Realm of the Goddess Read Online Free Page B

my mother would find it unacceptable that the sweet old ladies there should be deprived of my awesome company. Also, I wouldn’t have time to watch Vampire Diaries , which I religiously recorded so I could watch at night. Of course, I didn’t say that out loud. It wouldn’t do anything to help my case.
    I was not disappointed. My mother took the bait and said, “Why don’t I go and meet with him next week to see if he can’t let you bring the work home?” She turned to my dad. “Paul, you’re off early on Wednesdays, why don’t you come with me?” Dad mumbled something about catching the game on his only evening off, but my mom had selective hearing when it suited her. Either way, I was happy. Hopefully Mr. Burke would get off my back.
    “Thanks, Mom, you’re the best. I have to work on my essay now, and I have tons of math homework too,” I said as I jumped out of my chair, gave both my parents a hug and bounded up the stairs before my mom remembered the sweets.
    The next day was pretty uneventful. Shiv and I talked about our parents meeting and rolled our eyes as we commiserated on how embarrassing they could be. Ben came and started talking to me at length about an English essay he was having a hard time with. I found this very suspicious since he wasn’t taking English this semester. He ignored the pointed looks I was giving him to hint that I would like to be alone with Shiv. Finally he left, giving me a chance to get some more information out of Shiv.
    “So, Shiv, how long did you live in California?” I asked, hoping it would lead to some subtle follow-up questions. Unfortunately, subtlety was not my strong suit.
    “We just stayed there for six months,” he said. “My dad was supposed to be in charge of a project there, but it didn’t work out the way he’d hoped.” Just then the bell rang for the next period. We both had chemistry, so we walked down the hall together to our class.
    “What about you? What made your family move here from Kolkata?” So much for my follow-up questions. I gave him the same rehearsed answer I’d been giving whenever someone asked me that.
    “My dad got a teaching position here and my mom wanted to go back to school. Plus my dad grew up here, and after spending so many years in India, they thought it was time for a change.” For some reason I felt guilty about lying to him. But then what would I have said? That I started to have these insanely graphic nightmares and was beginning to lose it, so my parents got scared and relocated us? I could just picture seeing the back of his head as he ran away if he ever found out. Luckily, we had reached the class and chemistry kept us busy for the next hour.
    That Saturday, Shiv and his parents came to our house for dinner. My mom had been like a whirlwind all day, cooking up a storm. My dad and I spent the day driving back and forth from the store because she kept forgetting one thing or the other. After the third trip he planted himself on the kitchen stool and said he would help her with whatever she needed to get things ready for that evening, but he refused to go to the store one more time.
    My mom was making all my favorite dishes. There was succulent shrimp swimming in fragrant coconut milk, grilled spicy eggplant, basmati rice studded with peas and carrots and a cooling yoghurt and cucumber salad. Then of course there was the sweet yellow rice that my mom only made on special occasions. I loved the pretty edible silver paper she used as a garnish. And it was accompanied by the traditional Indian rice pudding I could never keep my hands off.
    They arrived around seven. Shiv grinned at me conspiratorially behind our parents’ backs. I was glad they had come. Even though I had only met Shiv a few days ago, it felt like we’d known one another much longer. I was very comfortable around him, which was good because I was pretty sure that I was developing a major crush. I looked around for him at school whenever we didn’t