I, Sasha Johnson, has probably one of the most worse days of my life was when I found out we were going to take a trip to India this summer. I don’t really like or know anything about India so I had nothing to be excited about unlike my mom who absolutely loved it the idea of going back home,  India is NOT my home. My home is here in the small town of Norfolk, Nebraska. We were leaving in a week to some random country and I had to get a bunch of shots for that. So basically, my life sucks right now.  Anyway If you haven’t been paying attention my name is Sasha, Sasha Johnson. I have the average american teenager life. My mom is a real estate agent so If you move to Nebraska and need to a house, she’s your girl! My dad is an archeologist and travels all around the world on trips trying to dig up old bones from extinct animals. My mom was born and raised until the age of 11 in India until her dad got a job and she got to move to Queens, New York. My dad was born and raised entirely in Ontario, Canada until he had to New York for this huge conference and that’s exactly when they met. I’ve heard this story a hundred times but now my mom only says it with pure anger ever since the divorce in February. Now me, I’m 14 years old and that’s about it. Let’s just say I’m not the biggest social butterfly but I have enough friends and honestly, I’d rather chill here with all of them during summer than going  to another corner of the world that would be basically the inside of a tanning bed that had been left on for months with no breaks. After a week, my mom and I (my dad obviously wasn’t there because his perfectly normal, full american family was who he was with and he wouldn’t be willing to come on a family vacation this soon after the divorce but my mom won custody over me so I basically had to be here against my will) were stepping into the airport with all of our luggage. We were sitting in our terminal waiting for boarding announcements. The whole time I sat there thinking how I would talk to these relatives I have never seen before in my entire life. Well I could say, “Hi random stranger umm… so we are apparently related and uhhh…,” and then I realized they probably didn’t really know english so I was basically doomed because I had no clue what language they even spoke. Maybe it was hindi? I hate my life right now.

We had finally landed at Chennai Airport and from there we took a road trip to Kasi, the holy city of India. A bunch of people I don’t know started to hug me and it felt kind of weird. We were leaving for the road trip really soon which didn’t work because jet lag was not helping me. After being introduced to about like 18 cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and everything in between that I kept forgetting the name of, we finally got into the bus that we would travel for about 31 hours of sitting between those people. My mom would share all of my baby stories and everything about me because I was kind of a spoiled only child. They would all talk in what I still think is hindi and I felt like a mutant that landed on the wrong planet. It felt like there was this barrier like in a museum with the people and the the display model, in which case was me. I was a total loner. It felt like they were just mocking me because we were too different and I was already feeling homesick especially being here. After, what felt like eternity, we were in a city called Kasi which is in the state Uttar Pradesh.  The only thing that made me through the trip was my phone, earphones, laptop, and charger. Nobody bothered talking to me except for saying hi here and there. When we were there my mom and I still had crazy jet lag. We took an 19 hour nap and we were finally ready to do something fun. We were here so I could get an idea about India’s culture so I could get connected to one side of me. 

I thought this could actually be kinda fun. I mean I was on vacation and it is like always beach season here because of the heat so maybe we could hit the beach or something.

Boy, was I wrong about everything I just said in that last part. India is not a place where you can just tan and chill. It was hot and made you feel sticky and gross. The air is so thick and it’s so hard to breathe with all of the pollution, trash, and cow feces (which by they way wander literally anywhere. Don’t they have farms for those cows? Like gosh.) We decided to go do something normal which was go on a boat ride to the other side to the Kasi river and the boat was gross too, at least to me because everyone else didn’t even mind the smell. I saw something in the distance as “What Do You Mean?” by Justin Bieber was playing through my earphones and there was a lumpy looking figure on the water but I figure it might have been a dead fish the surfaced to the top. My so called relatives started yelling something in hindi again so I ignored it as always because I was tired of guessing what in the world they could possibly be saying. As we got closer to the dead fish looking lump it got way to big to be a fish and started to see things like human arms, legs and eventually his face! It was a 40 something old man who had a depressed look on his face. I couldn’t look at his pale body with a bullet in where his heart should be. I turned away and saw the other sides shore and there were these two women (one younger and another a lot older) and they were crying as they were getting arrested. They were pulled into the police car and probably going to get arrested afterward.

“What’s going on? Someone tell us we need to know,” my mom said, but then again she said it in hindi so at least that’s what I think she said.

They mumbled something else in hindi for a couple more minutes and then my mom came towards me to translate I guess.

“Gosh... this is crazy Sasha,” my parents said with a shocked look on her face.

“What? What happened? Tell me,” I said confused and curious to know more. I had to know more.

“There was this body that we saw, and apparently this man killed the prime minister and got executed. Those two over there who are getting arrested because it is illegal to put
someone’s bodies in the Kasi River.”

“Well Duh! Why would anyone in the right mind put a body of the dead murderer who killed the prime minister into  a holy, religious, river,” I said in an annoying tone.

“Back in the day, putting a body in this river would be the straight highway to heaven disregarding whatever sin you might have done in the past, even if it was killing the most important man in the country.”

So many emotions were racing in my mind and I was so confused but I had to know more on the situation. I was still lost as I went up to the police officer and even though he didn’t really speak proper english, I kinda figured out what was going on as he told me. I decided that needs more investigating and by me.

The next day, I went to the police station at the crack of dawn before anybody in my so called “family” woke up and I snuck into the police station.

“What are you doing here,” a man with a big mustache and beard said in his indian accent with his hand gripping his holster where his gun was.

“Who are you,” I said pretty calmly for some idiotic reason.

“I work the night shift here until the other people come at around 6 in the morning,” he said still with his hand still gripping his holster.

“I’m here to see these two people I know, two women to be more exact, and they have been arrested and brought here,” I tried to explain now getting kind of nervous.
“So what about it little girl, are you going to have enough money to bail the two of them out,” he said snickering, now slapping his knee a little instead of holding on to his holster, still in his deep, sort of now annoying Indian accent.

“No, of course I don’t have the money for that. I just want to see them, that’s all, can’t you even do that for their relative,” I said blatantly lying and trying to sound innocent which was killing me on the inside.

“FINE, but you better make it quick , or else,” he said trying to scare me but I honestly couldn’t even flinch but I could flinch at that thick accent though.

As I started to walk in it felt like I was getting dizzy looking at all of these prisoners, who looked like they haven’t eaten in days which was probably actually true sadly. The final cell was the two ladies who looked confused as they were being pulled out and I was worried if that might have blown my cover. They sat down and at the booth with me on the other end.

“Who are you, child,” the elder women said or at least what I think she said but it was in Hindi so I absolutely have no clue.

“Ummm, I don’t know hindi, so ummm, do you know any english?” I tried to say slowly and carefully so they could maybe understand me and I also added hand signals.
“Yes, yes, I know english,”the women in her about 40’s said.

“Great, so I have one important question. Do you have any connection with the guy who killed the prime minister, uhh, Jack was his name, right?

“Yes, he was my husband and her son-in-law,”she said pointing at the elder lady, “He was so amazing. He was born and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and he was totally american, like you which is also the reason that he didn’t have an Indian name. We met when he came on a trip to India and he went to this museum and I was the tour guide and we just were perfect for each other and got married later.”

“Uckk, sounds like my parent’s story,” I said bitterly, “Sorry, continue your story,” and now I was a bit embarrassed that I said that out loud and disrespectfully.

“As I was saying before, I learned english for him and he were living such a happy life, and that’s when everything started going downhill,” she said as her voice dropped and got sad again just like when she came in.

“We lived in this neighborhood and we had this new neighbor move in and he seemed pretty nice to us so we decided to go introduce ourselves,” she started with a slightly annoyed tone of voice.

“He only asked for one thing when Jack asked him if he needed any help,” and then the older women cut in saying, “That man wanted his fingerprints.”

“His naivety got the best of him and he blindly couldn’t see the harm in just a couple fingerprints so he did it,” The younger women said cutting her mother off.

I was so lost. What type of idiot would actually agree to that random. It seemed kind of fishy. That was probably the easiest and most old fashioned way to get away with murder. Then again, I really have no experience on this topic so I should probably just shut up.

“So was that the actual murderer,” I said with a sarcastically obvious tone.

“Yes, of course.  And now we need your help. You have to get into our house and you have to find this old briefcase and there is one letter in there. The night after he was sentenced to death, he wrote this one letter and there has to be something that can help us prove his innocence,” she said solemnly with the slightest bit of hope in me with her eyes.

I agreed and ran over to the address they slipped through the hole in the glass that was separating us. The door was opened, probably because people were investigating the place and I found the briefcase under a bed, in suitcase, in the smallest zip, on the second floor. I was tired and out of breath but as I opened it everything around me got extra quiet. Even though it was this early in the morning, you couldn’t hear anything at all. I opened it and saw the letter that would help Jack. It was titled “November 6, 2015”  and there was a letter that talked about a man named Sam Miller who was the alleged murderer and how he was framed yet nobody would believe them. I ran right back to the police station with the paper in my hand and gave the paper to the grumpy man at the front who was still waiting for the day shift police officers to come in to take his place.

“Uck. Not you again,” he said between sips of his coffee.

“Yeah, right back at you,” I said expressionlessly with a bit of a death stare in my eyes because I’ve had it up to here with him.

“Now what do you want?” He said in a sneering matter.

I started explaining everything to him from the letter to Sam Miller to everything else. He searched for a man named Sam Miller. He managed to find out the man has been arrested in multiple countries but escaped every time and is also an identity theft. Him and the rest of the police officers felt so bad or the misconception, they decided to let the two ladies out and just keep this as a warning. For the first time, that police officer actually didn’t make me want to punch him in the face. When I made it back to the hotel room my mom was awake and now I am grounded for life but honestly, I was done with trying to solve murders.  I went home happily and I was so excited to go back home and live a normal teenage life again.

*Later that night in Delhi on the Phone*

“Our plan has worked perfectly Jack, honey,”

“I know,” said the actual Jack who turned out to actually not dead and was talking on the phone with his wife who had just got out of jail with a smirk on his face. It followed with almost an evil sounding chuckle.

“God, we were in jail for so long waiting for that silly little girl to show up and get us out. I was worried she wouldn’t even show up, Jack,” the women continued in a down voice and even though Jack couldn’t see her, he knew she was doing a slight puppy face pout.

“I do my research, I wouldn’t let you just go to jail if I didn’t know every little detail about that foolish idiot, Sasha. After all, you gave up your normal life to join the dark side with me and help me, dear. Give the phone over to mother,”  Jack continued trying to make his wife feel better about going to jail.

“Hello, baby, and if you were wondering, jail life sucks,” Jack’s mother in-law said in fluent english even though she claimed to know nothing about english to Sasha.

“Did you maintain not speaking in english,” Jack asked anxiously, hoping she could manage to do it.

“Of course, what do you think I am, stupid like that innocent girl, Jack,” the mother said annoyed and with sass.

“Okay Jack, what’s the plan now,” said Jack’s mother-in-law she said almost harshly.

“Well, I’m thinking about it, but for now let’s just celebrate tonight, on me,” Jack said cheerfully. “We’ll continue on this tomorrow,” he said now, with slightly less joy and it was followed by an evil grin with his evil chuckle as the night fell on the quiet night of mourning after the death of the most important man in the country.

THE END