Her parents still didn't know about the lottery win because they had to host a big party for a politician in their restaurant after the campaign and election. Olivia didn't understand any of it. She only knew that Mom and Dad always got in a bad mood when something unexpected happened. They had also rejected the tarantulas in Omeia Gardens and had become loud after learning that she and Pepe had climbed the schoolyard wall to feed breadcrumbs to a bird that had fallen out of its nest.
A few days later, a messenger arrived with a large envelope full of documents and a check. Grandma Priya signed the necessary papers and then explained to Olivia how important it was to use the money wisely.
The two decided to tell Olivia's parents after the ceremony and church service on Sunday. It was fun! Grandma Priya winked at Olivia, and they could hardly wait to tell Olivia's parents, Nilay and Arian. On Sunday, after the service and dinner, the family gathered in the Bishop family's living room, not in the park because it was raining.
When Olivia told her parents about her lottery win, they were very surprised. They celebrated the incredible five million pounds and began to make plans for the future. While her mother Nilay began to cry, Olivia feared she had done something stupid. She had never seen her mother cry so much. But then Nilay kept saying, "Oh, child! Oh, child!" and hugging her daughter. Father Arian danced his favorite dance. He lifted Grandma Priya up from her chair and spun her around while dancing. Then Priya even started moving like a belly dancer and laughing. Olivia thought her grandmother was so beautiful, it was like she was an elf.
"What do we do with all this money?" her father finally asked. They sat on the sofa and looked at Olivia like a messenger of good luck sent to them by Ganesha himself. Olivia said cheerfully, "Grandma Priya wants to build a house in every country. Right, piri piri?" At that, Grandma laughed her girlish laugh again. But then she shook her head with her marbled hair, which was black and gray. "No, Olivia should decide."
Arian asked, "But why? It was your lottery ticket, wasn't it? Our daughter probably wouldn't have filled out a ticket."
Only at that moment did Olivia and Priya realize that it probably hadn't been such a good idea to keep the fact that Olivia had found the lottery ticket with Pepe from their parents. But what if the money didn't belong to them after all?
Before Olivia could tell them the truth, as she always did after an argument, or before there could be an argument, Grandma Priya said, "She filled it out for me. It's her prize. I just accepted it."
"Really? Is that so?" Arian asked. He was very decent and always careful to comply with the law. He kept to all the prescribed opening hours and even knew how to converse with politicians, especially the one who had won the election, as if he were a politician himself.
Olivia looked fearfully from her father to her grandmother. She responded with an Indian proverb, saying, "Without money, you're a corpse."
Impressed, Olivia looked at her father, who knew this saying but now looked so affected, as if his own mother had revealed new wisdom to him.
"All right. Oliv? What do you say?" asked Arian. At that moment, everyone looked at Olivia. Her answer went down in family history. Because Olivia said, "I want to travel to the stars with this."
At first, she didn't know where the sentence had come from. It had simply flowed out of her like water from a well that had been pumped for a long time. But then she remembered: three days earlier, Pepe had given her an old comic book with the sentence in a speech bubble about Super Woman. "I want to travel to the stars with this," she had said after deciphering an important message from aliens and, with it in her luggage after defusing a bomb, was about to set off. At the same time, Olivia knew for the first time that she would rise up like Super Woman to help her family and create something wonderful. Yes, the stars simply sounded better than a house in any country. Because when you made it to the stars, you found something completely new. And Olivia had always wanted to find something new.
As she was helping her mother wash the dishes, Mama Nilay leaned over and asked, "Did you really fill out the ticket? Is what Priya said true?" Because Arian then entered the kitchen and loudly announced that they were buying a dishwasher—"Oh, come on, we'll buy a whole dozen!"—Olivia had to leave her mother without an answer. She never asked again. It was as if suddenly no one wanted to know exactly who had filled out the lottery ticket anymore.
Only in Olivia's dreams was there a sad man who regretted losing that lottery ticket until the end of his life. He sat in a wheelchair by the window, just like in Alfred Hitchcock's film "Rear Window," which she had seen with Pepe in "Himalaya." Perhaps she should give something to sick people, Olivia thought. Even though the man played by James Stewart only broke his leg in the film, little Olivia saw this dream as a sign. She wanted to do good.
After she told her parents that the money should also help poor and sick people, Nilay and Arian were immediately enthusiastic about the idea. They founded the "Olivia Bishop Foundation" for children from poor backgrounds and people with cancer. This foundation was then based in London but would also support children in India. And so it happened.
As part of the foundation that bears her name, Olivia Bishop traveled to India for the first time in her life during the summer holidays with her parents and grandmother Priya. There, she saw cows in the street and people selling their things right on the side of the road. They also visited a hospital and, of course, met her many relatives, whose names Olivia couldn't even remember. One of her aunts dressed her up and gave her so many dazzling Indian fabrics that they had to buy two new suitcases for Olivia before returning to London.
Olivia repeatedly looked at the now framed lottery ticket that her father, Arian, had hung above the colorful sofa in the living room. She wondered what the probability was that this lottery ticket was actually worth anything. This question led her, as she grew older, to the path of probability theory.
At fourteen, at an age when her friends were dating boys and taking dance lessons, Olivia began to delve deeper into numbers and mathematical concepts in an effort to solve the mystery. Her grandmother, Priya, recognized Olivia's growing fascination with science and decided to introduce her granddaughter to the wonders of astronomy and astrology. Priya showed Olivia the stars and told her stories of distant galaxies and mysterious celestial bodies. The nights they spent together on the roof of their house became Olivia's favorite times. She learned to understand the movements of the stars and began to dream of a career in astronomy.
But their happiness didn't last long. A few days after Olivia's fifteenth birthday, Grandma Priya suddenly fell ill and died. The loss hit the family hard. Three months later, they decided to move to a bigger house and use some of the money for Olivia's studies. Because they loved their restaurant, they stayed in Southall. But now they allowed themselves the luxury of having many employees and took time off now and then. They couldn't survive without work because they loved what they did and were used to saving.
Olivia remembered her grandmother's words: "Use your knowledge and wealth to make the world a better place. Do your best." These words would accompany her on her further journey and strengthen her passion for science and the stars.
In the evenings, her mother often stroked her beautiful long hair. She told her that the goddess Ganesha was merciful. But living in excessive wealth would be wrong. Olivia should enrich her mind and heart, because that mattered more than any appearance in the world. Later, Olivia often wondered if her mother had already suspected back then that she would travel far away. And that she would tirelessly search for both: an enriched, wise mind and a fulfilled heart. But only her grandmother Priya may have known that Olivia, whether rich or poor, would never rest until she had unlocked the secrets of the universe.
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