Biren gave a noisy sigh, ran back and pulled Nitin by the hand.
“So what do you think the note is about?” he asked, sounding elaborately casual. He jerked Nitin’s hand to hurry him along but it only made him stumble. Nitin gave an indignant howl.
“Careful,” reprimanded his father. He lifted the lilies to his nose and inhaled deeply. “Smell these. They are heavenly.”
“I want to smell!” cried little Nitin.
Shamol bent down and held the lilies under Nitin’s nose. He grinned when Nitin closed his eyes, gave a dreamy sigh and went “aah” in a fitting imitation of Shibani.
Biren twisted a toe in the dirt. There was little he could do to hurry his father and Nitin along. He fingered the note in his pocket and the back of his neck prickled with impatience.
Finally on reaching home, the lily blossoms settled in a brass bowl and his father settled in the courtyard with a cup of tea, it was time to bring out the note again. Biren peered over his father’s shoulder trying to decipher the schoolmaster’s tiny, pristine Bengali script. The letter was full of big words.
“What is it, Baba?” he asked. “What is it? Tell me, quickly.”
“I see. It appears the new boy is your school needs private tuition. Why, is there a new boy in your school who is struggling with his studies? His name is Samir Deb.”
Biren shrugged. Samir Deb’s academic challenges were of little interest to him.
“Who needs tuition?” said Shibani, coming out of the kitchen. She handed her husband a rice crepe with coconut filling. “Try this patishapta. I made them today.”
“Samir Deb. The new boy in Biren’s class. The child is falling behind in his studies. His family wants to send him to study in Calcutta. The schoolmaster has recommended me to give him private tuition. I wonder why your mastermoshai does not give the child private tuition himself?”
“Because he is afraid,” Biren blurted out. He remembered how the belligerent ladies had cowed down the poor schoolmaster.
“Afraid?” said Shamol, puzzled. “Afraid of what? I don’t understand.”
“His mother is very...” Biren tried to think of the right word. “Ferocious.”
“Well, I am not worried about his ferocious mother. The problem is I get home too late. I don’t have the time to go to the child’s house but I can tutor him if they send him to our basha.”
Biren looked at his father in horror. “But he cannot come to our basha, Baba!” he cried.
“And why not?” said his father, mildly surprised.
Biren wanted to say, Because he wears knee-length socks and cries like a girl. Because he is too rich and we are too poor, because my friends will laugh and everybody will think he is my friend. But all he could say was, “Because he rides in a palanquin.”
“Why, that’s rather fine,” said his father.
“Like a girl,” Biren added, to drive home the point. “Only girls ride in palanquins.”
“I wouldn’t mind riding a palanquin,” said Shibani.
“Someday, my darling,” said his father, “and I will decorate it with sweet-scented lilies for you.” He gave Shibani a long tender look that made her toss her hair back in a girlish way.
Biren tugged his father’s hand. “Baba, what are you going to do?”
“I can offer to teach him at the same time I teach you two. They don’t have to pay me any money for that.”
“But they are rich,” said Biren. “Very rich. He brings new pencils and erasers to school every day.”
Shamol Roy looked at his son sadly. He wished he could buy his wife a palanquin, but she had to be content with a few lilies instead. Here was his boy hankering for a new pencil and all he could afford were the pencil stubs discarded at the office. Biren, dexterous for an eight-year-old, used a razor blade to pare both ends to get maximum usage out of them.
Biren was quick to catch his father’s sadness. “But I like the small pencils much better,” he said brightly. “They are easier to carry around in my pocket and if I lose one I don’t feel so bad because I have many more. Also, you want to know one more thing? Carrying long sharpened pencils in your pocket is very dangerous. If you fall down and get poked in your eye you can become blind. Then you won’t be able to go to school, or read, or...or...even fly a kite. So what’s the use?”
Shamol Roy smiled at his son, the diplomat. Biren was wily with his words, but more important he was a thoughtful, compassionate child. “Bring me one of your pencils,” he said. “Let me write a reply to your mastermoshai.”
“They will pay you lots of good money for the tuition, Baba.” Biren jumped up, dizzy with the vision of new pencils and erasers. Why, they might even be able to afford one of those mechanical pencil sharpeners.
“They may offer to pay me,” said his father. “But I don’t need to accept it.”
“But why not?” Biren was crestfallen. “Samir’s family has lots of money.”
“That is not the point,” said his father. “Do you know the difference between opportunity and advantage, mia? An opportunity is something that is offered to you. An advantage is something you take. It would be foolish to miss an opportunity but it is sometimes wise to forgo an advantage.”
“So why are you not taking the money?”
“Because I am not going out of my way to tutor the child. I am not doing anything extra. So why should I charge money for work I have not done? Never mind, don’t worry about it. Go get me a pencil.”
Shamol Roy scribbled a quick reply on the reverse of the schoolmaster’s note and sent it back with Biren.
It was all settled, and Biren was asked to bring Samir home with him. It soon dawned on Biren he would not be taking the boat back to the village with his friends. Instead—to his horror—he was expected to sit in the tasseled palanquin next to Sammy and be carried to his own house. The very thought of it made him wish he had never been born.
He loitered under the tamarind trees in the schoolyard and kicked dirt while furious thoughts raced through his mind.
Finally he approached the palanquin bearers. “My father has strictly forbidden me to ride the palanquin,” he told them in an authoritative voice. “I can show you the way to my house but you will have to follow behind me.”
“But how will you walk? It is too far,” said one of the men. “It is much shorter by boat, we know, but Samir-baba gets nauseous in a boat, which is why we have to carry him everywhere.”
Biren was tempted to say he got nauseous in a palanquin, but that would not work. “What do you think I am? A cripple?” he said loudly, hoping to shame Samir into sending the palanquin home. But Samir was already seated inside sipping sweet bael sherbet and eating stuffed dates.
“Just follow behind me,” said Biren abruptly. He marched stoutly ahead and the palanquin bearers, habituated as they were to their own brisk pace, hobbled awkwardly behind him like a broken bullock cart.
After a while Samir got bored and got down from the palanquin and skipped up to Biren.
“Don’t walk with me,”