Ganesh returned to work seven weeks later. The doctors had recommended eight, but Ganesh had returned in seven, on the grounds that he knew every turn of the Kedarpur route and the replacement driver did not, and that his students were going back and forth on roads that he could drive safely and someone else could not. Mrs. Chamoli accepted this argument.
Divya's wrist healed fully by December. She told everyone she had the cast for six weeks, which was true, and that she had not cried when it was set, which was also true and which she was not inclined to stop mentioning.
Vikram's account of the day was shared with his father's geological society, who found the observation about the limestone shelf's lateral stability to be accurate and well-reasoned. They invited him to present at their annual conference the following March. He was the youngest presenter in the conference's history. He presented on the structural characteristics of limestone formations in the Kedarpur gorge and their behaviour under flood conditions. The presentation was fifteen minutes long and included photographs his father had taken of the shelf after the flood waters had receded. The bus was visible in three of the photographs, still on the ledge, waiting to be recovered. In the final photograph, you could see the rope — still tied to the tow hook, still running toward the road.
The rope held.
Asha told the story of the flash flood many times in the following months — to her grandparents, to her cousins, to the children in her new friend group at Kedarpur Valley School, to anyone who would listen. The story grew slightly with each telling, as stories did, but the core of it never changed. The core was always this: there was a new teacher and she had never done anything like this before and the water was rising and she kept saying we are going to be fine and it was the first day of school and they were fine.
Priya Nair completed her first year at Kedarpur Valley School. At the end of the year she was asked, by the district education authority, whether she wished to transfer to a posting closer to home. She considered this for two days. She thought about the valley and the mountains and the gorge and the road and the guest house with the rooster. She thought about thirty-two students who were now thirty-two students she knew completely — every name in the correct order, learned at seven forty-four AM on a rock shelf above a flood.
She declined the transfer. She asked for a second year.
They gave it to her.■ ■ ■
