“Maria”
She must have torn my homework when I went to Changannur. She knew I would get in to trouble. During the interval I saw Maria coming to the playground with her friends. They were all looking at me and laughing.
I told to myself ‘ wait till we reach home, I will tell Amma and make sure she beats the life out of you.’
Maria was 8 years older to me. She was the undisputed queen of Thomas residence till I came along and she didn’t take it too kindly to my arrival. She was always looking for an opportunity to fight with me or get me in to trouble.
At lunch time Mrs Mathew send Rani again to tell me the punishment is over. When I walked back to the class I could see everyone jeering at me. I quietly ate my lunch.
I dreamed of going back to Malaysia, to my old school, away from all these mean people.I thought about my best friend Siti. How Siti and I used to share our Nasi Lemak in the school canteen. Every evening Siti would come cycling to my house and we would sit on the porch and do our home work together.

On the way back home no one talked to me. They didn’t want to befirend a liar. I felt like a stranger among the familiar faces.
Amma was already home and I went to her and told her
“Amma, Maria tore my home work”
My mother looked at me and asked “Why would she do that and how do you know she did it?”
“I don’t know Amma, but she definetely tore my homework, because I finished my home work before we went to Chengannur”
“Nina, show me your home work book”
I opened my school bag and showed her my book. Amma opened it and looked at it and shook her head “No, Nina, your sister didn’t tear your work”
She showed me the clean pages and told me, “you see,if you wrote your answers with the pencil then the pencil marks would be seen in the bottom pages, see there are no marks, all the pages are clean”
“You didn’t do your home work and now you blame Maria unnecessarily”
I wanted to tell her that, Maria might have torn the next page as well. But I knew there is no point in arguing.
I had to write 1000 times ‘I will never lie’ as part of my punishment, so I went to my room to write the imposition.
Maria came home after her tuition class and she was smiling when she entered the bedroom.
“so how did it feel standing in the hot sun Nina?”
I didn’t say anything.
Living in an abusive family, each person takes their frustration to the next available hapless victim. I am Maria’s victim. There is nothing much I could do but to accept her bullying. Next year she would go to Engineering college and will be living in the hostel. I looked forward to that day.
There was absolute calm at home in the evening. Amma is on a silent war, which is a good sign. I helped Liza and Sally with their homework. Maria still had a grin on her face. I wished amma would ask her, why she tore my homework. But it didn’t happen. I wanted to ask Maria why she tore my work.. But the situation at home didn’t permit another altercation.
My teachers never understood how I could get all my homework wrong when my sister is the top student at the same school. I tried asking Maria to help me with the homework. She said the same dialogue each time
“No one helps me to do my work, and if you concentrate at school, you would be able to do your work yourself”.
How was I to explain that I don’t understand a thing they teach in school, because it is in Malayalam and sitting at the back I can’t hear anything either.
On tuesday, Mrs David, my english teacher told me”Nina ask your mother to come and see me tomorrow”