Page 203 - Half Girlfriend

Students took over the stage again. They did a dance-drama about

Lord Krishna, the naughty boy who stole butter. The shortest student
in class II, a little girl called Karuna, played Krishna. She wore a
headband with a peacock feather stuck in it. After it was over, my

mother went up on stage and thanked the participating students.

Samantha from the Gates Foundation came up to me.
‘Bill needs to leave. Otherwise we will be late,’ she whispered in

my ear, her voice rushed.
‘Won’t he give a speech?’ I said.

‘He never does.’
My heart sank. I wanted to ask her how the speech went but

Samantha seemed too stressed out to notice or care.
‘I would like to call Mr Bill Gates on the stage to say a few words,’

my mother said. Mr Gates smiled and folded his hands, however,
asking to be excused.

I ran back up on stage. My mother seemed surprised. I took the

mic from her.‘Mr Gates needs to leave. If it’s okay, I would like to call
Inin on stage to accept a small gift from us,’ I said.
Mr Gates obliged. He came on stage, along with two members of

his Foundation. A class V girl arrived with the gift. It was a small

hand-painted clay pot. Several students had drawn flowers on it. In the
potwas a flowering plant.

‘It’s beautiful,' Mr Gates said as he accepted the gift.
I smiled at him.

‘Nice speech,’ he said.
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. I shook hands with the other two delegates

tin stage. One was Phil and the other was Roger, a young assistant to
Mr Gates.

‘Phil, do you want to?’ Mr Gates said.
‘Yeah, sure,’ Phil said.

Want to what? I wondered.