Bull Run (11 page)

Authors: Paul Fleischman

BOOK: Bull Run

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The candles and the incense sticks, lit the day before to mark his death anniversary, had burned out. The rice and meat offered him were gone. After the evening feast, past midnight, I'd been wakened by my mother's crying. My oldest sister had joined in. My own tears had then come as well, but for a different reason.

I turned from the altar, tiptoed to the kitchen, and quietly drew a spoon from a drawer. I filled my lunch thermos with water and reached into our jar of dried lima beans. Then I walked outside to the street.

The sidewalk was completely empty. It was Sunday, early in April. An icy wind teetered trash cans and turned my cheeks to marble. In Vietnam we had no weather like that. Here in Cleveland people call it spring. I walked half a block, then crossed the street and reached the vacant lot.

I stood tall and scouted. No one was sleeping on the old couch in the middle. I'd never entered the lot before, or wanted to. I did so now, picking my way between tires and trash bags. I nearly stepped on two rats gnawing and froze. Then I told myself that I must show my bravery. I continued farther and chose a spot far from the sidewalk and hidden from view by a rusty refrigerator. I had to keep my project safe.

I took out my spoon and began to dig. The snow had melted, but the ground was hard. After much work, I finished one hole, then a second, then a third. I thought about how my mother and sisters remembered my father, how they knew his face from every angle and held in their fingers the feel of his hands. I had no such memories to cry over. I'd been born eight months after he'd died. Worse, he had no memories of me. When his spirit hovered over our altar, did it even know who I was?

I dug six holes. All his life in Vietnam my father had been a farmer. Here our apartment house had no yard. But in that vacant lot he would see me. He would watch my beans break ground and spread, and would notice with pleasure their pods growing plump. He would see my patience and my hard work. I would show him that I could raise plants, as he had. I would show him that I was his daughter.

My class had sprouted lima beans in paper cups the year before. I now placed a bean in each of the holes. I covered them up, pressing the soil down firmly with my fingertips. I opened my thermos and watered them all. And I vowed to myself that those beans would thrive.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PAUL FLEISCHMAN
was born in Monterey, California, and grew up in Santa Monica in a family of gardeners. He attended the University of California at Berkeley and the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque, and now lives in Aromas, California. He is the author of many books for young readers that draw on his interest in music, history, theater, and multiple viewpointsâincluding
JOYFUL NOISE
:
Poems for Two Voices
, winner of the Newbery Medal,
GRAVEN IMAGES
, a Newbery Honor Book, and
BULL RUN
, winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.

You can visit Paul online at: www.paulfleischman.net

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ALSO BY PAUL FLEISCHMAN
Young Adult Novels

Breakout

Seek

Mind's Eye

Whirligig

Seedfolks

A Fate Totally Worse Than Death

Bull Run

The Borning Room

Saturnalia

Picture Books

Sidewalk Circus

The Animal Hedge

Weslandia

Lost

Time Train

Poetry

Big Talk: Poems for Four Voices

Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices

I Am Phoenix: Poems for Two Voices

Middle Grade Fiction

The Half-A-Moon Inn

Non-Fiction

Cannibal in the Mirror

Dateline: Troy

COPYRIGHT

ISBN 0-590-47408-1

EPub Edition April 2013 ISBN 9780062009609

B
ULL RUN
. Text copyright Â© 1993 by Paul Fleischman. Illustrations copyright Â© 1993 by David Frampton. Maps by Robert Romagnoli. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.