Classic Ruskin Bond Read Online Free Page B

few minutes ago, he had been beaten for visiting the bazaar where there were so many like the sweeper boy.
    The sweeper boy turned from the window, leaving wet fingermarks on the sill; then lifted his buckets from the ground and, with his knees bent to take the weight, walked away. His feet splashed a little in the water he had spilt, and the soft red mud flew up and flecked his legs.
    Angry with his guardian and with the servant and most of all with himself, Rusty buried his head in his pillow and tried to shut out reality; he forced a dream, in which he was thrashing Mr Harrison until the guardian begged for mercy.

 
Chapter Five
    I N THE EARLY MORNING , when it was still dark, Ranbir stopped in the jungle behind Mr Harrison’s house, and slapped his drum. His thick mass of hair was covered with red dust and his body, naked but for a cloth round his waist, was smeared green; he looked like a painted god, a green god. After a minute he slapped the drum again, then sat down on his heels and waited.
    Rusty woke to the sound of the second drum-beat, and lay in bed and listened; it was repeated, travelling over the still air and in through the bedroom window.
Dhum!
 . . . A double-beat now, one deep, one high, insistent, questioning . . .
    Rusty remembered his promise, that he would play Holi with Ranbir, meet him in the jungle when he beat the drum. But he had made the promise on the condition that his guardian did not return; he could not possibly keep it now, not after the thrashing he had received.
    Dhum-dhum, spoke the drum in the forest; dhum-dhum, impatient and getting annoyed . . .
    ‘Why can’t he shut up,’ muttered Rusty, ‘does he want to wake Mr Harrison . . .‘
    Holi, the Festival of Colours, the arrival of spring, the rebirth of the new year, the awakening of love, what were these things to him, they did not concern his life, he could not start a new life, not for one day . . . and besides, it all sounded very primitive, this throwing of colour and beating of drums . . .
    Dhum-dhum
!
    The boy sat up in bed.
    The sky had grown lighter.
    From the distant bazaar came a new music, many drums and voices, faint but steady, growing in rhythm and excitement. The sound conveyed something to Rusty, something wild and emotional, something that belonged to his dream-world, and on a sudden impulse he sprang out of bed.
    He went to the door and listened; the house was quiet, he bolted the door. The colours of Holi, he knew, would stain his clothes, so he did not remove his pyjamas. In an old pair of flattened rubber-soled tennis shoes, he climbed out of the window and ran over the dew-wet grass, down the path behind the house, over the hill and into the jungle.
    When Ranbir saw the boy approach, he rose from the ground. The long hand-drum, the dholak, hung at his waist. As he rose, the sun rose. But the sun did not look as fiery as Ranbir who, in Rusty’s eyes, appeared as a painted demon, rather than as a god.
    ‘You are late, mister,’ said Ranbir, ‘I thought you were not coming.’
    He had both his fists closed, but when he walked towards Rusty he opened them, smiling widely, a white smile in a green face. In his right hand was the red dust and in his left hand the green dust. And with his right hand he rubbed the red dust on Rusty’s left cheek, and then with the other hand he put the green dust on the boy’s right cheek; then he stood back and looked at Rusty and laughed. Then, according to the custom, he embraced the bewildered boy. It was a wrestler’s hug, and Rusty winced breathlessly.
    ‘Come,’ said Ranbir, ‘let us go and make the town a rainbow.’
    *
    And truly, that day there was an outbreak of spring.
    The sun came up, and the bazaar woke up. The walls of the houses were suddenly patched with splashes of colour, and just as suddenly the trees seemed to have burst into flower; for in the forest there were armies of rhododendrons, and by the river the poinsettias danced; the