No Ordinary Day (10 page)

Midnight Clear

“
VALLI? VALLI
,
WAKE UP
.”

I opened my eyes. Dr. Indra was sitting on my bed. It was night time. I’d slept through dinner.

I sat up. “I’m hungry.”

Dr. Indra laughed. “Of course you are. We’ll get you some food in a minute. But first I have something for you. Do you know what tomorrow is?”

I shook my head.

“Tomorrow is Christmas Day.”

“No more shopping days left.”

“No more. Tomorrow there will be a Christmas party here. You’ll have a very special dinner and everyone will get presents. But I won’t be here. I’m spending Christmas with my parents. So I have something I wanted to give you tonight.”

She reached behind her back and brought out a package wrapped in pretty paper. Santa Claus was smiling, over and over. No one was beating him up.

She handed it to me.

I held it in my hands. It was heavy. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with it.

“It’s a present,” she said. “You have to take the paper off to see what’s inside.”

I found the ends of the paper. They were stuck down with tape. I carefully loosened it all so the paper wouldn’t tear.

“What is it?” asked Laxmi.

“Yes,” said Neeta. “Show us.”

It was a book. I tried to sound out the title, but the words were too big for me.

“Biology of the Human Body,”
Dr. Indra read for me. “This is my old biology book from school. A lot of it will be too hard for you now, but you’ll be able to understand some of it.”

“She’ll understand all of it before long,” Neeta said. “She’s a smart one. We’ll probably both be working for her one day.”

I opened it up.

Some pages had tea stains. Most pages had handwritten notes scribbled in pen in the margins and lines underneath some sentences.

In the middle of the book were pages made out of clear plastic. They had drawings of the human body on them that could be flipped back to show the bones, then the organs, then even more organs. And almost every paper page had pictures on it.

“Why are you giving me this?”

“This book is yours to keep,” Dr. Indra said. “You don’t have to do anything for it. That’s what a present is. It’s giving something and not wanting anything back. I’m giving it to you because I like you.”

Like the pizza I gave the woman at the mall, I thought. And the blanket from the Metropole Hotel. And the soap I gave away. And all the other things I had borrowed in Kolkata, then passed along to someone else.

“I’ll just borrow it,” I said. “And when I know everything in it, I’ll pass it to someone else who needs to know.”

“Then pass this along, too. Let me give you a hug.” Dr. Indra reached out and put her arms around me.

I wasn’t sure what she was doing. I wasn’t afraid, because I knew she wouldn’t hurt me, but the hug was strange. I had never had one before. I could feel our hearts beating together.

“Merry Christmas, Valli,” she said, and then she left.

Bells started to ring.

All the women who were able to get out of bed gathered around the window. They pulled open the inside glass and pushed out the shutters so the sound could come through clearly.

I joined them there.

From all over Kolkata, I heard the sounds of bells.

“It’s Christmas,” someone said. “It’s midnight. Merry Christmas, everyone!”

Usha pushed her trolley into the ward.

“Who would like a special treat to celebrate the holiday?”

“Is that ice cream?” Mrs. Das asked. “I haven’t had ice cream since I was a child.”

“Maybe that’s what’s wrong with her,” Neeta mumbled. “Come on, Valli. Mrs. Das may be greedy as well as grumpy. We don’t want her eating our share.”

But I stayed at the window, looking out into the night.

I knew there were people out there who were not getting ice cream that night. They were sleeping where I had slept. They were cold, or scared, or hungry or sick.

I thought again of the woman who was not my aunt, and wondered if she or her children had ever tasted ice cream.

Maybe, one day, I could take them some.

“Why am I so lucky?” I asked the night.

“Valli, are you all right?” Usha came to stand beside me.

“Dr. Indra gave me a hug,” I said. “I’m supposed to pass it on. Can I pass it on to you?”

And then I was hugging her. And it felt just as good as hugging the doctor.

One of the patients held out the last dish of ice cream.

“Hurry up, Valli,” she said. “We’re waiting for you.”

I had friends, I thought. And they were waiting for me. How about that? The fortune teller was right.

I went to get my ice cream.

I could hardly wait to see what would happen to me next.

LEPROSY IS CAUSED BY A
bacterium
that destroys the nerves in the cooler parts of the human body, especially in
the hands, feet, skin and eyes. It can begin to show itself as white or
discolored patches on the skin. If it remains untreated, it starts to take
feeling out of hands and feet. People become unable to feel pain, and they can’t
tell when they become injured. Their injuries lead to infection and permanent
damage.

Leprosy is one of the oldest recorded diseases in
human history. Because of its ability to disfigure, it is a disease that has
been much feared and misunderstood. In many communities, people with leprosy are
still cast out of mainstream society because the community doesn’t understand
that leprosy is hard to get and can be cured.

The world is making progress. Real efforts are
being made so people can be diagnosed, treated and restart their lives with the
proper supports so that they don’t become injured again. But there is still a
long way to go.

Leprosy is primarily a disease of poverty, spread
by close contact in countries where large numbers of people live together in
small rooms or houses. People living in poverty work much harder than people
with financial security, and they don’t have the ability to take time off to
heal, so they often become reinjured. Folks with disabilities in poor countries
have few resources, and the country’s infrastructure is not set up to help them.
Add the stigma of leprosy to that disability, and daily life can become very
difficult.

Still, the world is getting closer and closer to
wiping out leprosy. The generation of young people who are reading this book may
well be the ones to finally make leprosy history.

The royalties from this book are being donated
to:

The Leprosy Mission of Canada

100 Mural Street, Suite 100

Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 1J3

905-886-2887 www.leprosy.ca [email protected]

bhaji
—
Vegetable fritter.

Bollywood
—
Indian film industry, based in Mumbai, which used to be called Bombay.

buffalo
—
Water buffalo, common in Asia.

bullock
—
A male buffalo; also used as an insult.

bustee
—
A neighborhood of makeshift houses for people living in poverty.

channa
—
Chickpeas.

cheroot
—
Small hand-rolled cigar.

dal
—
Porridge made from lentils, peas or chickpeas.

desi-daru
—
Homemade liquor.

dosa
—
A type of pancake.

dupatta
—
A long scarf.

Durga-puja
—
A Hindu religious festival.

ghat
—
Steps leading down to water.

Hindi
—
One of India’s official languages.

Kali
—
A Hindu goddess.

Kolkata
—
The capital city in West Bengal, India; used to be called Calcutta.

kurta
—
A long, loose shirt.

lungi
—
A garment that wraps around the waist; worn by men.

namaste
—
Hindu greeting, said with palms together and pointed upward.

paisa
—
Indian currency; one rupee equals one hundred paisas.

pakora
—
A deep-fried snack, generally made with vegetables dipped in batter.

paratha
—
Fried flatbread.

rickshaw
—
A cart pulled by humans either on foot or on a bicycle.

roti
—
Round flatbread.

rupee
—
Indian currency; there are approximately 40 rupees to the dollar.

salwar kameez
—
Long shirt worn over trousers.

samosa
—
Pastry with meat or vegetable filling.

Sanskrit
—
An ancient language of India, still used today.

sari
—
Long piece of cloth draped over the body.

tuk-tuk
—
Three-wheeled vehicle.

DEBORAH ELLIS
says her books reflect “the
heroism of people around the world who are struggling for decent lives, and how
they try to remain kind in spite of it.” Whether she is writing about families
living under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, street children in Pakistan, the coca
protests in Bolivia, or the lives of military children, she is, as
Kirkus
attests, “an important voice of moral and
social conscience.”

A lifelong small-town Ontarian — born and raised
in Cochrane and Paris and now living in Simcoe — Deb has won the Governor
General’s Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, the University of California’s Middle
East Book Award, Sweden’s Peter Pan Prize, the Jane Addams Children’s Book
Award, and the Vicky Metcalf Award for a Body of Work. She recently received the
Ontario Library Association’s President’s Award for Exceptional Achievement, and
she has also been named to the Order of Ontario.

She is best known for her Breadwinner Trilogy,
set in Afghanistan and Pakistan — a series that has been published in seventeen
countries, with more than one million dollars in royalties donated to Canadian
Women for Women in Afghanistan and Street Kids International. Her recent young
adult novel,
No Safe Place,
has so far received
starred reviews in
Quill & Quire
,
Kirkus
and
School Library
Journal
.

GROUNDWOOD BOOKS
, established in 1978, is dedicated to the production of children’s books for all ages, including fiction, picture books and non-fiction. We publish in Canada, the United States and Latin America. Our books aim to be of the highest possible quality in both language and illustration. Our primary focus has been on works by Canadians, though we sometimes also buy outstanding books from other countries.

Many of our books tell the stories of people whose voices are not always heard in this age of global publishing by media conglomerates. Books by the First Peoples of this hemisphere have always been a special interest, as have those of others who through circumstance have been marginalized and whose contribution to our society is not always visible. Since 1998 we have been publishing works by people of Latin American origin living in the Americas both in English and in Spanish under our Libros Tigrillo imprint.

We believe that by reflecting intensely individual experiences, our books are of universal interest. The fact that our authors are published around the world attests to this and to their quality. Even more important, our books are read and loved by children all over the globe.