The One Way Ticket

Aahana Mallick woke early on the morning of the class trip to Baroda Museum. After eating a larger than normal breakfast, she got dressed quickly. She'd been looking forward to this day for weeks, and she didn't want to miss the school bus. As she headed down the stairs toward the front door, she swung her backpack over her shoulders. Her mother was waiting for her at the door.

"Here's some money," Suzanne Mallick said handing her Two Hundred Rupees. "In case you see something at one of the gift shops."

Aahana Mallick thanked her mother, took the money and placed it in the zippered pocket of her backpack where she'd put the change from her piggy bank, two months of allowance and six weeks of babysitting money she'd managed to save.

For once, the bus to Ahmedabad High School was full since few students wanted to cut class or stay home sick on the day of a class trip. Aahana found a seat next to Rahul, a tall, lanky nerd with a bad case of acne. Neither one spoke to the other on the ride. Rahul was far too shy to talk to girls, and Aahana didn't want any of her friends seeing her associating with such a geek.

When the bus came to a stop in the school parking lot, Aahana was the first one out of her seat. Unlike most days, she didn't loiter in the hallway outside her locker or waste time in the girls' room checking her hair and makeup. Instead, she headed directly to her classroom.

Mr. Jadhav, her class teacher, had forsaken his suit and tie for a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, taking full advantage of the informal dress code during class trips.

"All right, listen up, everybody," he called. "Mrs. Shah and Mrs. Patel have volunteered to act as chaperones today. I'm going to split you into three groups. Mrs. Shah will supervise one group, Mrs. Patel another and I'll watch the rest of you."

Mr. Jadhav then enumerated in detail the rules of behavior that he expected his students to follow both on the bus and while touring the sights in Baroda.

"And remember," he concluded, as the students lined up in single file to board the chartered buses that would transport them, “Stay together. Don't wander off. I don't want to leave any of you behind."

* * *

The bus pulled up to the curb near the Baroda Museum, and the students got off. Aahana joined the students that were assigned to Mrs. Patel’s group. Mr. Jadhav took a quick head count, and once he confirmed that everyone was present; he led the three groups across the common to the hall.

The morning passed slowly for Aahana. She had no real interest in the pictures hung on the walls, though The Egyptian mummy and skeleton of a blue whale did attract her. But other than that she didn’t care much about the famous Akota bronzes dating the 5th Century AD, the collection of Mughal miniatures, the full-fledged gallery of Tibetan Art or oils by several European masters. It was nearly two o'clock when Mr. Jadhav suggested that they take a break from sightseeing and get some lunch. Aahana smiled when the bus driver pulled into a McDonald's parking lot. The fast food restaurant was packed, which was to be expected given the time of day.

"We'll go in and buy our food," Mr. Jadhav instructed, "and come back and eat it on the bus."

Once inside McDonald's, Mrs. Patel’s herded her group to the shortest order line. Aahana waited until the first of her classmates stepped up to the counter. Now was her window of opportunity.

"Mrs. Patel," she cried. "I have to go to the bathroom."

The chaperone looked at the crowded dining area and reluctantly gave her permission. "Make it quick, dear."

Aahana headed toward the ladies' room in the back of the restaurant. She turned to see if Mrs. Patel was watching her. Thankfully, the chaperone was looking the other way, enabling Aahana to duck out the side door undetected.

Free at last! Aahana reached into her backpack and took out the map of Baroda she'd printed from the Internet. After finding her bearings, she briskly walked--she did not want to call attention to herself by running--toward Baroda Railway Station. Like McDonald's, the transportation center was bustling with activity. Faking an attitude of casualness, the excited teenager walked to the ticket window.

"I'd like a one-way ticket to Pune, please."

She was afraid the agent would question her or demand to see some identification, but he simply took the fare and printed out the ticket.

"The train leaves at 3:50," he announced before calling for the next person in line to step forward.

Since the train was not due to leave for around an hour, the platform was empty. As Aahana waited, she looked at the ticket in her hand and wondered what Pune was like. Making the decision to run away from home had been easy. Deciding where to run had been more difficult. Large cities intimidated her, so Surat, Rajkot and even staying here at Baroda were out of the question. On the other hand, strangers would more likely be spotted in small towns. Pune was in a complete different state. Her mother could never imagine that she could run to a different state. With a population of roughly 25 lakh, was small enough not to be daunting and yet large enough that she could get lost in the crowd.

As she continued to wait for the train to freedom, Aahana wondered what was happening at McDonald's. Mrs. Patel and Mr. Jadhav must have noticed her absence by now. They had probably looked for her briefly before phoning the police. How long will it be before someone contacted Suzanne Mallick? The image of her mother staring in disbelief at the news, her shoulders suddenly slumping as she broke down in tears upset Aahana. She didn't want to cause her mother too much pain.

"Stop it!" she told herself as the first hint of regret crept into her thoughts. "I'm running away, and that's that! I've already made up my mind."

By three thirty a handful of people had joined Aahana on the platform, and by quarter after there were several more. No one took notice of the young girl traveling by herself. Apparently, no one guessed she was running away. All that might change soon, Aahana mused. Within the next few days her picture would most likely be in the local newspapers under the headline GIRL MISSING IN BARODA or something to that affect. Perhaps she might even make that night's nine o'clock news. Hopefully, by that time, she would be safely out of Gujarat.

When Aahana saw the train arrive at the station, she got ready to board the train. She looked at her watch. It was 3:45. Aahana took a seat in the back, hoping to keep out of the general vision. She was glad when a handsome young man sat in the seat across the aisle. People would be less likely to notice her if there were other people around.

Only after the train left the station and was heading away from the station in a fast and swift motion did Aahana remove her backpack, push her seat back and relax.

* * *

The choo of the train's engine lulled Aahana to sleep. When she woke several hours later, the train was nearing the Valsad. Soon it would be crossing the border into Maharastra. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten since breakfast. She opened her backpack and took out a snicker bar. It was gone in a few bites, and she wished she had brought another one.

"Hungry?"

The voice startled Aahana. It belonged to the man sitting across the aisle.

"A little," she replied.

Her mother had always warned her never to talk to strangers, but now that she was on her own, things were different. With no money, no place to live and no food, she would have to rely on the kindness of strangers.

"The train will probably stop at the next station in a little while. You can get something to eat there."

"Oh, I'm not that hungry," she lied.

The stranger smiled. "Don't have enough money?"

Aahana lowered her eyes and shook her head.

"Do you have far to travel?"

"I'm going to Mumbai." It was all the information she was willing to give.

"It looks like we'll be travel companions for some time. My name is Tom, by the way."

"Nice to meet you. My name is Aahana."

"Are you going to visit relatives in Mumbai?" he asked.

"Y-yes," the young girl lied unconvincingly. "My grandparents live there."

Tom raised his eyebrows, as though he knew she wasn't being honest with him. "Do you plan on staying there long?"

"A few weeks."

"You travel light," he said, looking pointedly at her backpack.

Aahana couldn't think of a plausible story to explain her lack of luggage, so she remained silent.

"I know it's none of my business, but you give every appearance of someone who's running away from home."

The girl laughed nervously. "Where did you get that silly idea?"

"One, all you have with you is a backpack," Tom replied. "Two, you keep looking around as though you're afraid someone will find you. Three...."

"That's enough already. I'm a lousy liar. I am running away, all right?"

"I already surmised that."

"And what are you going to do, notify the police?"

Tom shook his head. "No need to bring in the authorities. Even if I did 'turn you in,' so to speak, you'd probably run away again first chance you got."

"You really won't tell anyone?"

"I promise."

"Cross your heart and hope to die?"

Tom lapsed into silence, his eyes turned toward the window, away from Aahana.

* * *

Shortly after 8:00 p.m. the train stopped at Vapi where Aahana got out, stretched her legs and washed her hands and face in the ladies' room. When she got back on the train, she saw that Tom had bought her a hamburger, fries and a Coke. Her eyes brightened and she thanked him for his kindness and generosity.

"You can't expect to get to Mumbai on an empty stomach," he laughed.

By midnight more than half the passengers had turned off their reading lamps and were resting their eyes. A few lucky ones had even managed to fall asleep. Aahana was not one of them.

"What's the matter? Can't sleep?" Tom asked, when he saw the teenager restlessly fidgeting in her seat.

"I guess I'm too excited."

"I can well imagine. It's not every day one runs away from home."

"What about you?"

"I can't sleep either. Why don't we talk until one of us gets tired?"

"What do you want to talk about?" Aahana asked.

"For starters, why don't you tell me why you're running away?"

It was a reasonable question, and suddenly the answer seemed awfully childish. "My mother treats me like a baby," the girl confided. "She never lets me go anywhere or do anything. I never have any fun."

Tom pretended to be shocked. "Never? No going to the movies or to the mall? No amusement parks? No parties at your friends' houses?"

Aahana blushed with embarrassment and admitted, "Oh, she lets me do those things."

"Then what is it she won't let you do?"

"There's this boy I like. His name is Harsh. He wanted to take me sailing out to Arabian Sea on his brother's sailboat."

"And your mother said no?"

"That's right. She said since there was no adult supervision, I couldn't go."

Aahana waited for Tom's response. She was sure, as an adult, he would side with her mother.

"I don't blame you then," he said, taking her by surprise. "I'd run away too. Your mother seems completely unreasonable. After all, you're what? sixteen? seventeen?"

"Fifteen and a half. I'll be sixteen in November."

"That's plenty old enough to make your own decisions concerning men."

Aahana giggled. She had never thought of Harsh as a man more of a boy but definitely not a man.

"And I'm sure you're an excellent swimmer."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

Now it was Tom's turn to laugh. "No one in his right mind would sail to Arabians if he didn't know how to swim. I'm sure if the boat were to capsize you'd have no trouble making it to land."

Aahana shifted uneasily in her seat. The truth was she couldn't swim. In fact, she hated going into the ocean, having the waves knock her about and tasting the salty water in her mouth.

"Can we talk about something else?" she asked petulantly.

"Sure."

In the darkness of night, Aahana couldn't see the smile on Tom's face.

* * *

Whether it was the sun in her eyes, the gnawing hunger in her stomach or the uncomfortable position in which she'd been sleeping that woke her, Aahana wasn't certain, but she was wide awake at 6:00 a.m., an occurrence that would have surprised the hell out of her mother.

"Good morning," Tom cheerfully greeted her. "Sleep well?"

"Not very," the girl replied as she felt another hunger pain stab her.

"Me either," he confessed. "There's nothing like my own bed. I don't sleep well anywhere else. By the way, where do you plan on sleeping when you get to Mumbai?"

Aahana shrugged. "I hadn't given the matter much thought. I'm sure I'll find a place."

"I guess you didn't think about finding a job. You know, most places won't hire anyone under sixteen. And even if you were sixteen, you'd need working papers--Child Labor Laws, you know."

"I can baby-sit. You don't need to be sixteen for that. I used to baby-sit all the time back in Ahmedabad."

"That's a fine idea. I never thought of that. I'll bet you have excellent references."

Aahana shook her head. "I didn't know I'd need them, but I'm sure I'll find something anyway," she insisted in a voice that clearly lacked confidence.

"I'm sure you will," Tom agreed. "You're a very resourceful young woman. You've gotten this far, haven't you? Here you are on a train hundreds of miles from your family and your home. It takes a special kind of person to leave behind those you love without so much as a goodbye."

Aahana turned toward the window, so Tom wouldn't see the tears in her eyes. She was gone for good, never to return to Ahmedabad, never to see her mother or Harsh again. She had acted rashly, without much thought about her long-range future.

"Maybe you never really thought you'd get to Mumbai," Tom gently suggested. "Maybe you were secretly hoping that someone would stop you and send you back home."

Aahana looked at him, her cheeks wet with tears. "I wish I'd never run away," she sobbed.

"Don't cry. Here," he said, taking a tissue from his pocket and wiping her face. "It's not too late to change your mind."

"Yes, it is. My mother will be furious. She'll ground me until I'm eighteen."

"Maybe not that long," Tom laughed. "In fact, she might be so happy to see you again that she'll forego your punishment."

"You really think so?" Aahana asked hopefully.

Tom nodded.

"Oh, but I can't go back. I bought a one-way ticket, and I don't have any more money."

"I'm sure we can work something out. After all, you didn't get to your final destination, did you?"

When the train stopped at the next station, Tom exchanged Aahana's one-way ticket to Pune for a return ticket to Ahmedabad.

"There's even some money left over for you to get some lunch," he said, handing Aahana the change.

"I don't know how to thank you," she cried.

"Just get back home safely, and stay put when you get there."

Tom walked her toward the platform where the passengers bound for Ahmedabad were already boarding the train. Aahana turned and thanked him one last time. Then she climbed up the stairs and headed to the window from where, she saw Tom wave and walk away.

Suddenly, she was very tired. She laid her head on her backpack, curled her legs beneath her and fell asleep.

* * *

Suzanne buried her face in her hands and cried. Her daughter, her little girl, her baby, was gone.

"Oh, Aahana," she sobbed. The pain of loss was agonizing. "I don't know how I'll get through this."

She looked down at Aahana's body lying on the hospital bed.

"Why didn't you listen to me? I told you not to go out in that boat. You didn't even know how to swim."

Suzanne grabbed her daughter's limp hand and kissed the small, cold fingers. Only fifteen years earlier she had given birth to Aahana in that same hospital. Now, her daughter was dead, drowned in a boating accident.

"Why?" she cried. "Dear God, why?"

The girl's hand moved in hers.

"That can't be. It must be my imagination."

But the fingers moved again as Aahana squeezed her mother's hand. When Suzanne looked at her daughter's face and saw the eyes flutter open, her heart leapt with joy.

* * *

Aahana didn't remember the accident, didn't even remember going out on the boat.

"You cut school on Friday and snuck out with that boy, Harsh," her mother explained. "The two of you took out his brother's sailboat. The boat capsized, and you nearly drowned."

"That's impossible," Aahana argued. "I went on my class trip to Baroda. I slipped away from Mrs. Patel and walked to Railway Station where I boarded a train to Pune."

"Pune? You must have had some dream!"

"No. It really happened."

It was like the final scene in The Wizard of Oz in which Dorothy was swearing she'd been to the Emerald City while all the time she'd been lying unconscious on her bed.

"It couldn't have, honey. A fisherman pulled you out of the sea, and the ambulance brought you here. You were...." Suzanne's voice caught in her throat. "You weren't breathing."

"Well, I'm breathing now."

Suzanne nodded, smiling through her tears. "Yes, you are."

* * *

Aahana was kept in the hospital overnight for observation. Her mother stayed by her side, sleeping in a chair. The nurse had given the teenager something to help her sleep, but it wasn't working.

She turned on the light above the bed and found a copy of The Times Of India the nurse had left for Suzanne to read. Aahana opened it to the local section. The headline read OFFICER DIES IN BANK HOLD-UP. An involuntary cry escaped her throat.

Suzanne woke immediately. "What's wrong?"

Her daughter handed her the newspaper. "This is the man who was on the train with me."

Suzanne looked down and saw a photograph of a handsome young police officer. Beneath the photograph was a caption that identified the slain man was Officer Thomas J. D’Souza.

"The article says he was killed two days ago," Suzanne said, looking up from her newspaper.

"That means he was already dead when I met him," Aahana exclaimed in awe.

"You don't know what you're saying."

"Yes, I do. Don't you see, Mom? Everyone on that train must have been dead too. They all had one-way tickets, even me. You said yourself I wasn't breathing."

"But you weren't--you weren't dead!"

"My heart stopped, and I wasn't breathing. That spells dead to me."

"Let's not talk about this," Suzanne urged, her eyes once again filled with tears.

"I had a one-way ticket, not to Pune but to the hereafter. Only I didn't stay on the train. Tom talked me into coming back home. He exchanged my ticket and put me on a train heading back to Ahmedabad."

"Stop it!" Suzanne screamed. "I don't want to hear any more of this nonsense."

Obediently, Aahana dropped the subject. She sensed her mother's fear and had no desire to upset her any more than she already had.

"I'm sorry, Mom. You were right. I shouldn't have gone out with Harsh on his brother's boat. It won't happen again."

Suzanne sighed, her spirits brightening. While all The Twilight Zone talk frightened her, she could handle Aahana cutting school to go sailing with a boy.

"You're darn right it won't. You're lucky I don't ground you until you're eighteen." Her eyes softened. Just this once she would throw discipline to the wind. "I'm just glad you're all right."

Aahana kissed her mother goodnight and then closed her eyes. But before she drifted off in a deep, dreamless slumber, she said a silent prayer for the soul of Officer Tom D’Souza.