Page 2 of A Lab Rat's Guide to Fated Love
“Gramma, why doesn’t my dress have pockets? All your pants have pockets.”
“You can wear your pants, too, once we reach home.”
“But I like wearing dresses. Why can’t I have pockets if I want to wear my dresses?”
“Well… why not…” Grandma raised her brow. “How about I sew some nice pockets to your dresses when we get home? Would you like that?”
“Yes, please.” Nori nodded, grabbing her outstretched hand. “Can you keep this safe till then?”
Grandma took the pebble and turned it between her fingers, admiring, before she slipped it inside her pocket. “Are you going to give it to someone?”
Nori nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“Is it the same kid you made the birthday card for earlier?”
Her eyes widened into saucers as she looked up and pressed a finger to her mouth. “Shh, it’s a secret. You can’t tell anyone.”
Grandma touched her own lips in response and sealed the secret safe with a wink. They walked the rest of the way to the cottage, discussing the different kinds of pockets Nori wanted. Deep ones with zippers, and others secured with buttons.
When Grandma dropped her off at school the next morning, Nori paused by her classroom’s door to scan through the scattering of kids inside, her brow furrowed in concentration. But she didn’t find whatever it was that she was looking for, and with her shoulders slumped dramatically, she shuffled to her seat.
“Bye Gramma.” She waved.
“See you later, kitten.”
On her way back home, Grandma noticed a boy, all of four-five, running towards the school. Wasn’t he the other new kid from Nori’s class?
“Careful, little one.” She slowed as she passed him by.
The boy paused to offer her a lopsided grin, displaying a large gap where two of his front teeth were supposed to be. Grandma watched, amused, as asingle glistening line of snot slowly flowed from his nose down towards his mouth. Right as it was about to touch his upper lip, the child snorted it back up. And the gooey liquid began its downward journey once again. All the while, a neatly folded napkin sat pinned to the front of his shirt, pristine, begging to be used. Grandma chuckled, resuming her commute home.
The boy stared at the lady’s bright purple bicycle while she pedaled out of view. As he turned towards the school again, something shiny caught his eye—a smooth white pebble nestled in the dirt at the side of the road.
So pretty.
He picked it up and stood staring at it for a full minute before sliding it into his shorts’ pocket. He’d give it to Nori at recess with the card he’d made for her. She was going to love it.
Setting his sight towards the school gate, he started running again. It was embarrassing having to stand in the tardy kids’ queue at assembly. He clenched his jaw and ran faster.
Faster.
A sharp pain exploded in his chest, making him gasp. He struggled to breathe while the world tilted at an odd angle and the road came up to meet his face. The last thing he saw before everything went dark, was the pebble as it escaped the confines of his pocket to go tumbling down the road and launch itself off the edge.
One
The Lab Rat
Present Day, November 2018:
National University of Science, New Delhi
Nori
Years of working with lab ratsacross stocks and strains hadn’t prepared Dr. Nori Arya for the day she might have to catch one of her own. A viable human specimen, not a rodent.
Nori reached for the cup of masala chai in front of her and brought it up to her nose for a long satisfying whiff of the crisp ginger and cardamom notes before letting the hot elixir travel down her throat. She set the cup back on the table to scan through the potential candidate’s paperwork again. Even though she’d gone over it so many times, the data might as well be seared into her brain.
“Damn Tanya, you owe me a subject,” she mumbled under her breath, absentmindedly tapping her pen against a corner of the dossier, leaving a smattering of inky dots there. “Mine,” she mouthed a moment later, underlining the name Vir Varma repeatedly till the ballpoint nib tore through the page to dig into the ones below.
