Page 20 - FATE & DESTINY

FATE & DESTINY

I shuffled into the smoky kitchen and spread my mattress. “With friends.” As I lay, staring at the ceiling, I missed
my mom and brother.
“Dinner?” he said.
“I am not hungry,” I said.
“I know you are hungry,” he said.
Silence reigned in the room as we looked at each other’s face.
Problems often emerged, but I never wrangled with Dad and Step-mom.

***

The next year, Junisa Kawa joined the school. He was African. He traveled in a fancy car and carried a hundred-
ngultrum note every day. It was like five thousand ngultrums for me. He took splendid advantage of his father’s
supremacy. As a friend, he turned out to be the worst nightmare. Everyone despised him. And there was a weird
rumor about his parents’ idyllic style of consummation. I heard his father hung his mother upside down and laid. I
wondered in eagerness how that was possible, even though I was too young to contemplate such a nasty thing.
People said it was the African way or whatever, but I forgot it after Junisa Kawa became my classmate.
Junisa Kawa had eagle eyes, poking out from their sockets against the dark skin. The bold expression on his
face—sustained by his thin corkscrew hair—evinced he possessed a stony heart.
One day, I saw a boy wailing before him at the gate. Scurrying behind a tree, I watched them. Junisa Kawa
scoffed at the boy. “Take it if you can,” he said.
“Let go,” wailed the boy, trying to pull out the pencil from under his foot. “Please.” When the Apsara Regal
Gold pencil snapped off, he wailed louder. “My pencil! Boohoo! Dad!”
Junisa Kawa expressed no regrets. “Go get your father. I’ll wait here.”
The poor boy flung the broken pencil at him. From behind the tree, I watched the kid slog away.
Junisa flunked and studied in my class, the next year. Right from the beginning, he incited us to violence and
serious troubles.
“It was here,” I said. “How come it disappeared from the shelf?”
“You must be mistaken,” said Lemo, the slenderest girl in the class with a milky face. “Who would steal such a
thing?”
I conducted another fine-tooth comb search of the shelf. “The sketch pens are missing.”
“You sure, buddy?” asked Junisa Kawa.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Double sure.”
“Who would take them away?” said Lemo. “None of us would do that.”
I curled my lips. “Yeah, none of us do that, except one boy.”
Junisa shot me a ferocious glare. “What’s that supposed to mean? Do you doubt me? I would have asked if I had
to take them.”
“Oh, really?” I scoffed. “You didn’t ask me when you took my pencil last time.”
“When? Don’t you lie to me!”
I snickered. “You said sorry, remember?”
“I didn’t.”
The next day, I said, “Whosoever stole sketch pens would bleed and die in a week.”
Lips quivering, Junisa blurted, “Why?”
“Because I prayed at the village temple,” I said. “The thief would bleed and die in a minute. The deity is very
temperamental but if sketch pens are returned, he will live.”
In recess, Junisa followed me and said, “Are you sure the thief would bleed to death if sketch pens are not
returned?”
“Why?” I kept my hands on my hips. “What makes you think I am lying?”
“Just asking.”
“Wait and watch. The thief would die in a week.”
Color drained from his face, he looked around. “Are you sure?”
“Of course,” I said. “The deity won’t leave the thief.”
The next day, Lemo said, “Oh, the sketch pens are here!”
“See, I told you,” said Junisa. “The fool didn’t search thoroughly.”
I curled my lips. “Oh, really?”
Months later, over a trifling matter, Junisa grasped my collar and shook me hard.
“Junisa, you gotta stop that,” I said, gnashing my teeth. “You are making me angry.”
“What are you gonna do? Huh?” His eyes sparkled with pride as he punched the air. “Come on, you coward.”

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