What do you learn about the
person referred to as "her"?
Where She'd Rather Be
by Jaya Mehta
Janaki sat cross-legged on her grandmother's big bed,
texting her best friend, Isabel, from her mother's phone.
She'd been in India for only a few days, but it felt like
months. When she was younger, Janaki had enjoyed her
family's summers in India, where they stayed at her
grandparents' apartment, but this year her friends back
home in the States were doing fun activities like going to
the summer carnival and having sleepovers, and she felt
like she had been yanked away. It wasn't fair.
She wants to be with friends.
She wants to be young again.
She wants her own phone.