Reading about school and attending one are two very, very different matters

The lines in London’s Heathrow airport are crawling.

Mrs. Chaimowitz turns and gives me a sympathetic smile. I shrug in return. We’ve been traveling forever anyway, what’s an extra hour here or there?

“It’s short compared to the plane ride, but I’m sure you just want to get to your grandparents’ house already and have a good night’s sleep,” Mrs. Chaimowitz says. Okay, creepy, can she actually read my mind? Or is there something about traveling across the world with people that turns strangers into — well, maybe not friends, but at least allies of some kind?

Mrs. C. is still looking at me, an expectant half-smile on her face. Oh, gosh, say something, Ashira.

I’m too tired for this small-talk thing. We’ve done far too much of it already, and it’s honestly just getting awkward to be tagging along with a middle-aged couple who I barely know. My parents didn’t want me to fly alone, and I understand that. It was nice of the Chaimowitzes to agree to look out for me. But I’m just not in the mood of talking.

“I’m okay, I slept on the flight,” I offer. She knows that, for goodness sake, but it works.

“Nothing like a real bed,” Mrs. C. volleys back, and I half-shrug, half-smile. She turns back to her husband, and I’m left to stifle another enormous yawn. It’s been — what, almost 20 hours since we left home? First to the airport in Bombay, then check-in, security, duty-free… then the 10-hour flight… and finally, finally, the last stop: Heathrow.

It’s not like I’ve been chilling out all summer, either. Packing up my entire room — my entire life, it felt like — was no small job. And then the sleepless nights, staring at the wood-paneled bedroom ceiling with its elaborate Indian-style molding, and simply wondering….

What’s it going to be like, school? Like, okay, I’ve read books, magazines, whatever we managed to bring back after trips to visit family in the States or England. But reading about school and attending one are two very, very different matters.