A girl in Delhi has a brilliant mind and secrets darker than the nights that won't let her eyes close.
She lives in the Labyrinth, a place that always seems dim, even in the middle of the day. There, customers flock in their dozens, and there, th...
Ucchal jogs sloppily on the road amidst a fleet of cyclists in white, gliding by her with the elegance of swans.
She comes to a boulder overlooking the river. A line of tubes nearby spit water high into the air to cascade into a concrete basin. She sits on the boulder and waits, till she feels a tug on her sleeve.
And there is Laksh sitting beside her. He wipes his face with his long shirt, then hiccups and smiles shyly. Is he following her?
"Would you be up for raiding the Labyrinth, boy?" She gazes at the river: a gray smudge on the horizon.
"Just me?" mumbles Laksh, probably clueless as to what a raid even is.
"Both of us." Ucchal nearly loses her balance and comes close to slipping off the boulder. She ponders her physicality again, wonders if she can acquire a treadmill for a decent price at the market. "We'll get two machineguns and raid the place ourselves, eh?"
"You gotta teach me how to shoot first," says Laksh.
"I do, don't I?" Ucchal furrows her brow at him, knowing he's serious though she's joking, and she wants to adopt him then and there and give him the childhood he deserves. But who's to say he's an orphan? "Well," she continues, "maybe we can start a bit more practical. This man, this bad man, you've been describing him to me since I met you last week, and he sounds like someone I've been trying to pinpoint for a long time. So if you can get me to him, Mr. Laksh, secretly, and that means you can't even tell your friend Yashvi . . ." She cringes at how unorthodox her plan is. "If you can get me to the bad man, and if I can get us a proper squad . . ."
"Squad? Like GI Joe?"
Ucchal watches the river once more, and Laksh watches it too as if it's something he's supposed to do to respect his elders.
The fountain tubes stop jetting and the water in the basin beneath them falls untroubled.
"Yes, Laksh," says Ucchal. "Like GI Joe."
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