School Lunch
by Pooja Makhijani

Mom says she is being "sensible" about what I eat and she likes to pack "sensible" lunches. Plastic sandwich bags filled with blood-red pomegranate seeds. Fresh raisin bread wrapped in foil. Homemade vegetable biryani made with brown rice and lima beans. Yellow pressed rice with potatoes and onions. A silver thermos full of warm tamarind-infused lentil soup. Blue and white Tupperware containers that can be reused. Lunch sacks that have to be brought home every day. Silverware.

I don't want her lunches. I want to touch a cold, red Coca-Cola can that will hiss when I open it. I want to pull out a yellow Lunchables box so I can assemble bite-size sandwiches with Ritz crackers and smoked turkey. I want to smell tuna salad with mayonnaise and pickles. I want bologna on white bread, Capri Sun Fruit Punch and Cool Ranch Doritos in a brown paper bag. I want plastic forks that I can throw away when I am done eating. But I am too scared to ask her. I know she will say, "No."

"Why don't you invite Chrissy over this Friday after school?" Mom ladles a spoonful of sweetened, homemade yogurt into a white ceramic bowl. "You've already been to her house twice." I hoist myself onto the high chairs at my kitchen table and pull my breakfast towards me. I tear the hot masala roti into eight irregular pieces and dip the largest one into the cold yogurt.

"I will, I will." I rub my fingers on the paper towel in my lap. The last time I went to Chrissy house, Mrs. Pizarro gave us mini hotdogs wrapped in pastry topped with a squirt of mustard and tall glasses of Hawaiian Punch as an after school snack. I couldn't imagine her coming to our house munching on cauliflower and broccoli florets and gulping down chilled milk. I don't want to think about all the questions she will ask: when she sees the bronze Ganesh idol on the wooden stool near the sofa, she will inquire, What is that elephant-headed statue in your living room? When she sniffs the odor of spices that permeates into the bedrooms, she will question, What's the smell? And when she accidentally touches my mother's henna colored sari, she will query, What's your mom wearing?

"I will." I say between bites so Mom won't ask me again. "Just not this week."

She glances at the clock on the oven. "Hurry up with your food, beta. Nishaat Aunty will be here any second." She grabs the rest of the roti, dunks it into the yogurt and shovels it into my mouth. Thick globs of yogurt slide in rivulets down her palms and she licks it off once I am done eating. She wipes her hands on her red gingham apron and hands me bulging brown paper bag. "Your lunch," she says.

"What did you pack today?" I ask as I shove the bag into my purple canvas backpack alongside my spelling and math textbooks.

"Aloo tikis. Leftover from last night."

"Oh." I part the curtains of the kitchen window and look for Nishaat Aunti's midnight blue station wagon. "Chrissy brought Coke with her to school yesterday." I look into her eyes, hoping she will understand.

"Coca Cola! During school?" she says. "Of course, that's what those American parents do. That's why their children are so hyper and don't concentrate on their studies." I am not allowed to drink soda, except on Saturdays when Mom makes fried fish. Recently, I've been drinking lots of apple juice because she is worried that there is too much acidity in orange juice.

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