Little Princes by Conor Grennan Page B

face. I was happy to see them, too.
    E veryone had changed in the year I was gone. Sandra had returned to France. The other volunteers were long gone. Farid had buzzed off his long dreadlocks, and his English had improved, which was good because my French had not. Santosh, who had sprouted a full two inches since I’d last seen him, took my bag and carried it up to my room, commenting all the way how weak I looked and how thankful I must be that I had such a strong man to carry my stuff. I tipped him with an empty gum wrapper when he held out his hand with mock expectation.
    But the place itself was just as I had left it. I sat down on my old bed, on the same thin straw mattress, my sleeping bag rolled up under the bed, right where I had left it. Even the weather was the same. I knew exactly what would happen when I walked out the door. I knew these eighteen children like I knew my own brothers. I relaxed. Godawari was home.
    My first full day back in Nepal coincided with a Hindu festival. The festivals were a reminder that just when you thought you were as far from your normal life as possible, there is always a little bit farther you could go. I had experienced Hindu festivals before, more or less by accident. In the small town of Pushkar, India, I collided with a celebration for some unknown holiday. My memory of it was little more than a blaze of colors and flowers and music. I had been pulled into a group of large, middle-aged sari-clad ladies who begged me to dance with them, right there on the street, a crowd gathering around us.
    That morning in Godawari, I woke in a haze of jetlag. Through blurred vision, I saw an eye peeking through the inch-wide opening at my door. I raised my head slowly off the pillow, and the eye disappeared, quickly replaced by a small mouth, lips pushing their way through the crack.
    “Brother! Brother!” yelled the lips. “Festival today, Brother!” It was Raju’s voice.
    For a moment I couldn’t even figure out where I was or why somebody was yelling at me.
    Raju repeated himself at full-throated yell until I was fully awake.
    “Okay, Raju . . . okay, I’m up. What festival?”
    He paused, and the bemused sliver of his face showed that the question had caught him off guard. He disappeared for a second and I heard him whispering with somebody, and heard the reply, which could only be Nuraj—his distinctively gruff voice made him sound like he had a perpetual cold. Raju’s lips reappeared in the crack.
    “I don’t know, Brother!” he shouted.
    None of the kids knew. It was simply “Festival!” and that meant extra food. I had been looking forward to my first daal bhat, but instead found some kind of pale brown vegetable-ish object on my plate. I took a sniff. It was almost completely odorless, which made me trust it even less. I watched as the semicircle of children gobbled theirs up. I glanced at Farid.
    “What is this?”
    “I do not know. I do not want to know,” he declared, pushing it farther away from him.
    “Hey, guys,” I said loudly to the sixteen boys and two girls sitting around me. Everybody froze. I forgot that meal times were a time to focus on getting food from the plate into one’s mouth, not a time for talking. The children stared, waiting for whatever urgent news I was about to deliver.
    “What is this thing? This food you’re eating?” I asked.
    My question set off a flurry of discussion among them. They knew the name in their own language, but had no idea what it was called in English. The big boys were discussing possible translations, but one by one they fell completely silent. They all looked to Santosh. Santosh’s eyes searched the ceiling for an answer. Everyone held their breath in anticipation.
    Suddenly Santosh leaped to his feet, sending his plate skidding across the floor, and he jabbed an index finger skyward in a Eureka-type gesture.
    “Kind of potato, Brother!”
    Euphoric cries filled the room. “Yes! Yes! Potato!” shouted Anish.