Rather nice yet strange book about a girl who is visited in Australia by her Great Grandmother, a woman who is very different from her daughter and grand-daughter in that she didn't have the education to fight her wat out of the Bombay slums. As well as this undercurrent of the GG wanting to ride a skateboard and too afraid to speak English, there is also a very strange supplementary story of the Year 7 teacher and dracula ( at the end the teacher is taken away in a flying car witnessed by the school cleaners!) ( )

Neema and her best friend Kate are starting their first year of secondary school, an event that recalls for them how they felt as new primary school students. This is a time of change, transition and self-growth for the two girls and many of the characters whose lives intersect with theirs. Neema’s great grandmother from India arrives to spend time with her great grand daughter bringing with her dreams of the past and the possible future. Kalpana is the matriarch of three generations of women of whom Neema is the youngest. Though Kalpana is old, she is far from frail and she, like others in the story is still searching for understanding and a sense of self and belonging. The relationship between Kalpana and Neema is overshadowed by the difficulty they have communicating and the differences that exist between them. Intertwined with the tale of Neema and her great grandmother Kalpana are the stories of Neema’s best friend Kate and her quest for a space of her own, the experiences of Neema’s new classmates as they struggle with their own search for identity and the challenges of secondary school. From another perspective we enter the world of Neema’s English teacher, Ms Dallimore, and are introduced to her involvement with the mysterious Vladimir Goole and her endeavours to encourage her students to discover the essence of themselves through their writing. We also meet Gull, a young boy who is one year ahead of Neema at school. He is part of Neema’s past and her future and integral to the fulfilment of Kalpana’s dream.

Neema's and Kate's first day of Wentworth High begins poorly but gets much worse when they find out that their English teacher, the pale Ms. Dallimore, is notorious for challenging essay assignments. Ms. Dallimore assigns an essay with the topic "Who am I?" and gives class 7B a whole six weeks to think and write. Everyone calls Ms. Dallimore the Bride of Dracula. She wants her students to think, and imagine and "learn to fly!"

As time passes the cleverest girl in the class is reduced to tears; football jock Blocky Stevenson discovers the pleasure of self examination for the first time and writes "I am a person with feelings"; Kate is sure she is a girl who hates her sister; while school custodian/dictator Mrs. Draynor is sufficiently moved by a student's discarded attempt at the essay to reflect on her own past. For Neema, the extended stay of her Indian great grandmother, Kalpana, complicated the question. Nani has been dreaming of flying: skimming faster and faster, just above the ground. And now she's ready to leave her village in India to visit her family in Australia. At first, things are awkward between Neema and Kalpana. Kalpana doesn't speak English and Neema doesn't speak Hindi, but when they meet "the flying boy", Gull Oliver, they both find something they've been looking for. ( )