A kite with other ideas
Kabir had measured the bamboo twice. He had chosen blue paper, pasted every edge, and tied a tail with seven yellow bows.
His kite ought to have flown beautifully.
Instead, it rose above the rooftop, rolled onto its side, and travelled straight toward Auntie’s drying socks.
“An interesting route,” Auntie said, rescuing a striped pair.
Kabir did not feel interested. On the neighbouring roof, three kites stood high and steady, like bright flags planted in the afternoon.
He shortened his kite’s tail. It spun. He lengthened the tail. It sat down on a chimney.
By the fourth try, paste had dried on his wrist and his cheeks felt hot.
“I’ve ruined it.”
Auntie brought a plate of sliced guava. “You’ve made a kite that isn’t flying as you hoped.”
“That sounds exactly the same.”
“Have some guava while it thinks about the difference.”
Kabir took a slice. A breeze lifted the blue paper. Across its crooked middle, words appeared in thin white letters:
SIDEWAYS DEPARTURES. ONE SEAT AVAILABLE.
The kite tugged its string twice, as if clearing its throat.
Kabir checked the back. There was no writing there at all, only one slightly sticky thumbprint.
The travelling spool
The wooden spool grew warm in Kabir’s hand. Then it unfolded.
First came two curved runners. Then a seat, a footrest, and a small brass bell. In a moment, a little sled stood on the roof, still joined to the kite by its string.
Auntie examined the runners.
“Cloudwood,” she said, as though she had been expecting it. “Very comfortable. I rode some in a dream once.”
“What if I steer badly?”
“Ring when you want to come home. I’ll keep your guava covered.”
Kabir sat down. The kite pulled, and the sled slid into the air as smoothly as a spoon entering honey.
They did not go up.
They went sideways, along the warm edges of roofs, past a pigeon who looked deeply inconvenienced, and through a curtain of washing that smelled of soap.
Then the city folded beneath them like a map.
Ahead lay a narrow opening between two clouds. A sign hung above it: THE WESTWARD-ISH WAY.
“Westward-ish?” Kabir said.
The kite gave a pleased flutter.
Beyond the opening, he heard bells, splashing water, and someone calling, “Mind the drifting pears!”
A pear floated past his knee. He caught it, then looked around for its owner.
The harbour of unfinished things
The clouds opened onto a harbour where boats floated in air. One had a staircase instead of a mast. Another wore a knitted sail full of accidental holes.
A child in a green cap caught Kabir’s string and helped him land.
“I’m Pip. Is that pear mine?”
“I think it might be.”
“Good. My basket hasn’t learned about bottoms yet.”
Kabir looked at the basket. It was handsome, round, and completely open underneath.
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Sometimes. I’m adding a bottom after lunch.” Pip handed him half the pear. “Sometimes I just carry scarves.”
Together they walked along a dock made from unfinished bridges. Beneath them, cloud-water fizzed against the posts. Nobody stared at Kabir’s crooked kite. Nobody asked why he had not made a better one.
At the harbour’s edge waited a little boat with a torn sail.
“We’re going to the Bell Orchard,” Pip said. “Would you like to come?”
Kabir looked at the tear. “I could fix that.”
He reached for a strip of blue paper, then hesitated. What if his fixing made things worse?
Pip sat on the dock beside him.
“We can look at it first. There’s no hurry. The bells grow all afternoon.”
Seven yellow bows
Kabir held the torn edges together while Pip fetched thread. His first stitch pulled through the sailcloth. His second made a pucker.
He nearly threw the needle down.
Then a pear bumped gently against his shoulder, and he remembered Pip’s basket waiting patiently for its bottom.
“Could you hold this bit tighter?” he asked.
They tried smaller stitches. The patch stayed, though it looked like a sleepy blue eye.
Out on the cloud-water, the boat moved slowly. Very slowly.
“My patch is catching the wind wrong,” Kabir said.
“Perhaps,” said Pip. “Or we need another sail.”
Kabir looked up at his kite, still leaning stubbornly sideways.
They tied its string to the bow.
The boat began to skim—not straight toward the orchard, but in a broad, ridiculous curve. Pip whooped. Kabir laughed so hard he had to sit down.
They arrived by the long way, passing clouds filled with migrating teaspoons and a sleeping whale made of mist.
In the orchard, silver bells ripened among green leaves. Kabir picked one shaped like a pear.
When he rang it, Auntie’s rooftop appeared beside the boat, as close as a neighbouring step.
His guava was waiting. So were the socks.
“Still sideways?” Auntie asked.
“Very,” said Kabir. “But I have some ideas.”
A little light to carry
Kabir kept the pear-shaped bell on his windowsill. The next morning, he discovered that one bamboo strip really was shorter than the other. He replaced it, and the kite flew straighter, though never quite straight. He liked it before the repair and after. He liked himself on both mornings, too, even with paste in his hair and a knot that took ages to loosen.
Some afternoons he worked on the kite. Some afternoons he left it leaning against the wall and played with his cousins. The sideways road did not disappear when he rested. Somewhere beyond the rooftops, an unfinished basket held a beautiful collection of scarves, and a friend had saved him a place on the dock.