On the far side of the water, on the slope, she turned and looked at the bus. Their bus — tilted, yellow, incongruous on its rock shelf above the gorge. It was still there. The water in the gorge had come up another half metre while they had been crossing — she could see it, the level against the gorge wall. She looked at the bus and she thought about Ganesh.
The driver. The man who had been unconscious in the driver's seat for two hours. She could not leave him. She looked at the bus and she thought about this very directly, in the way you had to think about things directly when the situation required it. She could not leave him. She had to go back.
"Vikram," she said. He was at her shoulder. "I'm going back for Ganesh."
He looked at her for a moment. Then: "I'm coming with you."
"No," she said. "You're staying here. You're the responsible adult on this slope until I come back." She gave him the radio. "You keep talking to Rudraprayag. Every five minutes. You tell them we have all thirty-two children on the slope and one adult returning to the bus for the driver. You tell them we need the team here as soon as possible." She looked at him. "You can do this."
"Yes," he said. "But ma'am—"
"I'll be fine," she said. "The rope is still tied. The water is the same." She was already turning back toward it. "Five minutes. Keep talking to them."
She crossed back to the bus. Alone this time, no rope on the far side — she held the end she had tied off to a fixed rock at the slope's edge and she waded back through the cold current and climbed into the bus and went to Ganesh.
