The Wonder Twins

Her arm muscles are quivering with agony. She is gasping for breath so loudly, she becomes scared someone will hear. She's wearing black, head scarf covering her hair, trying to climb over the boarding school fence at five minutes to midnight.

From experience, the guards that patrol the grounds at night are fairly indifferent to the background sounds of woods and mountains. But if she's caught, they will take her straight to the Principal, a formidable Jesuit missionary who will definitely cane her again. Her backside still throbs with the echoes of last week's episode.

Suddenly, she's over, and momentum swings her to the other side and she thuds painfully on her side. She's up, a quick careful check for her precious money and water bottle, and then runs to the corner of the road where the last bus will stop at midnight and take her to the sweet freedom of Islamabad, where she will catch another bus to her hometown Lahore.

Sweat runs down her back, even though its a cold night. The bus is coming up the street, and she's made it to the stop, but is still terrified someone from the school gate will look out and spot her. Finally, the bus pulls up with a squeal of rusty brakes, and she jumps in. She's the only passenger at this stop. 

The driver gives her a look. An avuncular fellow, who clearly knows she's from the school and on an illicit mission. She had planned to slip him fifty rupees, but given her nerves and his look, she gives him the full two hundred and whispers "chai paani kay liyay" (for some tea or water) a universal declaration of the polite intention to give a bribe.

  

He looks at her, then the red currency notes, then his eyes flick back to the passengers that are either half asleep or indifferently watching. The notes disappear down his shalwar and he nods her to the back of bus.