I found the piece of blue glass in my Lata aunty’s garden. Something weird happened to me the moment I spotted the glass piece and I quickly swooped down to pick it up (dirt and all!) and put it in the pocket of my jeans. Lata aunty’s daughter, my cousin Shweta, was with me at that time.

She saw me picking something up from the ground and was immediately all curious, “What are you picking up from the ground?”

I managed to divert her attention with great difficulty! Shweta is a lot younger than me. It was very much possible that she would hurt herself on that piece of glass and I would get all the scolding for it so I thought it was wise not to show it to her in the first place!

                On returning home I went into the bathroom and cleaned the piece of blue glass thoroughly. Unlike what I had thought the broken edges were not sharp at all! Rather they were turned and folded inside giving it a rather curled up look. Looking at it a little closer startled me! There was a reflection in the glass as if it was a mirror! A very beautiful young girl was looking at me from within the glass! A closer look baffled me totally! The girl was none other than me! But I did not really look like that! My hair is water straight but the girl in the glass had beautifully curled hair. She was wearing a dress made of pure silk and it shimmered in the blue light. She was holding a huge golden haired doll in her arms and leaning against the gigantic white pillars of a huge house!

                By then my mother was banging on the door of the bathroom, “What are you doing in there for so long? Sneha is here waiting for you!” I woke from my reverie with a start. I then quickly pocketed the blue glass, washed my face and hands and rushed out. Sneha is my best friend forever. We share lots of secrets with each other but somehow I did not feel like telling her anything about the blue glass mirror. For some reason I just wanted her to go home so that I could be alone with the girl in there.

                Sneha somehow understood my unwillingness to play and said, “What’s wrong with you today?”

                I did not say anything, just made a face! I felt really mad at Sneha. Why couldn’t I do something on my own if I wanted to? Why did she think that she was so utterly important that I had to dance at her beck and call all the time?

                Sneha gave me a strange look and went home!

                My mother was in the kitchen busy cooking with Madhuri Masi. I walked up to her and said, “Mummy, can you curl my hair using your curlers?”

                She stared at me in amazement! I had never before shown any interest in dressing up or looking good or doing my hair! But the girl in the blue glass had looked so beautiful with her hair all curled up!

                “OK, once I’m done with the cooking,” was all she said though.

                The next day I went to school with curly hair and surprised the girls in class immensely. Everyone kept asking, “What have you done to your hair!”

                I made a face and said, “I hate straight hair! It is so boring and has absolutely no style!”

                Mayuri sat next to me in class. She wore thick glasses and had trouble seeing the black board because her power had gone up.  She always looked into my notebook and copied from me. I usually let her have her way because I knew that her father was very busy and hadn’t had the time to take her to the eye specialist. Today however I felt very irritated. Why should I let her copy from my notebook every day? As soon as I thought of that I covered my notebook with my hands and did not allow her a single peek! I completed all the problems and submitted my notebook to the teacher. Mayuri just sat there and stared into space chewing the back of her pen all the while! The period was over and she had not completed a single problem when the teacher took her notebook away from her! As soon as the teacher left I jumped up and shouted, “Serves you right you cheat! You cheated from me every day and now you will get a zero for your class test!”

All the girls stared at me as if they had seen a ghost!

During lunch time I sat down with Sneha, Archisha and Kathika to eat like we did every day. I opened my lunch box and discovered that I had gotten chicken sandwiches for lunch! I shut my lunch box with a snap and declared, “I am sorry, but I cannot share my lunch with any of you today! You can do whatever you want with your lunches!”

The other three gave me the weird look that I was getting used to but did not utter a word. They shared their lunches with each other while I munched on my sandwiches in delight. I even wrinkled my nose at Kathika and said, “Ugh! You brought that horrible brinjal curry for lunch again! How awful!”

That evening we went to the shops to buy a present for Dipta whose birthday party we were supposed to attend. At the toy shop I found the exact same doll I had seen with the girl in the blue glass and pounced on it immediately. Just as my father was paying for Dipta’s present I placed the doll on the counter before the sales person and said, “I want this!”

My mother looked astonished, “What exactly is wrong with you? Curling your hair, wanting to buy dolls! Why you never played with dolls even when you were young and now you certainly are not that age!”

I however did not want to hear any kind of reasoning and sat down on the floor screaming at the top of my voice!

Mummy and daddy looked at me stupefied! My father whispered to my mother, “What is wrong with her today? She has never behaved in this fashion ever before!  Have you seen the price on that doll? There is absolutely no question of buying it!”

Finally my father gave me a tremendous scolding when I wouldn’t stop my howling! He had never scolded me like that before in my life! He then dragged me out of the shop and said, “I never want to see you behave like that again! You are not a baby anymore! You are old enough to understand!”

I returned home with a long face!

The next day I fought with everyone at school. That too had never happened before. I was quite the popular girl, everyone’s friend! Aghast at my behavior one of the girls even went so far as to say, “You have changed a lot! You are beginning to behave like Deeksha!”

That in itself was enough of an insult as Deeksha was the most unpopular girl in class, nasty, wicked, conniving and utterly selfish!

I embarrassed my parents deeply at Dipta’s birthday party by screaming for the biggest piece of cake. Dipta’s uncle’s daughter Sukirti was wearing a beautiful silken dress very much like the one worn by the girl in the blue glass. I felt a shaft of pure jealousy rip through me! I quietly picked up a glass of Pepsi and poured it all over Sukirti’s dress! She got furious and in turn smeared cake on mine! On the whole the event was a disaster, thanks to me!

What happened next was really weird! My mother gave my cake smeared dress to Rameshwar Chacha, our washerman, for washing. The blue glass was in the pocket of that dress as I had forgotten to take it out. I was beside myself with grief when I remembered. Mummy said, “Well, I will ask him about it when he brings the washed clothes back!”

The next day at Maths class Mayuri was staring into space again with a wistful look on her face. I felt sorry for her and said, “I have already copied the sums from the board. Why don’t you just copy them from my notebook?” and held the notebook right before her. She cast me look of amazement and then set to work!

At lunch I took out my lunch box and said to Sneha, Archisha and Kathika, “Hurray! I got pizza for lunch today! Who wants a piece?”

I totally forgot about my nasty behavior of the previous few days and shared my food with the three of them. Kathika had brought chocolates for us as well, so we had a good lunch!

At one point when they thought I was not listening they said, “Do you know what was wrong with her the past few days? It looks like she is back to her normal self now!”

“It was as if she was a different person altogether, like she was possessed by an evil creature!”

“The devil or an alien most likely!” Archisha said rolling her eyes and I felt a little strange.

Rameshwar chacha brought the dress back all washed and cleaned but the blue glass piece was missing. I moped around for a couple of days and then forgot all about it. My hair grew straight and I did not feel inclined to get it curled again. I felt stupid for throwing a tantrum over a doll though I had trouble remembering all of it. Everything was kind of fuzzy in my memory! The horror stories heard from my friends at school seemed unreal as well! Was I really possessed by the devil or an alien?

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The duckling picked up the piece of blue glass from the bank of the river with her beak. Her little duckling sister saw her and asked, “What do you have there?”

The older duckling pecked at the blue glass and said, “I am pretty and you are ugly! Have you ever seen yourself in the mirror? You are all scrawny with spindly rickety legs! Really and truly ugly!”

The smaller duckling hurt at the insult cried her heart out and ran to her mother for comfort! The older duckling, the finder of the piece of blue glass was still pecking at it all enchanted!