Damselfly by Chandra Prasad (7)

We walked in a line through the jungle, Rittika and Chester at the front. I was directly behind Mel, a position I was used to. The line itself reminded me of school. Drake Rosemont was a place that thrived on order and teemed with rules. Even its buildings stood in perfect alignment. Several times a year the grounds crew trimmed the ivy that grew on the outside walls. God forbid it grow too tangled and wild.

I thought back to three years ago—when I’d started Drake Rosemont as a high school freshman. Those first weeks had been the most confusing of my life. I’d barely understood the social code of an average public school. How was I expected to master elite Drake Rosemont, with its ceremonies and songs, its societies and slang? I felt like I needed a special dictionary just to get around. The cafeteria was a “dining hall,” the grassy square at the center of campus a “quad.” The list of new words to memorize seemed to get bigger every day, as did my feeling of being overwhelmed.

I spent too much time in my room, staring into a mirror on the wall. I didn’t recognize myself in oxford shoes instead of sneakers, an ironed blouse instead of a wrinkled T-shirt. Once, I put on a bindi and the same Indian bracelets I’d worn on my Drake Rosemont interview. But I couldn’t find myself in those, either. I flopped onto the bed, grateful that at least I didn’t have a roommate to see how pathetic I was. When I’d been home, all I’d wanted to do was escape. But now that I had, I was still trapped, somehow.

Within weeks, I began to walk differently, shoulders slumped, head down. While I made it to my classes and did my work, everything felt like a huge labor. It was impossible to make friends. I simply couldn’t muster the courage to talk to new people. The girls all seemed worldly, confident, intimidating, and glamorous. And forget about the boys—they were clearly out of my league.

I longed for my sister and at times, to my horror, even my parents.

Just a month in, I was already toying with the idea of dropping out. Probably because I was always looking down, one day I noticed someone sprawled out on the grass of the quad. A girl. She was on her belly, her Drake Rosemont skirt bunched up around her butt and thighs. Underneath, she was wearing boxer shorts. The girl’s head was propped in her hands. She watched the ground intently.

Her tomboy look gave me courage. I ventured a hello. It came out as a whisper.

When she didn’t respond, I figured she hadn’t heard me. Or that she was pretending not to hear.

“Hi yourself,” she said, just as my resolve disintegrated completely.

I recognized her voice. She was in my biology class. We had something in common, something I could glom on to.

“You have Branston, right? I think I’m in your Tuesday morning seminar. What do you think of him?” I asked.

Still, the girl didn’t turn to me. “He’s all right. Nothing special.”

I tended to agree. With mutton chop sideburns and a stuffed aardvark in the corner of his classroom, Branston was eccentric enough to impress us. He gave off an air of weirdness and intrigue. Unfortunately, it was clear after only a few classes that he was unremarkable. His teaching stirred nothing in our hearts.

“What did you think of class today?” I persisted.

She looked up for the first time. I liked her sturdy gaze and pink cheeks. A pimple studded her chin. Unlike most of my female classmates, she wasn’t wearing makeup.

She shrugged noncommittally, then patted the grass beside her. “Come on. Have a look.”

Kneeling beside her, careful to keep my skirt in place, I wondered if I was making a mistake. I was depressed, but I wasn’t desperate. Not yet.

“I’m Sam, by the way,” I told her.

“Mel,” she replied.

What she showed me were ants. Lots of them. Black ants in a procession. Black ants running scattershot. Some carried bits of something jellied and white. There were also red ants. These, fewer in number, appeared to be losing a battle with the black ants.

“Why are they fighting?” I asked.

“It could be over territory. Or food. Or pheromones.”

“Pheromones?”

“They’re like smells. Each ant colony uses different pheromones to recognize each other.”

“They’re killing each other over how they smell?”

“People have killed each other over less.”

Mel gave me a little magnifying glass and pointed to one of the black ants. “See the tiny prongs at the front end of her body? Those are jaws. They’re called mandibles. She’s gonna use them to bite that red ant.”

Peering through the glass, I asked, “How do you know it’s a girl?”

“The females do all the fighting.”

“What do the males do?”

“Not much. Mating mostly.”

Though it was autumn and too cold to be lying on the ground, Mel and I stayed put for a long time. The more I stared at the ants, the more fascinated I became. I felt as if I were watching an epic story in miniature.

“Who knew ants could be so interesting,” I told her, still peering through the magnifying glass.

Mel motioned with one hand to our classmates, who scurried along the flagstone walkways. A few of them glanced at us curiously. “A war is happening and none of them know it. They never step off the path. They never see.”

Then and there, I decided I liked Mel. She was an original, a person utterly and remarkably herself. I doubted she’d ever wasted a whole hour trying to find herself in a mirror.

“When we’re done, do you wanna grab lunch?” I asked.

“I’m meeting my sisters in the dining hall at one. What time’s it now?”

I glanced at my cell phone. “Twelve thirty.”

“Why don’t we stay conscientious objectors for a little longer, then meet them together?”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t want to mess up your plans.” I was beginning to feel nervous again.

“You won’t mess anything up.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I spend too much time with my sisters anyway.”

Suddenly, a pair of heels stopped inches from my head. Some of the teachers wore heels, but not like these: pink, strappy, expensive-looking. Immediately, I knew whom they belonged to. There was only one student at Drake Rosemont who could get away with wearing shoes like that.

Rittika Singh.

I looked up, awestruck.

“What are you doing?” she asked condescendingly.

“A little entomological study,” Mel said.

“A little what?”

“I lost my contact lens,” I said. “Mel’s helping me look for it.”

“Oh,” she replied, a little disappointed. “I just stopped by to say, Mel, you really ought to invest in some new underwear.”

When she walked away, I expected Mel to be embarrassed, but she wasn’t ruffled at all. Instead, she looked at me with new interest—like I was an interesting specimen worthy of further study. I figured she was surprised by how I’d handled Rittika.

That lunch with Mel turned out to be the first of many. Soon, I was eating most of my meals with her, and with her sisters, too. Soon I was inseparable from her, out of loneliness and even clinginess at first, and then because there was no one else I’d rather spend my time with. By the end of my first semester, I was no longer depressed. I had a new best friend. My first best friend, outside of my sister, Alexa.

I’m not sure when it happened, exactly, when Mel and her sisters started to feel more like family than my own family did, when I started to feel like I belonged with them, a half-Indian adoptee among wild blond Amazons. But it did happen. At night, at the edge of sleep, I liked to imagine what Mel and I would do after Drake Rosemont. We’d go to the same college, naturally. And when we graduated, we’d live together in New York City, in Brooklyn, probably. Mel, her sisters, and I would share a huge, drafty loft. We’d eat cereal together in the mornings, drink tea that had been grown in Mrs. Sharpe’s greenhouse, and divide the rent six ways. Mel and her sisters would be scientists, veterinarians, anthropology professors, paleontologists, diplomats, or museum curators. As for my job, that was a little fuzzy. Truth be told, my own career plans were always the most vague. Funny how even in my own fantasies, I was a question mark to Mel’s resolute period.

It took longer than we expected to locate the parachute. When we finally caught sight of it—its olive color barely distinguishable from the green canopy—we were covered in a new layer of sweat and mosquito bites. Mel craned her head as Pablo and Chester pointed high in the trees. From the ground, I couldn’t make out what it was made of, but the fabric must have been thin. Every gust of wind caused it to billow and sway.

Chester appeared at Mel’s side. “What’s the plan, Captain?” he asked.

“Simple,” she said. “We need to get it down. Think you can do it?”

It sounded like a dare. Taken aback, Chester raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t used to being put on the spot.

“Sure,” he said.

“Then show me.”

He smiled. “Feeling feisty today, aren’t we?”

Mel didn’t respond. Every girl I knew loved to flirt with Chester, but Mel couldn’t care less. She gave him her knife as well as instructions.

“Want me to come with you, bro?” Pablo asked.

Chester shook his head. “Naw, I got this.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

Pablo looped his fingers into a stirrup and boosted Chester onto a branch. Slowly, hand over hand, Chester ascended the tree. He slipped a couple of times, and once, a branch broke clean off as he grabbed it, but he managed not to fall.

“Don’t worry, man. You got this,” Pablo called up.

The higher he climbed, the slower his progress. I caught him looking down a few times, and shuddered for him. If he fell at this point, he might not make it.

Close to the parachute, Chester clung for dear life and yelled, “The bark’s grown through it.” He was barely audible over the jungle’s noisy backdrop. “I don’t think I can get it down.”

“You have to,” Mel yelled back.

Rittika nudged her sharply with an elbow. “Why?” she demanded. “Is that old thing really worth it?”

“It might be.”

Minutes passed. We watched Chester sawing and hacking with the knife. With every motion, I could sense Mel tensing up more. I seldom agreed with Rittika, but in this case I did: The parachute couldn’t have been worth more than Chester’s life.

Finally, he called, “Stand back, guys!”

He freed the bundle first. It swished through layers of understory, then landed on the mossy ground with a thud. It was larger than it had looked from the ground. Rish grabbed it and held it up.

“You can come back down now,” he called to Chester. “Be careful.”

“No—stay where you are,” Mel yelled. “Get the parachute first.”

“Mel!” I scolded.

But she didn’t even look at me. She was too busy making sure Chester did as told. He did, crawling along branches that shouldn’t have supported a person half his size, climbing, swinging, and cutting. The parachute was tangled widely—in multiple places in multiple trees. On the ground nobody spoke. Rittika bit her nails. Mel sucked her breath through her teeth.

Once or twice I remembered we weren’t alone on the island and I looked around. But it was a mistake to worry about both Chester, whom I could see, and the enemy, whom I couldn’t. My eyes darted, my heart pounded, my stomach went queasy. I felt the world spinning beyond my control.

Finally, Chester released the chute. For one glorious moment it sailed down, the fabric fluttering like a huge green butterfly. Then it snagged again on a lower rung of the understory. To his credit, he climbed down and began the process of untangling it all over again. This time, when he was finished, he wadded the chute into a ball and dropped it.

“Look out below,” he yelled. When the wad reached the jungle floor, we cheered, overcome. Our voices rose even louder when Chester made it down, falling onto the balls of his feet, sweaty, red-faced, triumphant. He grinned and put out his hands. His palms were cracked and bleeding. His bare feet looked like they’d gone through a meat grinder.

“Good job!” Pablo said, high-fiving. Rish gave him that chest-bump hug that boys do. Chester smiled excitedly, then turned toward Mel expectantly. She stared at the blood trickling down his fingertips.

“Satisfied?” he asked.

“Don’t wash in Conch Lake today,” she replied. “You’ll pollute it.”

Chester stepped closer to her. He still had a huge smile on his face. “Can’t I get a thank-you, Miss Get-the-Parachute- First?”

That smile could light up a stadium. Seriously. If I were Mel, I wouldn’t have been able to resist it. But she sidestepped him and picked up the chute with both hands. She held it to her body, like a mother cradling an infant.

“Thank you,” she said grudgingly. That was as much as Chester was going to get. But it was enough, I saw in my peripheral vision, to make Rittika frown.

“My guess is that it’s from a war. Vietnam, the Korean War, maybe even World War Two,” Mel said.

We returned to Camp Summerbliss to examine the parachute and open the tattered bundle, which had a white number and red cross on it. Mel guessed it was a paratrooper’s kit, from one of Britain’s airborne divisions.

Suddenly, her face got that look, that Mel look, like a kid on Christmas Eve, all sparkling eyes and hopeful wonder. “God, what if the enemy is actually an old paratrooper? Some poor soldier who got way off course and was stranded here. Or went AWOL.”

“It’s hard to imagine someone surviving years here, all alone,” Betty said.

“But it’s possible,” Mel replied. She split the bundle with her knife and took the items out one by one. Betty, by her side, took inventory in a notebook. There wasn’t much, and some of it wasn’t even identifiable. She wrote,

There were also some rusty cans and an even rustier can opener. At the bottom of the bundle, Mel produced some moldy shreds of fabric, which might have once been a blanket. I was surprised it hadn’t disintegrated completely.

The sewing kit was in fair condition. The thread had somehow survived and might even be usable. The cans were not. Mel scratched the corroded metal with a fingernail. “These are decades past their expiration,” she said. “And a botulism risk to boot.”

“No gun? No knife?” Rittika said. “What was the point of getting all this down?”

“We don’t know its value yet,” Mel replied.

“Yes, we do. It’s worthless. You risked Chester’s life to get down a bunch of garbage.”

“It’s not all garbage,” Betty argued, picking up the sewing kit. “Maybe we can clean the needles with sand. Get the rust off.”

“Oh, goody,” Rittika replied. “We can sew while the enemy hunts us down.” Avery snorted in amusement.

“I didn’t mean that we …” Betty said.

“Listen to me,” Rittika said, cutting her off. “We humored Mel. Obviously, she was wrong, and the parachute wasn’t worth it, but that’s over with. It’s time to focus on what matters: the enemy.”

“Bringing him down,” Rish added. Beside him, Chester nodded.

“Betty, write this down,” Rittika instructed. “All the things we know about him so far. He uses a cane, right? And he knows English, at least a little—or else how did he write the note?”

“He steals shoes,” Chester added ruefully.

“And crawls on girls!” Avery complained, shuddering.

“And he might be old—if Mel’s theory’s right,” said Rish.

Maybe it was my imagination, but I didn’t picture the enemy as an old soldier. I saw him as someone young, ruthless, and strong. Someone as much animal as man. Someone who had adapted to the jungle somehow, whose skin was immune to the incessant bites and the tireless sun, whose ears no longer thrummed from the constant shrieking of monkeys and birds, who didn’t suffer the thirst, dread, and fatigue that plagued us Drake Rosemont kids. Basically, I pictured the enemy as invincible.

Which made us sitting ducks.

I glanced at Mel, wondering what she was thinking. It was hard to tell. Examining the parachute, she seemed lost in her own head.

Everyone began to gather around Rittika. Everybody except Anne Marie, who kept to herself. Rittika gave her the stink eye, then began handing out the swords. The rubber safety caps had been removed, exposing sharp steel tips. I pressed my finger against one, just shy of drawing blood. It wouldn’t take a hell of a lot of pressure to hurt someone. I assumed the fencing position and lunged, the sword an extension of my arm. I bit my lip worriedly and almost drew blood there, too.

If we were back at Drake Rosemont, the idea of stabbing someone would be insane, outrageous, barbaric. But things were completely different here on the island. It was as if we were deciding the most basic things from scratch: what was good and bad, right and wrong. I didn’t know if we were up to the task.

Because we were short of swords, Rittika demanded Mel’s knife. She wanted to sharpen the ends of sticks to make spears. But Mel was reluctant.

We can’t just go at this blindly,” she said. “We need to make a plan.”

“We have a plan,” Rittika replied. “Find and kill—before we’re killed first.”

“But I’m not sure the enemy killed anybody.”

Rittika put her hands on her hips. “Have you forgotten about Warren?”

“No—of course not. I just think there’s a possibility he was already dead. Maybe the enemy used his body as a scare tactic.”

“I doubt it. And besides, we can’t just sit around, hoping for the best.”

“All I’m saying is that we approach the hunt carefully. Prudently.”

“Prudently? You sound like one of our teachers,” Rittika scoffed. “I’ve got news for you—this ain’t no Drake Rosemont.”

“I don’t want any of us to get hurt.”

Rish interjected, “Man, I don’t think we have that luxury.”

“He’s right,” Rittika said. “Gimme the knife, Mel.”

“We need to make some rules first.”

“I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.”

“Wait!” I said to Rittika. “Hear Mel out. We can spare a couple more minutes. Besides, what she has to say could save your skin.”

I wasn’t sure if that was true, but Mel glanced at me gratefully.

“Fine,” Rittika said. I could tell by her voice I was skating on thin ice. “Let’s hear it.”

“First, we should go in pairs,” Mel said slowly. “Stay close to your partner, no matter what. Second, be as inconspicuous as possible. Remember that the enemy knows this island better than we do. If you make noise or stand out, he’ll see you way before you see him. And third, our goal isn’t to kill him but to put him out of commission. We’re not murderers.”

That last word made me very nervous. I wasn’t an aggressive person. I’d never even been in a fight before—no hair pulling, no slapping, nothing. The closest I’d ever gotten to one was a particularly vicious fencing bout in which my opponent had left bruises up and down my legs. Afterward, I’d examined them in a lavatory stall and cried.

“I think we can handle that,” said Chester. “Don’t you?” He looked at Rittika hopefully. She glared back, unwilling to be placated.

Finally, Mel handed her the knife. “I want it back when you’re done,” she said.

“You want a lot of things,” Rittika snapped, taking the knife. She began gathering people to make spears. Meanwhile, I followed Mel to the edge of Conch Lake. I watched her peel up moss from the bank and scoop up loamy, brown-black soil. She began to smear it on her skin—her legs and arms first, then her neck and face.

“I’m not sure I want to know what you’re doing,” I told her.

“Trying to pass as Indian.”

“What?”

“It was a joke.”

“Oh.”

“Mud offers good protection against sun and mosquitoes. Aboriginal Tasmanians have used it for centuries.”

“I guess they aren’t vain.”

She shook her head, but I could see a hint of a smile. Her pale eyes looked bigger than usual in her mud-streaked face.

“Hey, do you think the others listened to me?” she asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Rittika doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

I shrugged. “Do any of us?”

Mel shook her head. “I guess you have a point. You know, you should apply this, too.”

“Thanks, but I’ll risk a few more bites.”

“Do you wanna risk malaria, Zika, yellow fever, dengue, encephalitis, and filariasis?”

I didn’t know what half of those were, but they sounded bad enough for me to swallow my pride. Soon I’d spread mud just about everywhere. It felt cool and pleasant at first, but then hardened into a dry, dusty paste.

When the spears were finished, Rittika gave the knife back to Mel. Then she began to assign partners. I wondered if Mel was bothered by the way she had taken control. Rittika paired herself with Rish, Pablo with me, Chester with Ming, and Mel with Anne Marie. I wasn’t surprised when she put Mel and Anne Marie together. Rittika didn’t like either of them—Mel because she was smart, and Anne Marie because she was meek. If there was one thing Rittika couldn’t tolerate, it was weakness. I had a hunch that Rittika was a little jealous, too. Most students considered Anne Marie the best artist at Drake Rosemont. Every other month it seemed Drake Rosemont was showcasing some new installation or exhibit she’d put together. She received a lot of attention for her talent, from both staff and students. Rittika couldn’t tolerate that, either—someone else in the spotlight.

She ordered the rest of the gang, Avery and Betty, to stay at Camp Summerbliss and keep the fire going.

Though a selfish part of me wanted to be with Mel, I didn’t fight the pairings. It made sense, after all—to put the most able person with the most vulnerable. If push came to shove, Mel would do what had to be done. I had no doubt about that—especially after seeing how decisively she’d cut the boar.

As for me, well, I didn’t want to consider my chances.

When it was time to go, Rittika came over and looked me up and down in amusement. I thought about jumping into Conch Lake and washing off the mud. Even here, a million miles from Drake Rosemont, I still wanted to look cool. I still wanted her approval.

“No need to worry, Samantha,” she joked. “Your skin’s already the right color.”

“Mel said the mud keeps mosquitoes away,” I stammered.

“Do you believe her?”

“She’s usually right.”

“Not about everything.”

I looked down, feeling defensive, but not wanting to show it. I didn’t want Rittika to know which side I was on.

“Have you noticed,” she began, “that some of us are thriving on this island, while others”—she nodded in the direction of Mel—“aren’t?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just look at them,” she continued, glancing now at Anne Marie. “They’re so white, their skin is literally frying!”

“It’s not their fault. The sun’s brutal here.”

“It’s not their fault, but it still sucks. They can’t adapt like we can.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re naturally stronger, Sam. Me, you, Rish. Pablo, too. And it’s not just our skin I’m talking about. Darker people in general—we’re survivors. We’ve always been survivors. Unlike the Pales over there.”

“I don’t get what you’re saying,” I replied, although maybe I just didn’t want to get it.

“It’s simple, if you think about it. Whiteness is like nature’s warning sign. The paler the person, the more damaged they are. Not that it’s the Pales’ fault—and not all of them, of course.”

“That sounds kind of … racist.”

“Maybe it is,” she sniffed. “But you’ve gotta admit there’s something to it. Take Anne Marie. I honestly pity her. She’s the ultimate Pale. I mean, have you ever met a less stable person? At Drake Rosemont she’s bad enough—I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to talk to her and ended up scaring her away. But here? It’s ten times worse. Everyone walks on eggshells around her. God forbid we hurt her feelings.” She sighed disgustedly.

“I don’t know …”

“Look, it’s no secret: The Pales have tried to keep us down since the beginning of history. But we always rise up. At some point we’ll seize the power.”

I wasn’t sure how much of Rittika’s sermon to believe. I wasn’t even sure how much she believed. All I knew was that when I thought about Mel, I felt guilty.

“So if they’re the Pales, what are we?” I whispered.

She laughed. “Let’s see … Oh, I got it, the Golds.” She waved her hand across the air, as if showing me a headline.

“Those are the official names: the Golds and the Pales?”

“That’s right. We’re mortal enemies, like the Montagues and the Capulets, the Greasers and the Socs, the Sharks and the Jets.”

Against my better judgment, I laughed, too. Rittika seldom bothered talking to me. I couldn’t deny that it felt good to have her attention. To be included.

“So, do you think we’ll get this guy?” she asked, switching the subject.

“Do you?”

“My brother says we have a good shot.”

“I don’t know—I’m … a little scared.”

“I am, too. But something about this island makes me feel like I could do anything.”

“Not me. I’m the opposite. I just wanna get home,” I admitted.

“Why?” she demanded. “Everything at Drake Rosemont is so boring. Every day’s a routine. There’s no mystery. It’s almost like my life is already written out: graduation, then college, then I’ll start working at my father’s company. With Rish, of course.”

“I thought you wanted to work at your father’s company.”

“Not really. But it’s gonna happen. It’s been my destiny since—like—forever.”

“What do you really want to do?”

“I don’t know—something creative. Acting, maybe. I just wish I had time to decide. To try things.”

“Maybe you should tell your dad that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Sam. You know he’d go nuts. You have an Indian father, too!”

I blushed so deeply that I was actually grateful for the mud on my face.

“What does your father want you to do?” she asked.

“Me? My dad and I don’t talk much. We’re not close.”

While she took this in, she slapped a mosquito that had landed on her thigh. A breeze blew and I caught a whiff of her hair. It smelled perfumy. I wondered if she had a secret shampoo stash, or if everything about her was just preternaturally perfect.

Truth was, I had always been fascinated by Rittika’s hair. The obsession had started the first time I’d ever sat behind her in class. I spent a disproportionate amount of time ignoring the professor and staring at those lush locks. Once, I’d even picked up a stray strand from her back and wound it around my finger. The whole class had been taking notes, typing furiously on laptops, but I’d missed everything the professor had said. I’d worn the hair all day long, twined around my finger like a ring.

“Well, be glad you got your father’s skin at least,” she said. “We’re gold—the real thing. Mel, with her mud—she’s just a poor imitation.”

Nervously, I giggled along with her. Then I glanced at Mel, to make sure she hadn’t heard.