I can see the small kennel door from my window. Treat is eagerly watching me from there - his tongue dangling out, his ears flapping. He was brought here before me. I don't think they showed him to his kennel the way they showed me to my room. 

“Sweetheart, this is your room,” she told me, her broad smile filling her face. “See, don’t you like the big pink bed? There is a Hello Kitty pillow on it, just for you!”

It has been three years since that day. 

I had never seen pillows so white or fluffy! The pink bed cushioned in and sprung up again when I jumped on it. It was so much fun. “Come on, child! Stop being a junglee. That is for you to sleep on, not jump like a monkey,” she said, slightly reprimanding. 

I couldn't jump on the bed just like Treat couldn't sit on the living room sofa, even though he desperately wanted to. “Treat!” she would say, in a voice that would make Treat hide himself under the sofa.

When I am not in school, I am mostly alone in my room. That is when I think of my room with Swati, Ramya, Susheela and Preeti in Anatha Shishu Nivasa. We talked till late in the night, until Matron Meena came to shush us; we tickled each other and spoke of games we would play on the beach on Sunday - the one day when we stepped out of our orphanage.