“Six more coming up,” says Catalpa, heaving a sigh. But you can tell she’s enjoying herself.
So is Sumac. How compatible she and her big sister would be, she thinks — if only they liked each other.
“Ammi,” PapaDum’s saying to his mother via Skype, “why don’t you supervise the girls, so I can get the onion bhaji in the stove and … No, I don’t fry my bhaji, baking’s much healthier.”
Sumac can hear Dadi Ji’s outraged voice over the top of his.
On the tablet, their grandmother watches Catalpa and Sumac decorate their folded and knotted bundles of silk threads. “Have you put gold threads in with the red and yellow?” she asks, putting her face so near the webcam that she looms. “That’s even more auspicious.”
Sumac meets Catalpa’s eyes. They ran out of gold after the first five.
“A few,” Catalpa tells their grandmother. “And lots of beads and sequins.”
“When you’ve braided and tied them, don’t forget to fluff the ends with a toothbrush. Now which of you is preparing the special thali plate?”
Catalpa’s ready for this one. “We wondered if you’d possibly have time to be in charge of that, Dadi Ji?”
“If you prefer, my dear,” says their grandmother, readjusting her pink veil above her little gold glasses.
On the other side of the Mess, PapaDum gives a thumbs-up. Because between the betel leaves, the diya lamp, the roli powder arranged in a swastika (the lucky kind, not the evil Nazi kind), the rice, the incense sticks, and the gods know what else, the Lotterys are likely to get it wrong and deeply offend some deity (e.g., their grandmother).
“Now, you’ll give your brothers sweets and put tilak powder on their foreheads, and have they prepared the envelopes of cash?”
“The boys are going to give the girls sweets too,” Sumac tells her.
“That’s not very traditional,” she scolds.
“Well, let’s face it, Ammi,” PapaDum calls, “nor are we.”
A while later, Grumps and Brian stagger into the Mess very red-faced, in need of lemonade.
“Grumps, would it be all right if we tie bracelets on you at the party?” asks Catalpa.
“What party?”
“Rakhi,” Sumac reminds him for the third time today, “the only festival in the world that celebrates brothers and sisters.”
“Still sounds a bit makey-uppy to me,” he mutters, fiddling with his new chunky black watch.
By makey-uppy he means Hindu. But Sumac lets it go. “So can we?”
“Couldn’t care less, hen.”
“It says Tuesday the twentieth of August,” says Aspen, reading his watch over his shoulder. “Unfair! I want a watch that tells me all that.”
“You have two watches,” says Sumac, “but you never remember to put them on.”
“You don’t even go to school, missy,” Grumps says to Aspen, “so what do you care what day it is?”
“You know you don’t have to wear that thing?” Catalpa says in his ear.
“It’s waterproof,” says Grumps. “Kept it on in the shower this morning.”
“No, but — it’s surveillance,” says Catalpa. “Big Brother, watching you by GPS.”
“Is there a wee camera?” he asks, peering into the screen.
“I don’t mean actually watching you, just —”
“If you were gone all day, Iain,” PapaDum explains, “we could look up a website to see where you were, that’s all.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that they’re infringing your rights?” Catalpa demands.
“Young lady,” says Grumps, “you’ll find the world is full of things a sight more bothersome than a free watch.”
“My friend Liam has a GPS chip in his backpack,” says Aspen, “and he totally freaked his folks out by going on a sleepover and accidentally leaving the backpack on the bus so it went around and around the city….”
“What say that?” says Brian, pointing at the word SOS on Grumps’s watch.
“That’s my special button for emergencies,” says Grumps, pressing it hard.
“Wah wah wah wah,” Brian squeals.
“Hi again, Dad,” says PopCorn’s voice from the watch — very small and tinny — a second later.
“That you, Reginald?” Grumps lifts his wrist to his mouth.
“Who else do you think would call you Dad?”
Grumps nods. “Where are you at the minute?”
“In the basement sorting socks. Do you need something else?”
“Wouldn’t say no to a cup of tea.”
A squeaking sound that turns out to be PopCorn laughing.
When Isabella comes over, Sumac and she escape all the way up to the top of the house. “Ready?” asks Sumac. “Think ice palace.” She throws open the door on which she’s hung up her carved Sumac’s Room sign at last.
“Oo!”
“PopCorn’s been slaving over this for the past two days, that’s why it’s still fumey.”
“I adore the smell of paint,” says Isabella, sniffing. “So classy, two walls white and two silver, and the fairy lights everywhere.”
“They’re icicles, see?” Sumac shows her their tips.