Home of the Brave (7 page)
Authors: Katherine Applegate
and chews her cud.
When I bury my face in Gol's old hide
I smell hay and dung and life.
She shelters me like a warm wall,
and that is enough for this day.
On Saturday Dave comes to pick up Ganwar.
They're going to fill out paperwork
asking for a job
at the places that sell fries.
Dave says he can drop me off
at Lou's on the way.
Ganwar doesn't talk on the way to the farm.
His face looks frozen,
but his eyes are hot.
He keeps rubbing the place
where his hand once was.
When we get to Lou's, I say,
Would it be all right if I showed Ganwar the farm?
He hasn't seen a cow in a long time.
I wait for Ganwar
to spit out the word
no,
but he gives a slow nod.
Dave looks at his arm clock.
Ten minutes, he says, tops.
We go to Lou's door and when she opens it I say,
This is my cousin, Ganwar.
He'd like to see the farm.
Be my guest, Lou says.
There's a new bag of chicken feed
in the shed, Kek.
Ganwar follows me
through the thick, crunching snow.
It isn't much of a farm, he says.
Hardly any animals, and the big road so near.
Still, it isn't so bad
if you don't think about it,
I say. I shake my head.
I'm getting very good at
not thinking about things.
We enter the gray, sagging barn.
Sun and angry wind sneak through the broken spots.
There she is, I say, pointing.
Ganwar groans.
Are you sure that's a cow?
Our fathers wouldn't think so, I admit.
I stroke her flank while Ganwar watches.
She has old eyes, tired but patient.
Gol is her new name, I add.
Ganwar takes his glove off his good hand
with his teeth.
He strokes her, too.
I meet Ganwar's eyes.
Don't worry about the job too much, I say.
What another man takes two hands to do,
you can do with one.
Ganwar puts his head
against Gol's neck.
You're lucky to have found this job.
But you made the luck happen.
I wish I could be herding, I say.
I don't know anything about farms, really.
Except that they have cows.
We stand there,
watching the cow's breath
come in soft puffs.
Suddenly another big idea
jumps into my head.
I think that if I knew where such ideas come from,
I would be a wealthy man
with a thousand cattle
and a flying boat.
Stay here, I say.
Keep her company for me.
A few minutes later I race back to the barn,
stumbling in the stubborn snow.
Dave and Lou follow.
Lou has on a thick red coat
and a hat with a fuzzy ball on top.
Ganwar is still leaning against Gol.
You cousin has an idea, says Dave.
My grin is so big it hurts.
You can work with me here! I exclaim.
Helping with the farm!
All is quiet.
Ganwar looks doubtful.
He doesn't say yes,
but he doesn't say no, either.
I don't have much cash, Lou says.
You'd have to split
the pay I'd promised Kek.
But come spring I sell
organic veggies and flowers
at the farmers' market,
and you could help with that.
She pauses. Assuming, that is,
I hang onto this old place.
Ganwar looks at me hard.
I can't take your charity.
But I'm taking yours, I say.
You're sharing your home with me.
I don't know anything about farming, Ganwar says.
I don't either, I say.
Ganwar turns to Lou and holds out his hurt arm.
What about this? he asks.
His voice is soft,
but his words are shouting.
We all look at Lou.
Lou shrugs.
Guess you'll have to use the other one, she says.
For some reason
this makes Ganwar smile.
He slowly nods.
He glances at Dave.
Can you come back later? he asks.
We have dung to shovel.
I laugh.
It's much harder here, I warn him.
Everything freezes.
Even that.
Gol moos softly,
as if she's sorry to make work for us.
Dave shakes my hand, then Lou's, then Ganwar's.
Folks, this is great, he says.
Ganwar, don't let Lou down, buddy.
He won't, Lou says.
She winks.
Dave and Lou leave us
in the cold barn.
I look around me.
It's not a great herd I see,
dotting the grass
like clouds in a vast green sky.
It's just a tired flock
of scrawny chickens
and a cow with ribs trying to hide
behind her muddy coat.
But for a moment,
as Ganwar and I hum
one of the old songs,
we are where we belong
in the world.
The next week,
my ESL class takes a field trip to the zoo.
Field trip
is another English trick,
like
raining cats and dogs
and
a barrel of laughs
because there is no field
and it's not a far trip
like the one I took from Africa.
We take a yellow bus.
When we get to the zoo,
we must stand in line to get our tickets.
The other kids complain,
but I am used to lines.
One day in the refugee camp
I stood in line for nine hours
to get a handful of corn.
At last a guiding lady walks us past
birds and lizards,
fish and butterflies,
zebras and elephants.
We're looking for animals
from our homelands.
I see gazelles
standing on a low hill
beyond a fence.
I remember such animals bounding
through tall grass,
riding the air like
wingless birds.
I wonder,
How did they come to be here in this strange, cold world?
They flick their tails
and check the horizon for danger.
They're safe here,
but they don't know it.
We visit the petting zoo,
with its animals for touching
who will not eat your hand.
There are goats and chickens and pigs,
a llama and a turkey,
but no cows.
We are supposed to be watching the animals,
but I can't stop looking at the people
looking at all the animals.
A class of little children
laughs at the pigs
rolling happily in cold mud.
Their class looks like our class,
or maybe we look like them:
many colors and shapes
and words.
Of all the things I didn't know
about America,
this is the most amazing:
I didn't know
there would be so many tribes
from all over the world.
How could I have imagined
the way they walk through the world
side by side
without fear,
all free to gaze at the same sky
with the same hopes?
What would my father have said,
to see such a thing? My brother?
What will my mother say?
I walk behind my classmates to the next exhibit,
but I am not alone.
My family is with me,
and every sight is something they cannot see,
and every hope is something they cannot feel.
To carry them, unseen as wind,
is a heavy burden.
All afternoon my belly aches.
Maybe I should have eaten more, I tell myself.
But I know the hurt of hunger well.
Hunger is a wild dog
gnawing on a dry bone,
mad with impatience
but hoping still.
It isn't hunger I feel today.
This pain is worse,
one without pity
like an icy night.
This pain is a question,
the one my heart will not stop asking:
Why am I here,
when so many others are not?
Why should I have a desk
and a pair of fine jeans
and a soft place for my head to rest?
Why should I have the freedom to hope
while my brother and father
sleep in bloodied earth?
I should not take these gifts
I do not deserve.
And yet I know I will take them,
warm food
and soft bed
and fresh hope,
holding on tight
as that wild dog
to his bone.
Before ESL we have homeroom.
I don't much like it.
In my homeroom are only
three other ESL students,
and I don't speak their words.
All the rest are from America.
One morning,
a folded paper waits on my homeroom desk.
I think maybe it's a note to pass.
I've seen other students
hand paper to each other
during the loud man in the wall
named Announcements.
It's exciting to think
I might already have a homeroom friend.
When I open it, I see a picture.
It's not a good drawing.
But after a moment I can see
it's a dead body made of bones.
Hungry, Kenya? a boy in the back asks.
His voice has knives in it.
He holds up an apple half eaten.
None for me, thank-you, I say,
using my polite English words.
And my home, I add,
is not Kenya. It's Sudan.
He tosses the apple across the room.
It lands on my desk
and drops to the floor.
My homeroom teacher
looks up from his newspaper.
Can the flying fruit, he says.
Of course, I don't want
the apple to be wasted.
I pick it up off the floor
and throw it back to the boy.
It hits him on the nose.
I'm a fine thrower of rocks and balls.
It is not my fault the boy moved.
The teacher gives me a detention slip.
I'm not sure what this slip means,
but I do know I'm the only one in class
who receives one.
I feel very lucky
to be selected by my teacher
for such an honor.
The next afternoon,
Hannah invites me
to visit the grocery store with her.
Her mother she calls a foster has asked her
to buy some food for dinner.
We take another bus to a place
of many cars in neat rows.
By the time we get there
the sun has already said good night.
That's it, Hannah says.
Safeway.
There isn't enough food in the world
to fill such a building, I say.
I follow her inside,
and she grabs a shiny cart.
You don't pay for this fine cart? I ask.
You just borrow it, she explains.
The grocery store
has rows and rows
of color, of light,
of easy hope.
Hannah moves down the aisle,
but I stand like a tree rooted firm,
my eyes too full of this place,
with its answers to prayers
on every shelf.
Hannah glances over her shoulder.
You OK? she asks.
I reach out and touch
a piece of bright green food
I've never seen before.
And then I begin to cry.
Hannah rushes to my side.
It's OK, she says.
We can leave if you want.
She takes my hand
and we leave the empty cart
and go outside.
We sit on the icy bench
and wait for the bus.
A car whooshes past.
Its lights cut the gloom
like the eyes of a great cat
prowling for food
in the moonlight.
THE STORY I TELL HANNAH ON THE WAY HOME
In our tent in the camp
a baby was dying.
Flies teased her eyes
and her arms hung
like broken sticks.
Her mother was
not much older than I am.
All day long she
whispered to the baby
drink, drink, drink.
All day, all night.
We couldn't sleep
for the sound of it.
But the baby had been hungry
for too long
and the bottle
went untouched
and after a while
the mother stopped rocking
and went silent.
When the baby died,
she covered her child
with a feed sack
and she said to no one,
I told her to eat.
Why wouldn't she eat?
When I'm done with the story,
I stare out the window
at the sunless world.
Hannah stares with me.
This time, she's the one
who cannot find any words.
Ms. Hernandez and Mr. Franklin
take us to the school library twice a week.
It's filled with books on shelves,
climbing to the ceiling like
little buildings.
Each book is like a door
waiting to be unlocked.
Today I sit at a table
