“He’s so sleepy,” the woman says, flipping open her phone, jabbing at the buttons.
I press my face against the cold window and bang on the glass but the taxi driver goes faster than ever.
Jeevan slumps against the car door.
“What’s happened to you?” I shake him, but his arm is floppy and nothing I do makes him wake up.
The taxi skids to a halt in front of a rundown building that looks nothing like a hotel. A man standing in the shadows of the doorway makes my heart pound so fiercely I think it might crack …
I grip the edge of the seat, frozen.
He counts out some notes and hands them to the woman. And that’s when I know for sure that we’ve been tricked.
The car door is wide open—it’s my only chance—but Jeevan is fast asleep. I’ll come back for him. I can’t let us both be taken by these people, whoever they are. I leap out of the taxi and run into the dead of night.
I’ve no idea where I’m going. Filthy puddles splash up my legs and my breath stings my lungs as I race away with only one thought in my head: I have to escape.
Heavy footsteps slam behind me, and my heart flies into my mouth. “Stop!” My hood is yanked backward, burning my neck. “Come here!”
I’m hoisted up and flipped upside down across the man’s thick shoulders, sending my head crashing against his back.
“Let me go!” I yell, banging my fists.
He throws me onto the wet ground, wraps a stinking cloth around my eyes, and pulls it tight.
“No more funny business,” he says, shoving me forward.
“Where’s Jeevan?” I shout, clawing at his arms. “What have you done with him?”
“Shut it!” yells the man, slapping me across the face.
The sting of his heavy palm makes me cry out.
His knuckles dig deep into my back as I’m propelled forward and shuffled along in front of him, tears collecting behind the blindfold … What is this? Where am I?
I hear the sharp sound of a key twisting in a lock, then feel a foot in the base of my spine, pushing me forward, and I land on the ground with a smack, my mouth filling with the iron tang of blood.
The door slams and locks.
There are only four weeks left until Divali, and I know that I’ve failed. I’ll never find Papa and get home in time. All I’ve done is make things worse.
I spend all night with my chin pressed into my knees, in a corner of the room. I’m terrified of what’s going to happen next and what they’re going to do with me. My head pounds with the sound of their jagged voices that slink back to haunt me.
Eventually a dull gleam of weak light struggles in through the small glassless window near the ceiling, casting shadows around the filthy room. It’s little more than a cupboard, full of dark cobwebbed corners, and smells as if it’s been used as a toilet, turning last night’s food into bile in my mouth.
On the floor, the mango seedling and my feather lie discarded on the grimy ground where they were tossed out of my bundle last night. A man rifled through my things, taking Jeevan’s penknife and the last of my money. One of the seedling’s newly sprouted leaves has been knocked off and the other one is crushed and torn.
I scoop up the soil from the ground with my fingers and refold the leaf around the stone. An angry tear escapes onto the seedling as I tuck it safely into the front pocket of my jeans before tying Papa’s scarf around my neck.
I clutch my pendant, willing it to respond, and pray for its rhythm to give me strength. I try to feel for the memories—a sign that I haven’t been entirely abandoned—but there’s nothing. Jeevan was right all along: It’s just my imagination.
I beat back the tears because now, more than ever, I have to be strong, just like I was before, when Ma told me to believe in myself. I gather my courage and make a promise, even though I don’t know how I’ll do it: I’m going to find Jeevan and get us both out of here.
They come for me soon after, two men who push me out into a huge open yard with a great gray mound at its center. Out here it smells worse than ever, like all the world’s most rotten things gathered together in one place. A stream of vomit escapes from my mouth and I swallow the bitter remains, wiping saliva with the back of my hand.
“Keep moving.” One man prods me in the back with a whip and I stumble forward.
Climbing all over the gigantic mound are small groups of children, maybe as many as two whole classes at school. Their heads are bent low as they pick through paper and plastic, collecting it into huge sacks that are strapped to their backs.
“You’re to sort the trash; pick out metals, electrical wires, and glass bottles. And especially anything that looks valuable. Any nonsense”—the man scowls—“and you’ll feel how hard this whip is. Got it?”
I block my nose at the stench.
“Get used to it.” He sniggers, pushing the whip into my shoulder. “You’ll be here for a long time.”
None of the other children speak or look at me as I walk toward them, and the reason, I see straightaway, is that there are more men with hard faces who march around the junkyard, brandishing long whips, hurling abuse at everyone.
A towering brick wall with razor wire along the top stretches all the way around us. Don’t cry, I tell myself, desperately twisting the corners of the sack I’ve been given. Crying won’t get us out of here. But the wall is so high, there’s no way
