For children: Nikoo and Zubin spot a fantastical leaf creature and decide to get to the bottom of it

Eight-year-old Nikoo and six-year-old Zubin lived with their parents in an apartment in Cusrow Baug, a Parsi colony in Mumbai. Their home was just a stone’s throw from the seashore.

Nikoo, who had read a book on sharks, knew that these creatures lived only in the water. But Zubin was sure that sharks slithered out of the sea at night to chomp off children’s toes.

“Arrey, doodlehead! That was a mosquito, not a shark. Mosquitoes bit your toes when you were asleep last night!” Nikoo tried to explain, but Zubin insisted on keeping a light on, in case the shark showed up. So poor Nikoo had to sleep with a pair of undies pulled over her head and eyes!

For this, and for a few other reasons, both children were happy to spend their school vacations at Grandma Shirin’s house in Kasauli, a town in the hills far away from the sea.

Grandma Shirin, whom the children called Mummai (meaning “mum’s mum”), liked listening to Zubin’s long-winded tales as much as she enjoyed hearing Nikoo’s quick facts. Nikoo and Zubin, for their part, loved Mummai. She had bright eyes and a gentle voice, and she was funny and kind. She always made fresh tomato, lettuce and cheese sandwiches, and baked choco-vanilla cupcakes for their picnics.

Mummai’s home was warm and inviting. The delicious aroma of Sheelu Didi’s cooking filled every corner of the house. Sheelu, a cheerful young woman, came every day to help Mummai with the household chores. The pretty lawn outside was bordered by potted zinnias, dahlias and morning glories, and you could spot birds of different species in the garden trees. Nikoo liked to look them up in her copy of Salim Ali’s The Book of Indian Birds and read about their habits.

The morning after their mother dropped them at Mummai Shirin’s, Nikoo woke up at 7 am to sit on the window seat with her bird book. Zubin also sat up in bed. Hair tousled and eyes still closed, he made a peculiar squeaking noise. Nikoo looked up from the book she had been poring over, her frown shifting to confusion.

“Zubee, are you sick?” she cried out softly. Afraid to touch him, she raced to the porch. Pulling Mummai Shirin by her hand, Nikoo guided her grandmother to the bedroom and gestured worriedly to her brother.

Mummai looked at Zubin intently. Then she drew Nikoo to the window seat and whispered in her ear, “Zubee is just pretending to be a bird.” On the tree outside, a bird was singing perkily, and half-asleep Zubin was making the same sound.

A little later, Nikoo brushed her teeth and went out to the veranda off their bedroom, where Mummai sat at a table, crocheting with shiny yarn. They could hear Zubin, now properly awake, belting out a song in the loo.

“He’s singing our school anthem!” Nikoo cried, aghast. “Rule number twenty-two of the handbook states that the school anthem may be sung only while wearing the school uniform. Zubee doesn’t even have any clothes on!”

“School is a thousand miles away, and Zubee is free to greet the day in any way he likes,” Mummai said, tilting her head towards the laughing thrush still calling from the tree by the bedroom window.

“But Mummai, Zubin is not just a rule breaker – he is silly, too. He thinks the things he makes up are true!”

“Isn’t a bit of imagination good, though?” Mummai asked, her eyes sparkling.

Zubin isn’t just a little bit imaginative, Nikoo wanted to retort, but right then, Mummai held out the thing she had been crocheting. “It’s ready!” she announced.

“My Kufinoor hairband!” Nikoo exclaimed.

“It is Kohinoor, my precious gem,” Mummai said with a smile as she arranged Nikoo’s hair around the newly crocheted hairband. It was sky blue with a silver-and-violet diamond pattern. It was meant to keep Nikoo’s curls from springing up, as she liked her hair to be neat.

Excerpted with permission from Leaf People, Chatura Rao, illustrated by Lungshai Leisan, Puffin.