KOTAK MEKHAI
Grandma and Oma were at the dining room table when I got home, sipping mint tea and reading.
Oma was always reading mysteries—the more twisted, the better—while Grandma was into biographies.
I’d never managed to convince either of them to read any science fiction or fantasy. They said they preferred “real books.”
I don’t know why that made me so mad.
Neither of them looked up when I walked in. I pulled the door shut behind me, and they didn’t respond.
That aura of quiet unhappiness had returned to our house, an oppressive miasma that hung in the air like a coolant leak.
I cleared my throat and said, “Hi.”
“How’d it go today?” Oma said.
“We won.”
“Good. That makes three in a row, right?”
“Yeah. Gabe—that’s our forward—he even got a hat trick.”
Grandma whistled but kept reading.
“How about you?” Oma asked. “How’d you do?”
I shrugged. “The ball barely made it to me.”
“You should be more aggressive.”
That was something my old coach, from when I played as a kid, would say. Be aggressive.
Coach Bentley never said anything like that.
I really liked that about her.
“Where’s Laleh?” I asked.
Grandma sighed. “In her room. She’s been there most of the night.”
“How come?”
Oma folded down the page she was reading and closed her book. “She got into a fight at school today.”
First of all, I never folded pages—I always used bookmarks—and there was a moment where I wondered if Oma and I were even related to each other.
Second, Laleh had never been in a fight in her life. Not ever. What Oma said was impossible.
So I said, “What?”
And then I said, “Laleh’s never been in a fight before.”
Oma nodded. “She won’t tell us what happened.”
Grandma said, “Her teacher couldn’t get the full story either.”
So then I said, “Maybe she’ll talk to me.”
