Free Secret Keeper by Mitali Perkins Page B

talking. But there was no sign of her neighbor across the way.
    Monsoon clouds, dark and heavy, drew closer to each other. Crows screeched warnings from the coconut trees as the wind began to pick up. “Tuni!” Ma shouted from below. “Where
is
that girl? Does anybody know?”
    “She’s upstairs, Ma,” Reet’s voice answered. “Probably resting.”
    Windows banged as Ma and Auntie hurried to stormproof the house. The boys on the field called their cricket game and dispersed. Rain was starting to fall; slow, steaming drops that hissed as they landed. Asha watched a pattern of dark gray spread across the lighter dry expanse of roof.
    Raj, heading into the house through the side yard,looked up, glimpsed his cousin, and grinned. Asha basked in the affection she saw in his face; she’d worked hard to earn it. Sadly, though, that smile was probably the last he’d give her for a while, because the first step in Plan B involved robbing him. She was going to have to borrow a racket, balls, one rupee, and a pair of shorts, a shirt, and a cap in order for the plan to work.
    The goal of the plan was to make sure the Y.L.I. never wanted to see Reet again; Asha was going to have to shame him so that he slunk away with his head down. What was the best way to put a boy like that in his place? A girl had to beat him soundly, as the American player Billie Jean King had humiliated her nemesis, Bobby Riggs. Three straight sets in front of all those watching eyes.
    Asha knew Plan B had lots of pitfalls; maybe she should discard it altogether. Even the weather might not cooperate-Raj had been grumbling about the storms that had been drenching the tennis courts on Friday afternoons. Her cousin might catch her borrowing his things. The getaway part was even trickier. How would she sneak out of the house without anybody seeing? Even if she did manage to escape, the college boys might guess that she was a girl
before
she got to win the tournament. And what if she couldn’t even remember how to hit the ball over the net?
    She stood up and began pacing the roof. “The name’s Gupta,” she said, trying to make the pitch of her voice sound less like a girl. That was all she’d have to announce to the boys who organized the tournament, and thankfully it was a common enough name. Her voice squeaked the first two times she practiced it. Lightning flashed, followed bythe deep rumble of thunder. Asha tried to imitate it: “The name’s Gupta. Boom!”
    The storm was intensifying, so she ducked back under the angled sheet of rippled tin. She’d come to the hardest part of her plan, the step that would set things in motion. Bringing her braid in front of her shoulder, she stroked its length. Her sister combed Asha’s hair out every night before bed, humming or singing while she eased out the tangles. Then Reet wove it into a single thick, heavy braid. It was so long now that Asha had to move it out of the way before she sat down. How had Jay described it? “Glowing in the sunlight like silk.”
    It was no use; she had to save Reet. She had to do what came next.
    Opening the paper bag, Asha pulled out a pair of sharp kitchen shears, closed her eyes for a moment, and pictured her sister’s face. Then she held up her long, wet braid. Quickly, before she could change her mind, she sliced it off as close to the nape of her neck as she could manage. Snap! The braid dangled like a heavy rope from her hand, and she glanced again at Jay’s closed window.
    She wound the orphaned hair into a flat, tight coronet, took a few pins out of the bag, and pinned the spiral back into place. Hopefully, she’d avoid Reet’s nightly brush, and nobody would be able to tell that her braid was no longer attached to her scalp until after she’d carried out her plan.

FOURTEEN
    A SHA KNEW THAT FOR P LAN B TO HAVE EVEN A FAINT HOPE OF succeeding, she’d need a bunch of miracles. To her amazement, they came.
    Miracle Number One: It didn’t rain the next day. The sun