* Glossary *

Nu - mom
Ishor - God

One
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A little courage. A little courage.

Sending a mental praying to God for strength and courage, Raven tiptoed towards the pile of backpacks; a neat, red letter shaking in her hand. With every single step she got closer to the brownish-red couch where Elliot's gang had dumped their backpacks, she felt her temperature rise. Raven thought with the way her body was heating up now, she was sure to get fever by evening.

"You can do it, Raves!" her best friend, Darrin Hongsha, flashed an encouraging smile from the kitchen door, speaking in English.

Raven's alert eyes darted up the stairs towards Elliot's room, listening to make sure the boys were still inside, busy doing their things, whatever that may be. When she saw the door shut and heard them still being noisy up there, she nodded to herself.

Okay. Great. They aren't leaving yet.

With one more step forward, she looked back at Darrin again, seeking support and motivation, to convince and make herself believe that she wasn't doing something stupid. Darrin gave her a confident thumbs-up. Before taking decision to finally get into action, they had calculated the probabilities for weeks. And this morning, they were able to round up their research and come to the conclusion that Raven held 'a pretty good chance'.

One - Nicholas cared about her as much as her brother, Elliot, did. That must mean something, right? He always treated her relatively extra nice compared to all the nice treatments she got from the rest of her brother's friends, who would usually forget she existed. Simply put, Nicholas was very very nice to her.

Two - Nicholas had no girlfriend as far as they knew. He was always at their house with his group.

Three - Well, she was still thinking about this one.

Raven tiptoed forward, eyes glued on a black Adidas backpack that had a soccer ball key-chain dangling from the zip. Once she grabbed it, she felt thousand tons of anxiety settle on her shoulders, lungs, heart, arms as if gravity had suddenly intensified on her spot. It was becoming impossible for her to move a muscle and her breath suddenly stopped mid-way in her throat. For a second or two, she stood like a stone in the middle of the room, staring down at the backpack she was holding in her hand. And with the way the anxiety was choking her up now, Raven was sure she would die any second.

She had finally taken hold of Nicholas' backpack but, as reality quickly set in, all courage she had accumulated dissipated in the matter of seconds and all that week's plotting and planning and tarot readings suddenly seemed to be of no help.

Nonononono. I can't do this.

Raven dropped the backpack and whirled back towards Darrin.

"What are you doing?! This is your last chance!" Darrin panicked, whispering, eyes round and alarmed at the onset of a failed mission.

At the sight of Darrin's panicky expression and the fact that this could truly be her last chance, Raven immediately spun back on her heels, took hold of the soccer key-chain, zipped open Nicholas' backpack with a newfound courage and threw the letter inside it. Then, quickly zipping up the pouch, she came rushing back to Darrin with her hands pressed against her wildly thumping heart. Darrin received her in her arms with a hearty laugh.

Elliot and his gang had graduated college a few weeks ago in June. Soon they'd be moving away to the big cities. Elliot, in the absence of a specific aim or goal, had decided to pursue master's degree. While Nicholas, he had cracked the Combined Defense Services (CDS) exam for Indian Military. Two weeks ago, he'd returned from Allahabad after all the hilarious tests and interviews he had to go through.

Hilarious it was. Yes. Raven had overheard Nicholas talking with her parents about how the interview had lasted for five-freaking-days.

Five-freaking-days?! Now if that isn't absurd.

Nothing had come across as that silly to Raven.

What exactly were they asking him for five-freaking-days?

Raven almost lost her shit trying to hold back her laughter in the kitchen as she poured herself a glass of mango juice. But she further overheard that the five-days-interview had required him to do all sorts of things like giving lectures, group discussion, describing pictures, describing himself, blah blah blah. He even went through numerous tests like situation reaction, apperception test, military formation, psychology as well and what not.

What's the point? Really? Shouldn't he only be shooting machine guns?

Now, Raven had not a knack of an idea about the Army. Neither did she care, to be honest. The important thing for her was that the guys were moving away. All she wanted was for Nicholas to know how she felt about him before he leave. There was no certainty when they would even meet again. It could be years and years later.

Young and silly, Raven of thirteen, thought this was the best time.

But then again, when she imagined Nicholas reading the letter, she felt her skin prick with embarrassment and she cringed.

What would Nick think of me?

"Darcy, I think I should just take it back," she said, frowning, addressing Darrin with the name her family and closest friends call her with.

Raven had began tracing back towards the couch when the door from Elliot's room flew open and the four of them, all young men, filed out, chattering like a bunch of wild monkeys and laughing - Elliot, Nicholas, Koshang and Maxwell, all wearing t-shirts and burmuda shorts.

Raven spun on her heels and raced back to Darrin at once. She then stood beside her as though there was nothing going on. Absolutely nothing at all.

"Raves, when Nu (mom) and Sarah gets back, tell them I'm over at Nick's place," Elliot said as he came down the stairs just behind the boys, tying his man-bun.

The boys had returned from a district football tournament about an hour ago as the winning team. Elliot and his gang had stopped by their house as usual. It was like a ritual for the boys to stop over here every day.

"Okay." She nodded and watched Nicholas descend the stairs right in front of her brother.

Tall as a tower he was, almost blocking out her brother, Elliot, from her entire view. For the Tribal people in the North-East Region of India, and especially for the small tribal community such as Khoibu, also known as Uipo, 5.10 feet was no joke. He was literally a Goliath. And he was only twenty then.

Their eyes eventually met, and he smiled at her, his dark brown eyes gleaming kindly. She instantly returned with a cheeky smile of her own. All the people she had ever known had brown eyes, but she thought her Nick's was different; more beautiful, more consuming.

When he reached her, he pinched her cheek and ruffled her shoulder-length raven black hair, "Leaving, Little Dumpling. Bye."

"Bye," she chipped with a goofy grin while adjusting her slightly curly fringes.

"Bye, Darcy."

"Bye, Nick."

The boys passed them and as Darrin and Raven watched them grab their backpacks, Raven pinched Darrin's arm in secret as she struggled to hold back her squeals and whimpers. Darrin, despite the sting, tried her best to bite down on her lip as they stood there at attention like there was absolutely nothing going on. Absolutely nothing!

Raven could feel her heart hammering wildly inside her, nearly breaking free from her rib cage. She could feel the beatings vibrate in her stomach like a stereo box.

Once the door closed behind them, Raven sank to the floor melting to a puddle, "Oh my Lord! He's going to find out!"

Darrin rubbed her arm and joined Raven on the floor. "I don't know about the rest but that hurt. Ow!"

"If Elliot finds out about this, he'll scold me for sure. Eshor. Why did I even do that?!"

"I don't think he will."

"He will. Trust me. And he just left with Nick. What if they read the letter together?! Ishor! I'm dead for sure. I shouldn't have done that!!" Raven shrieked and slapped her palms on her face..

Darrin froze in her spot as she realized that Raven could be right. Yet, she tried to ease her worry, sighing with a sorry smile, "Oh, Raves. I'm sure Elliot won't find out."

Palms on her face, Raven shook her head from side to side and mumbled into her hands, "Darcy, you must give a speech on my funeral. A good one. Praise me well."

"Don't be silly," Darrin laughed.

Raven looked up all of a sudden, grabbed Darrin's left hand and pulled her up. "Let's go up to my room."

"For what?" Darrin asked, following Raven up the stairs.

"We need to pray to God for good results."

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