Page 59 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

“Don’t even worry about that, Radha. That’s never going to happen.” (And so

on.)
I know what it is to have a brother that people like talking to, so I brought a
book just in case the evening took Arjun away from me. But he stuck with me,
introduced me to the birthday boy, called upon his friends to observe the way I
calmly matched him beer for beer, generally behaved in a way that made me feel
as if I was something more than a stammering fly on the wall. Then a boy
approached us—well, Arjun, really—a nondescript sort of boy, I’m surprised to

say, since his hair was green. He had a look of rehearsal on his face, he was
silently practicing sentences he’d prepared, and Arjun said to me quietly:
“Wonder what this one’s after.”
The boy, Joe, was Tim’s cousin.
“Joe who goes to the puppet school?” Arjun asked.

“Yeah . . .”
“Seen, seen,” Arjun said. “What you saying?”
“Girls like you, don’t they?” Joe asked.
Arjun lowered his eyelids and shrugged; if I’d been wearing sleeves I’d have
laughed into one of them. Joe had a twenty-pound note, which he was willing to
hand over to my brother right now if Arjun would go over to a certain girl, dance
with her, talk to her, and appear to enjoy her company for a couple of hours.

Once I realized what he was asking, I thought: Even Arjun will be lost for words
this time. But my brother must’ve had similar requests before (can teenage boys
really be so inhuman?) because he asked: “Is she really that butters? I haven’t
seen any girl I’d rate below a seven tonight. A good night, I was thinking.”
The boy had the good grace to blush. “No, she’s not that ugly. Just . . . not my
type.”

“Why did you even bring her then, if she’s not your type?” Arjun asked.
“It was a dare,” Joe said, miserably. “I don’t usually do things like this—you
can ask Tim—just believe me when I say I didn’t have much of a choice. I didn’t
think she’d say yes. But she did.”
“Mate . . . don’t pay people to hang out with her.”
“I don’t know what else to do. She’s got to have a good time. She’s my
headmaster’s daughter. I don’t think she’d get me expelled or anything—maybe

she won’t even say anything to him. But she’s his daughter.”
“Better safe than sorry,” my brother agreed. Myrna, by that point I was
already looking around to see if I could spot you (what level of unattractiveness
forces people to pay cash so as to be able to avoid having to look at it or speak to