Free The Flower Boy by Karen Roberts Page B

indoors, his stomach churning.
    That night, he dreamt that his mother was being chased by a whole gaggle of huge turkeys with sharklike teeth, each brandishing a shining Sheffield steel knife, while he just stood there and laughed hysterically.

chapter 7
    THE MONTHS PASSED WITH THE SWIFTNESS OF A RIVER IN SPATE.
    The invisible cloak of childhood was shedding itself slowly but surely, and in its place grew another invisible cloak. This new one was more fragile than the last, needing more of the colorful threads of imagination to keep it intact.
    The smell of rebellion was in the air. In the kitchen, Krishna rebelled against Premawathi’s iron control, sarcastic tongue and ear-twisting by stealing food whenever he could and peeping more frequently when she took her baths.
    Premawathi rebelled against her feelings of loneliness and need by rushing to and fro even more frantically than usual, and tiring herself out in the process.
    In the main house, Jonathan, whenever he came to visit, rebelled against his mother’s loving grip, which hardened every day like rapidly cooling caramel, by going off on long solitary walks or spending hours with Rose-Lizzie.
    Anne rebelled against her enforced friendships with neighboring planters’ children, most of whom she thought were empty and vacuous, by simply not speaking when she was taken to visit them.
    And John Buckwater rebelled against his wife, whose voice seemed to be getting higher as her interest in their lives got lower, by simply ignoring her.
    In the church school, Chandi rebelled against Teacher’s postblackboard naps by throwing chalk-saturated dusters at him whenever his back was turned.
    And in her plush, lace-trimmed pram, Rose-Lizzie rebelled against her ayah-jailer by sinking her perfectly white pieces-of-coconut-like teeth into Ayah’s fleshy underarms whenever they were within range.
    Rose-Lizzie was by now nearly three, and walking and talking. She was pampered by everyone except her mother, who found her three-month-old English magazines far more absorbing than her three-year-old daughter.
    John had given up trying to change things.
    He had talked, implored, threatened, but Elsie Buckwater’s little bubble of discontent was prick-proof. Every day she withdrew a little more, got a little more distant, showing animation only when people from neighboring bungalows visited.
    She treated her husband with icy formality, her children with absolute indifference and the servants with cold hauteur.
    John now concentrated on being both father and mother to Rose-Lizzie, often taking her piggyback around the plantation when he went out on his inspections. She flashed her toothy grin at the pickers, who would wave and grin back at her.
    He spent his evenings playing with her, reading to her and explaining the complicated business of tea to her, while his wife lounged in the Chesterfield by the bay window and flipped and sipped.
    If Rose-Lizzie missed her mother’s care, she didn’t seem to show it.
    Chandi occasionally saw her, but only from afar. He was content to wait, because he knew that it would be only a matter of time before their friendship blossomed. Besides, he had other things to concentrate on these days.
    Keeping out of trouble was the hardest.
    TEACHER WAS COMPLAINING to Father Ross again.
    â€œThat Chandi, always throwing dusters on me, sending chalk dust all over,” he said, his face gray with the said chalk dust. “I’m having lung problems also,” coughing violently for extra effect. “That boy will be the death of me, Father, I’m telling you.” He broke off coughing. When he finished, he spat out a large wad of phlegm which almost landed on Father Ross’s shoe. “See?”
    Father Ross saw. He moved his foot away and tried hard not to laugh.
    The church was poor, and the church school poorer. Both depended on the largesse of the planters for their existence. Largesse was low these days, and