Knocking on Doors

Her neighbour Dev thought she was mad, and then he offered to help.

“You can’t win,” he said cheerfully, the next morning. “But we can make a lot of noise. Where do we start?”

They started with the doors. Every evening after school, Tara and Dev walked the streets with a clipboard and a petition. Tara hated it. She had never been good at talking to strangers, and her hands shook on the first few doorsteps.

“I’m not a politician,” she told one woman, who looked confused. “I’m just a teacher who doesn’t want them to take our playground.”

To her surprise, that was the line that worked. People didn’t want a politician. They wanted a neighbour. Slowly, the petition filled up. Some nights, though, Tara wanted to give up.

“Nobody’s going to vote for me,” she said one rainy evening, sitting on Dev’s step. “Okafor’s been here forever.”

“You’ve got more signatures than he expects,” Dev said. “If you keep going, you’ll surprise him. Don’t quit on me now.”