A/N: Very sorry for not reading people's chapters lately. I've been going through a hard time, though no serious health problems or anything.

This time I'd like to thank... Google, for letting me double-check the Yiddish and Panjabi (I'm from Montreal and part of my family's Jewish, but for some reason

I can never spell Yiddish words right.) Also, I came up with an explanation for the name Alex Burgess on the newspapers in the film. Plausible, not plausible? You decide.

And when you're done the chapter, please check out my Audience Participation Alert at the end!

7. Jaydeep and the Malenky Shaika

I was still rubbing my eyes. The moloko made me feel zoned out, but to tell the truth, I was upset by Len and Rick and Bully's story about pouring corrosive detergent-veshch into a ptitsa's eyes. Because all of a sudden I ponied who the ptitsa and the spectacled "Arab" were. Good Bog, I hoped that malenky bratchny Jaydeep wasn't involved with Bully's shaika. That would mean trouble for the Singh family...

"Did you hear me?" Melody said, voice sharp. She was driving (and a nice horrorshow auto it was too, sleek black and expensive) while I sat next to her, rubbing my poor glazzies. "I said I'm looking for Jaydeep, who ran off... Why are your eyes red, Alex, are you drunk?" she asked like crossly.

I shrugged my pletchoes. "Drunk, is it? Can a malchick get drunk drinking milk?"

Mel looked relieved. "No, I guess not. Try and help me then. Did you see Jay leave?"

"No no no."

"Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"

"Not at all, little sister."

"Don't call me your sister!"

It was clear, brothers, that Melody was in a grumpy mood because of her no-good baddiwad brother. But I had a veshch I needed to like confirm with her. "Ah, um, Melody..."

"Yes, Alex." Her gullivers gripped the steering wheel and she looked straight ahead.

"I, I..." How to skazat to her what I'd heard through Bully's shaika? "I heard a very disturbing rumour, like, about Sonya from music school and, and your bratty Harmeet, I think it was."

Melody cut me off with a very gromky "NO!" She glared at me for a lomtick of a second then turned back to the road. "My brother is not a pervert," she govoreeted through gritted teeth. "Yes, he's three years younger than Sonya. Yes he worked in a store with her. He's also taught her piano lessons for years. So what? They were friends. He's only had a crush on her for like, the past six weeks. If I were him, I'd wait until her sixteenth birthday before asking her out, but, but, but... You're worse than Dave Purcell from class. First he says to me, 'How's the climate around here, Pocahontas?' and then 'Hey Pokey, how's it feel having a pedophile brother?' Feels like somebody needs a swift kick in the rear, that's how. Bastard."

I waved my rookers in what I messeled was a calming motion. "Peace, peace. Compose thyself, Melody. Violence is not the answer."

"Right, but some boys, some nadsats, there you go, aren't so smart." She pointed ahead at two groups of malchicks dratsing in the middle of the road. One boy was tolchocking another with a rock and giving him a fair bloody litso. Two others were wrestling, which looked enough like lubbilubbing to make me smeck. Malchicks these days. No style.

Melody honked the auto-horn, GROMNK, and rolled down the window. "Hey, gentlemen! Any of you seen Jaydeep Singh?"

"We seen bluejay sing?" the rock-tolchocker parroted. "No we don't seen, nor do we care to have seen. Sod off, unless you want a bit of in-out with us, eh? ...Ow ow ow oooooow!" For one of the rival nadsats had just dealt the veck a smack on the back of the gulliver while he was talking.

Melody gunned the auto and yeckated around them, leaving them to their bitva.

"What I was saying about Harmeet and Sonya," I began again carefully, "had nothing to do with Harmeet being a pervert. I do not think he is a pervert. He can be somewhat arrogant, but that is neither here nor there. I was talking about what happened in The Corner Store last year. If I slooshied correctly, poor harmless Harmony was knocked unconscious and Sonya was blinded in both her eyes by some brutal thieving malchicks."

She looked startled, like some lewdie had dealt her a tolchock on the litso. "What! How do you know about that?"

"Word gets around," I said, being vague and not too specific, brothers. "Even malchicks have the tendency to gossip."

Her rot formed a frown. "Well, it's not like it's a big secret. It's just really terrible. She went to the hospital and had two operations, but her sight was completely gone. I visited her and brought flowers, I don't know why I did that, they didn't even smell much. She was all bandaged up and it hurt her to cry. You bet if me or Jaydeep or even your so-called harmless Harmeet finds out who blinded her, there'll be some serious vengeance going down. Not just platching and kvetching, mind you."

Now I worried about Len, Rick, and Bully, but I could not help smecking a malenky bit at her slovos. "Sweet Melody, nadsats do not say that vengeance is 'going down.' We are not American gangsters. We do not 'kvetch' either, like some Germy yahoodie."

I should not have smecked, brothers, because Mel got razdraz again. "Well, excuse my vocabulary! I just thought 'platching' and 'kvetching' sounded nice together, you brainless bhenchod. Look that one up, won't you? And no, stop apologizing. I don't want to hear your apologizing. Using 'we' and all that—you'd almost think you wanted to be one of those fighting, drugging, robbing, raping, murdering bastards that call themselves nadsats. You don't really, do you?"

Brothers, I was just about to confess the mistakes of my past. It was on the tip of my yazhick, but just then Mel brought the car to a screeching halt in front of the Duke of New York. "Look who's here," she muttered. I smotted, and there was Jaydeep, happy as you please, goolying out the pub door with his two droogs. There was a smallish droog of barely fifteen with a pale litso and short green voloss, plus a taller darker-skinned droog with his voloss dyed blue. They wore matching grey suits with suspenders and swim goggles over their glazzies. Quite gloopy-looking, although I viddied how goggles could come in handy around Bully's shaika...

"JAYDEEP SINGH!" Melody shouted.

Jay looked up, startled. "Melody?" His two droogs laughed, hu hu hu.

Melody looked up at the taller droog, also startled. "Suraj Khan? What the hell? What happened to the nice-guy flutist that everyone's mum wants their daughter to marry?" She turned to Jaydeep. "What'd you do, put out a call for Indian musicians to audition for your little boy band, I mean boy gang? Who were you expecting, Ravi Shankar? And who's this kid, shouldn't he be at home sleeping?"

"My name," said the green-haired boy with a roll of the old glazzies, "is Hal, short for Henry. I'm Dave's brother, so don't filly with me, ya pony?"

"Ah, Dave Purcell you mean? Charming. You got quite the classical name. Baroque, anyway. Well, fellows, there's three spaces in the back, if you want a ride. I don't mean to be a killjoy, but Mama Singh a.k.a. Auntyji Priya is worried sick about poor Jay so we're taking him home. I was worried too." She sort of shivered. "I mean I was worried he was out with some real criminals, not you lot. All right, Suraj, why are you looking at me like that?"

The blue-haired malchick whose eemya was Suraj frowned. "If you're so worried about 'real' criminals, Melody, why are you sitting next to Alex DeLarge?"

Jay let out a guff. "Yeah, Mel, why?"

"You're Alex DeLarge?" went malenky malchick Hal, eyes wide. "Wow. Care to sign my sleeve? I've got a marker."

He held out his rooker, but she pushed it rudely away. "Cut the crap, boys. Just because Alex isn't all rich and bourgeois doesn't mean he's a thief or something." She opened the door and the malchicks shuffled in, one by one. I had a bad feeling in my guttiwuts about giving them a ride, afraid they'd say baddiwad things about Your Humble Narrator which would make my innocent though sharp-tongued Sweet Melody very very confused.

We yeckated back to the Singh's house, and all was quiet for a while. I shouldn't have spoken up but I did, brothers. I like sighed and said, "Very well, call me poor. I'm probably like lower caste to you anyway."

Then Mel turned on me, razdraz again, or at least annoyed. "Lower caste! What do you know about it? Our family doesn't follow castes anymore. We're a big mixed-up mess of Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians anyway." She glanced in the rearview mirror. "And wannabe criminals. Right, Jay?"

Jaydeep smirked. "I'm not saying a malenky thing. I'm just enjoying the like irony of you lecturing me on being a grazhny criminal while sitting next to Alex DeLarge." He paused. "Ah, but speaking of riches, I heard your ex-boyfriend Vijay earns fifty thousand euros a year, whatever those are, and his contract with the orky dorky orchestra is three years long. So just messel about that when you start cuddling up to Alex, eh Mel?"

She said not a slovo, but the next time the auto turned I was tolchocked violently against the door.

"Watch it," Jay mumble-chumble-grumbled. "It's my car too, you know."

"Alex, can I have your autograph?" Hal asked again.

"No," I said. "I'm sorry, but you cannot."

"What an example for the little malchicks." Suraj was shaking his blue-haired gulliver. "So, Alex, killed any good millionaires lately?"

"No seriously, how much deng have you ever crasted at once?" Hal wanted to know.

Mel sighed. "Look, stop harassing him. If Alex really were a thief or a murderer, why would you want his autograph?" She rolled her glazzies to the ceiling. "The world is not making much sense today," she said, like joking but also gloomy.

We dropped off Hal and Suraj at their houses. Hal let himself in but Suraj had to ring the zvonock because the lights were all out, and his father looked a little razdraz but smiled when he saw Melody.

Then we were off again, and at last I could breath a sigh of relief. I'd been poogly that Mel would discover my past and I was poogly still. True, the gazettas had written about their "TEEN MURDERER" and "SUBJECT OF CONTROVERSIAL LUDOVICO TREATMENT" and all that cal under my em's last name, not my pee's. That meant the nadsat who did all those horrid vesches was Alex Burgess; I, Alex DeLarge, was innocent. Of course, if you viddied the pictures clarly enough you would pony we were the same veck, which I did not want Melody to know.

As we neared the Singhs' house, Jay made ready to jump out but not before he leaned close and like growled, "You can be droogs with Harmeet but leave Mel alone. Do I make myself sparkling crystal clear?"

Before she could ask him what he said, he was halfway across the driveway. "Besides, you only like ptitsas under twelve or over thirty, correct?"

Not correct. Not correct at all, the malenky bratchny. But he smecked all the way to the house.

...

A/N: Audience Participation Alert! Since the next chapter, I'm hoping, will have a music class scene, I'm inviting people to mention the name of ANY SINGER, MUSICIAN, BAND, OR COMPOSER in their review and I will try my best to incorporate him/her/it into the next chapter! (Which doesn't mean, if someone says Paul McCartney, that everything has to be about Paul McCartney. Just that he'll be mentioned somehow.)