Most other children went away for the summer to grandparents in the village or to cousins in the hills. My summers were always at home, which made me wish for a sibling who could share my boredom or help me with the essay about \u201cWhat I Learned on My Summer Vacation.\u201d I wasn\u2019t sure what I\u2019d learned, but I\u2019d made some strange discoveries: monkeys are sneaky avengers, you tease them once, stick your tongue out, and later they\u2019re already a roof away; ants live in dripping faucets and behind damp plaster; that my mother keeps everything\u2014boxes of \u201cjust in case\u201d junk: participation trophies, keys from our last rented house, even spare bullets from my father\u2019s pistol. Also, that my father might have a drinking problem; that one I didn\u2019t mind.<\/p>\n
One Sunday, my mother was called in to care for her mother, who had fallen and broken her leg. \u201cWhen there\u2019s a problem, they need the daughter,\u201d she said, cursing her useless brother as the blender drowned her words. Mango shake with crushed Chocos cereal on top, another point for the essay.<\/p>\n
The excitement of being alone died quickly when I couldn\u2019t find any spare coins to steal, only more junk I had no memory of, but, as my mother always said, might be useful later: a one-eyed doll, old report cards, useless things.<\/p>\n
I waited for my father and hoped he\u2019d be drunk, so I could get something from him without my mother catching on to it. I liked him when he was a little drunk. He was generous then, giving me whatever I asked for, laughing, calling me all sorts of names. I knew drinking was bad, though I didn\u2019t understand why\u2014only that it was like doing something wrong, like stealing or lying, no matter how fun it was. My mother would scream at him, and the next day she\u2019d ignore him, not even cook for him sometimes. Other nights, she\u2019d sit beside him and scribble on his palm, whispering secrets or lullabies until he fell asleep.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease be drunk. I need ice cream, some money, a Disney pouch,\u201d I whispered, pacing the stairs, up and down, while monstrous flies circled the lamp below.<\/p>\n
His voice reached before he did.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy good beta.\u201d He reached for me, shifting side to side. I asked for ice cream first. He laughed and said, \u201cAnything for my daughter.\u201d He smelled like rotten fruit and cough syrup. Then I pushed for some pocket money; I\u2019d planned to make him forget it the next day.<\/p>\n
He asked if anyone had bothered me. \u201cI\u2019ll beat their asses,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll burn their worlds.\u201d His usual drunk promises. Then the cable boy came asking about the bill I\u2019d forgotten to give my mother. My father blinked, then his face hardened. \u201cHow dare you trouble my daughter about a bill?\u201d he roared. He liked to be the rich villain in films, throwing money at problems. The boy shrank; my father\u2019s uniform made people small.<\/p>\n
I tugged him up the narrow stairs and explained I\u2019d only misplaced the bill. He gripped my hand so tight it left a rope in my palm. \u201cNo one can bother my daughter. Not my mother, not those people. No one, you hear?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, yes,\u201d I said. I thought of my grandmother, who always said a boy would have been better than me, someone who could pull my father up the stairs when he staggered, maybe even shove him back when he lurched like this. Boys were bullies, like my cousin who broke every toy, or the ones in class who tripped me and laughed.<\/p>\n
I had finished his share of mango shake too. So, I asked him if I could heat his dinner.<\/p>\n
He reached for my hand again and squeezed. \u201cYou don\u2019t belong in the kitchen,\u201d he said, then pointed at the ceiling. \u201cYou belong up there.\u201d His finger followed the drip from the ceiling\u2014tap, tap, tap\u2014and we giggled like sisters in a rain dance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
That summer I learned that monkeys are sneaky avengers, you tease them once, stick your tongue out, and later they\u2019re already a roof away; ants live in dripping faucets and behind damp plaster; Also, that my father might have a drinking problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":24974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","writer-garima-chhikara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24005"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24975,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24005\/revisions\/24975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}