I dropped the laundry down when i saw them. i wasn’t sure what they were. They looked the same colour as the three little pigs in Maria’s fairy tale book. It had four legs and a small tail.
I ran out of the house screaming
“Ammachi, there are piglets in your laundry basket”.
I couldn’t find where Ammachi was, then I saw Chakki and Kutten walking on the bund. I ran to Chakki and told her about the three little piglets.
“Piglets?,in our house?” Chakki looked at me suspeciously.
I pulled her hands and dragged her inside the house and we went to the store room.
I slowly moved the laundry and showed Chakki the piglets.
Chakki started laughing and I didn’t understand what was so funny.
Hearing Chakki laugh Ammachi came to see what is all the big ruckus inside the house.
Chakki showed Ammachi the three little pigs and Ammachi too started laughing.
I looked at Ammachi and then at Chakki, and in between their laughter Ammachi told me
“Nina, these are baby rats”
“But Ammachi, they are pink colour and rats are black”
“Oh Nina, these are new born baby rats and they are pink”.
Chakki took a sheet from the newspaper and gently placed the baby rats inside.
“What are you going to do to them?”I asked Chakki
“I am going to throw them outside, so they won’t grow and eat all our food”
On her way out, I saw Chakki talking to Kutten and both of them were laughing at me.
I was angry with Chakki and with myself for being a fool.
Ammachi called me from the kitchen
“Nina come and have your drink “
“I don’t want”
“Nina, are you sure you don’t want to drink my special coffee with ghee?”
Ammachi makes her own coffee powder from the coffee beans she harvest in our farm. She makes black coffee and add sugar and home made ghee for me.
Amma won’t let me have coffee at home. Ammachi made me promise not to tell Amma about the coffee.
I like Ammachi’s black coffee with ghee. I was hungry and I grudginly went to the kitchen to have my drink. I saw Ammachi was trying to control her laughter. I sat on the bench and I couldn’t take any more and started crying.
“Oh Nina, my child, what will I do with you”. Ammachi came and hugged me.