Chapter 12 Summary

Roxana goes to the budget envelopes to get money to pay the man who has delivered a fresh tank of cooking gas. She notes that his bill is higher than it used to be. She thinks that they probably should go back to cooking with kerosene, but she figures that the old Primus stove might well be clogged up. She has to cook dinner tonight, so she goes ahead and looks through the budget envelopes. She discovers twenty rupees in the Bread & Butter envelope, but she knows they have been out of butter for days. Looking for the envelope marked Gas Cylinder, she feels extra weight in the Electricity envelope. It should be empty because the bill was paid on the third of the month, and yet there are forty-five rupees in it. She pays the gas man and then goes back to...