“Ammi! I’m back” I announced entering the house. She was reading a book. I tried to read with her but there were so many long words. “Today, the teacher gave me a star on my hand” I said proudly displaying the shiny red star on my fist.

Coco was not in the living room or he would have come running to me - his tail wagging, smiling his goofy grin. “Coco, I’m home” - I called out.

I called him again and again but there was no answer. I checked my room, the kitchen and the backyard but he was not here. Coco’s sudden absence made me sad, the home was an emptier place without Coco.

“Ammi, have you seen Coco? He is not in the house. Did he go out with Mumma?” I asked her breathlessly. Ammi didn’t answer but she looked sad. I know that look when she talks about her family or when I don’t do well in Maths.

She paused for a moment before saying - “Baccha, I have to tell you something important. Coco actually went back to his own house to live with his mother.”

This was not good.

Coco loved it here. This was his own house. I was his brother and Ammi and Mumma were his parents. He can’t go. I thought she was joking but Ammi wasn’t laughing. She laughs after she tells me a joke like the one about the chicken crossing the road.

“But Ammi, he can’t go. He doesn’t have a house. This is his house. He lives with us” I tried explaining.

She said that Shiro missed his parents and that's why he had to go.“He missed his parents too baba. You also cry when you miss us. So he needed to go”

I ran to my room because I knew Ammi was lying. She doesn’t know Coco like I do. I felt like a spy in a foreign country - surrounded by secrets and lies.

Coco loves me and only me. I knew he would come back.