back. Then he smiled and her serious little face dissolved in a wide, white grin. Three teeth now. Three polished pieces of perfectly white coconut, without black worm holes in even one.
    The child and the baby grinned across the four years, thirteen adults and infinite circumstances between them.
    â€œChandi, Chandi.” His mother’s urgent stage whisper penetrated the grin and suddenly, the years, adults and circumstances were there again.
    His mother was pushing him forward. Everyone was looking at him and the Sudu Nona was wearing her kind Christmas look and holding out a small, odd-shaped package. He went forward and took it.
    â€œMerry Christmas, Chandi,” she said in her Christmas voice.
    â€œThank you,” he mumbled, and rushed back to the safety of his mother’s reddha. She bent toward him.
    â€œDid you say thank you?” she demanded softly. He shot her an angry look. Of course he’d said thank you. He wasn’t that stupid.
    He looked at Rose-Lizzie and surreptitiously waggled his fingers at her.
    She waggled her fingers back at him.
    LATER, THE LITTLE family sat opening their presents in their little room. His was a red plastic money box in the shape of a pig, its curly tail plastered against its fat bottom. It looked sleepy. He turned it around in his hands and wondered where he could hide it once he had transferred the England fund into it. It was too fat to go under the stone.
    Ammi’s present was a new reddha, a dark blue one, the color of Rose-Lizzie’s eyes, with little white flowers on it, the color of Rose-Lizzie’s skin. She also got five rupees, which she folded into a tiny square and tucked into her brassiere. Leela got two fake-tortoiseshell hair grips and Rangi got a cake of English Lavender soap, which she placed carefully in her small box of clothes, next to the identical one she had got last Christmas.
    They talked softly about the lights on the tree, about how sweet the Sudu Baby had looked and about how Jonathan had kept shifting in his seat to avoid his mother’s clutches.
    Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden commotion outside the kitchen door and they all ran out to look.
    Krishna was being chased by the Christmas turkey, which had somehow managed to escape and was grimly determined not to be Christmas dinner.
    Sunlight glinted off the large Sheffield steel knife he was brandishing around as he hopped from foot to foot to avoid the beak of Glencairn’s irate main course.
    Chandi, Leela and Rangi laughed helplessly, but Ammi was not amused. She strode over to Krishna and snatched the knife away from him.
    â€œGet into the house, you buffoon, and stop delaying dinner,” she ordered. Her voice had the same effect on the turkey as on Krishna, for it stopped dead and looked at her with inquiring eyes.
    Chandi was about to entreat his mother to spare it when she grabbed it by its neck and, with a quick clean motion, chopped its head off. Its headless body ran around for a few seconds, jerked once and finally died properly.
    Chandi just stood there, shocked not so much by the death of the turkey, as by his mother’s ability to kill with such quick ease.
    He turned and ran