A Little Bit Ninja

3: Grappling with Vermin (Revised)

Chapter 3: Grappling with Vermin

Honestly, I still didn’t know Abe’s whole story. The day he got here, he refused to cross front door threshold for twenty minutes, and I suspected the only reason he did so then was to cease my relentless staring. And yes, I was a little lonely. That’s why I’d been pestering my parents to provide an older brother since I was old enough to voice the request.

 Five weeks passed before the kid even spoke. I even tried Dr. Seuss therapy, hoping it would eventually make him talk, or laugh, or smile, or even blink. I sat with him in his window seat as he stared out at the front yard. He wouldn’t even look at me. But neither his shell shocked silence, nor the small fact that he couldn’t understand English, stopped me from reading Cat in the Hat, and Oh the Places You’ll Go at him for hours on end.

I was crying that day when Abe finally talked to me. I don’t remember why; probably because I wanted mac’n’cheese instead of a ham sandwich, or something equally lame. When I started reading The Sneeches with tears in my eyes, Abe spoke for the first time, “Jadie-bug?”  That was all he said. It was what Mom always called me. He probably thought it was my official name, but really it was a silly nickname I got when I was a baby.

It was Mom that finally told me what happened to his family. And that information wasn’t up for grabs to strangers on a group date. It had to be earned.

“No, I mean how people always want to dig up his past. Don’t talk about Abe.” I said with a faux smile.

To my surprise it was Leafy that supported me. “Yeah, talk about boring” she said, “let’s talk about how you Kapur brothers managed to pick up the wanna-be Michael Jackson and her Drag Queens in waiting,” she said as she gave a saccharine smile.

She apparently accounted for at least one of the one and a half million views that my Thriller video had acquired since it was posted two and a half years ago.  

“Where did you meet?”  She pressed.

Wow, double whammy for Leafy. Not only was she making fun of my embarrassing debut on YouTube, but in the same breath she asked about the subject that could ignite Millie’s ire more than any other, unless you wanted to dig into middle school embarrassments. Of course, I’m not sure she should get credit for the latter since she couldn’t possibly know that it was a touchy subject.   

“I think I’ll go with my regular,” I said, trying to end that strain of conversation before it went any further. I turned to Rakesh, “Stuffed chicken marsala. How about you?”

His brother Zayd answered for him. “Rak hates this place. He’ll probably pass out when our food comes. Won’t you Rak?” Zayd’s smile was delightful as he made his little brother squirm. I frowned in confusion at Rakesh.

“It’s the onions. They are so…”he paused searching for a word bad enough to describe them. “Disgusting. Honestly, I don’t know how you people can stand the smell of them.”

I laughed, but it reminded me of my mom. She hated all visible chunks of onion, but as long as she couldn’t see the onion, she was fine.

I felt the familiar hole in my heart twinge as I thought about her. Mom had been gone for six and a half years, but the hole was still sore when I thought about her, and I’d been thinking about her a lot today. It was because of The Shoes.

I just felt like it was finally time to wear them. She had told me countless times that she would let me “when you’re old enough, but not until then.” She even specified in her Will that all of her “shoes, apparel, jewelry, and accessories will go to Jade when she’s of age. Nobody else may ever touch them.”