No Ordinary Day by Deborah Ellis

walked by, picked them up and added them to his bag. His rag bag trailed behind him. It was almost longer than he was tall. It got snagged on something. The boy had to bend down to loosen it. Then he slowly continued on his way.
    I almost went after him, just to be with someone for a little while.
    He wouldn’t want me, I told myself. So I let him go.
    I jumped off the curb, ran through Book Alley and out onto Bidhan Sarani Street.
    Traffic was picking up. I grabbed the bumper of the first truck that came by slowly enough for me to catch it. I swung onto the bumper, crouched down behind a stack of hay bales and held on as the truck sped down the road.
    Busybody motorists honked and told the driver I was riding on his truck. He stopped, got out and yelled at me to get off. I yelled back, jumped down, ran through the traffic to the other side of the street and grabbed hold of a passing bus. When that stopped, I hopped on the back of a tuk-tuk, then another truck.
    I kept moving. I didn’t even look at where I was going.
    I rode around for hours.
    I rode until I was calm enough to realize how hungry I was.
    When that happened, I was on the back of a truck loaded with sugar cane. The truck stopped and I hopped off.
    Across the street was the New Bengal Shopping Mall. It was big and fancy with bright signs on the high walls and pots of flowers leading up to the entrance. If I could get in, I would be able to get something to eat. The garbage cans there were always full.
    But to get in, I would have to get past the gate, and the gate was guarded.
    I decided to test it. Not all guards loved their job, or were good at it. Some just sat and smoked. Some slept.
    I moved in closer, wandering instead of walking so I wouldn’t draw the attention of the guards. I wandered by like I was invisible.
    I sat down on the wide steps a short distance from the gate to see what kind of guards they were.
    A small group of women wearing high-heeled shoes, nice saris and lots of jewelry approached the opening in the fence. They were talking and laughing.
    The guards stopped them.
    “Show us your bags.”
    The women were all carrying large purses.
    “We need to examine your bags.”
    The women began to argue. “You’re not looking in our purses. Why would we let you do that?”
    “I am sorry, madam. We must look inside.”
    “Look inside for what? Do you think we are terrorists? Do you think we are carrying bombs?”
    The women kept arguing and the guards kept insisting.
    Finally, with a lot of foot-stomping and threatening to get the guards fired, the women allowed their purses to be searched. They huddled around the guards while their bags were opened.
    I jumped into action.
    I climbed the steps and slid in through the gate behind the backs of the women. No one noticed me.
    The mall went on and on. It was very different from the markets, where everything was crowded together. The markets were alive. Merchants sold chickens that squawked and vegetables picked from the fields outside Kolkata and brought in on the early trains. Markets smelled like flowers and dung cakes, pakoras frying and cilantro being chopped. They were noisy and hot, and when it rained, they were a real mess.
    The mall had wide corridors that got swept a lot. There was no garbage on the floor. The air was cool and clean. There were no live animals, just displays of jewelry, clothes and dishes behind glass. There were no smells other than the perfume worn by all the shopping ladies.
    The meals were all served in one area. The garbage bins were out back, but I was hoping for food that hadn’t made it into the garbage yet.
    I climbed some stairs and came out into a large room filled with light and tables and music. This room was surrounded by little cooking places. People went up to a stall and got pizza or sandwiches or Chinese food or vegetarian food. I heard ice chink into big plastic cups and I heard Coke and fizzy orange drinks land on top of the ice.
    I sat at the back