“ SAI BABA! Sai Baba! Sai Baba!
Hahahaha!”
“Today is Shimla’s big day! We have a celebrity visiting our city! Hahahaha!”
Rani’s cheeks burned with humiliation and tears stung her eyes as she elbowed her way to the exit through the crowd of jeering boys in the packed school bus. It wasn’t the first time she’d been called Sai Baba, after the famous Hindu holy man she’d seen on TV with his trademark afro towering over his head.
But this time had to be the worst.
Rani jumped off the school bus. Splash! She landed smack in a ditch of muddy rainwater.
It had been a Friday full of disasters.
Angry thoughts swirled inside Rani’s head as she marched home in the drizzling rain. Why did the rain have to come pelting down so hard just at the end of the school day? Why did she have to forget her raincoat back home? Why didn’t Tara Hall Girls School run its own bus to her neighborhood of Summer Hill? Why did she have to risk taking the Saint Edward’s Boys
