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the big day when we would move into Minto Towers. It was the coming Sunday.

‘Home, sweet home, at last!’ said Daddy who worked on a ship.

Mummy sighed, ‘I had always dreamt of a home of our own.’

The previous afternoon I had visited my new home secretly. I had seen Sumita’s
parents packing their clothes and bedding in a dirty cotton sheet. Daddy had told
them to leave. Sumita’s flowing, black hair was dishevelled. Anger raged in her timid,
friendly eyes.

‘Go away, Ajanta didi’ she howled. ‘This

is my home. My parents have toiled
and built it, brick by brick.’

I could not speak. I looked
at my poor friend. ‘She was

right, wasn’t she? Her parents
deserved to live here,
didn’t they?’

Sumita now burst into tears.
She offered my polka-dotted

skirt back. ‘Take this. I will
not be your friend again,’
she said.

‘Sumita,’ I gently wiped away

the tears from her tender,
innocent face. ‘I’ll talk to my
parents. You will share my room.’

I rushed back to my parents. I begged them to let Sumita stay with me. They just would

not listen. To my utter surprise, she had not even been invited to our house-warming
party.

‘I’ve arranged a shelter for them,’ Daddy consoled me. ‘They will live near Minto
Towers.’

‘Please understand, Ajanta,’ said Ma, ‘Sumita can never be your friend. After all, she is

only a labourer’s daughter.’

On Sunday morning I met Sumita at the gate of Minto dishevelled: very untidy
Towers. She had tears in her eyes. In her frail arms she timid: shy and nervous
held the rag doll. utter surprise: completely surprised

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