The thwack of the machete on the jackfruit woke him up. Blinking the afternoon sleep away, Unni ran down the shiny wooden stairs, its wobbling making the underside of his feet curl in fear. He ignored the sensation and let the momentum take him to the bottom. Everyone in the house would shout "careful" when children came down them, but nobody had thought of replacing this death-trap. Its shiny steps were worn by the family's feet into slippery silk. The two beams holding it up had deep cracks, into which Uncle B stuck incense sticks, in memory of his wife, who fell and cracked her head on the last step. The teak wood bannister, carved into a snake, shook like a loose tooth. The landing was a big granite tile. If the smooth wooden steps did their job of accelerating your descent to the ground, the hard granite could finish it by killing you. Unni, jumped from the last step, cleared the granite slab and ran down to the kitchen and then out the back door to the verandah that circled the house. His mother was squatting in front of an enormous jackfruit, pouring coconut oil onto her hands to keep the sap from sticking when she plucked out the juicy flesh, after Uncle B had cut it into quarters. Unni sat at the doorstep, waiting for her to hand him a piece. The other kids had not woken up from their forced siesta. His mouth was watering, the smell filled his nostrils and mingled with the scent of cow dung and hay that wafted from the cowshed in front of them. Uncle B dug into the folds of his lungi and took out a ten rupee note. "Nine Navy Cut and buy orange candy for yourself with the rest." Unni looked at his mother, who had a frown on her face but didn't say anything. He took it as consent, grabbed the money and ran around the house to the road in front. Ikkaka's shop was just a few yards down the road. The blacktop was still hot from the afternoon sun. He walked on it until it was too hot to bear and then jumped on to the gravel side. He heard the growl of a small engine and looked up to see Nisha from next door trying to ride her father's Scooty. She was concentrating on keeping the handles straight and was not looking in front of her. Unni took a deep breath before letting out a loud yell and charging towards her. She braked so hard and so fast, the back of the Scooty rose. The rider and scooter fell to the side. He was still laughing when she got up, dusted the gravel from her elbow where streaks of blood were already appearing, and shouted at him. He ran the last few steps to the shop and slammed the money on top of the counter. Ikakka lifted his head and stretched his hand slowly to the shelf that held the cigarette boxes. "Nine Navy Cut and one orange candy" Unni said unnecessarily. He had been making the same trip all summer. Ikkaka placed the pack of cigarettes on the counter next to the money, and Unni unscrewed the big bottle of candy and took two sugar dusted, orange, jewel-like, pieces out. Ikkaka had given him permission for that too. The pack had ten cigarettes. Usually, Ikkaka would unwrap the cellophane and carefully take one out. Today he just gestured to the box and waved his hands. Unni took the pack, popped the candy into his mouth and walked back. Ikkaka sometimes possessed a rare streak of magnanimity, usually when the day had been unusually hot. Nisha tried to slap him as he walked past, he dodged her, and she went back to inspecting her scraped elbow, brushing off some of the gravel she had missed. Unni never brushed his wounds; even as they began to heal, he would sit and pick at the tiny pieces one by one, some of which, when removed, would be replaced with a tiny, brilliant red droplet of blood.
Everyone said that Unni couldn't keep his hands still. It was a curse that regularly got him in trouble and mostly ended up with some kind of a beating. A knock on the head from Uncle B, a pounding on the back from his mother – who had heard somewhere that it was the only acceptable place to hit a child – a caning on the palm from his school teachers, or a slap on the face from karate master, "etc, etc, etc", as his English Miss would say.
His fingers unwound the clear cellophane from around the pack. He opened the cover and slowly slid out the dull gold wrapper and placed it carefully in his pocket. Manu had made a ball with gold chocolate wrappers. Unni wanted to make a kite, but nobody bought him chocolates; the cigarette foil would have to do. The neat row of cigarettes stared at him. He took one out and brought it close to his nose. The smell was incredible. Uncle B was expecting only nine, so he carefully placed one in the crook of the sapota tree and ran to the back of the house. The jackfruit was piled up on a steel plate. Mini and Manu were already digging into it. Unni grabbed a few and sat down with a satisfactory sigh.
The white stick in the crook of the tree stayed stuck to the back of Unni's mind. His initial idea was to sniff it once in a while when no one was looking. But the thought took off and he decided that he would smoke it. The second-most hidden place in the entire compound was behind the outdoor toilet. The most hidden place was the abandoned temple tank.