My Name Is Not Easy (51 page)

O U R S T O R Y

Junior took a deep breath and looked down. But the tape kept rolling.

Th

e headline for Junior’s story read “From the Ice Cellar to the Bomb Shelter.”

When Father Flanagan read it, he smiled nervously.

It started with the image of Junior’s
aaka
eating fresh duck soup, meat the young hunters brought her because that’s what hunters do, they feed the people, especially the old ones. And it ended with a nuclear blast bright enough to blind them all. And there was a lot of stuff in between, too, both sad and happy.

When Chickie read it, it made her think of Bunna. She wasn’t sure why, it just did. When Luke read it, he was glad Junior had said something about iodine-131 and the way those guys had put wires on them. He just hoped people would hear what Junior was saying and
do
something. He wasn’t sure what he wanted them to do. But when he read it a second time, he realized that in fact Junior had never said a single word about iodine-131.

How had Junior done that, he wondered—said something without actually saying it?

“Excellent writing, Junior,” Father said. “Very good, actually.” He looked up and frowned off into the distance. “But you know when you write for a newspaper, you are supposed to convey facts, not express opinions.”

Junior looked up. Father’s face was smiling, and his blue eyes were kindly, but Junior felt like he’d just been exposed
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y

in front of everyone. He looked down at his story, suddenly embarrassed. He had expressed his opinion, and newspaper stories aren’t supposed to have opinions. It was like getting caught with your fl y down. He looked away.

“Th

is business about the whales and everything,” Father said, waving his hands. “Th

at Chariot project was not about

bomb shelters and whales, it was about economic develop-ment for the State of Alaska—making a new harbor with atomic energy—and look, you haven’t mentioned that
anywhere
in this story.”

Junior blinked in surprise. For a minute he wasn’t even sure that Father was talking about the story he, Junior, had written. It felt like Father was talking about something else altogether. Father had his own opinion, all right, and it was very diff erent than Junior’s. Th

e more Junior thought about it,

the more hopeless it seemed. Nothing but opinions, people’s opinions—some right and some wrong, depending on how you looked at it.

“Are we going to put Junior’s story in the
Guardian
?

Chickie asked.

“Well . . . ,” Father said. His voice turned up at the end in a way that made the answer clear even though he hadn’t said it.

Junior’s story suddenly looked worthless to him. What was the point, anyhow? Project Chariot was still on, duck hunting was still illegal, and people like Amiq’s dad still disappeared.

And other people even died, like Bunna. What diff erence did words make? Junior shoved the story back into his notebook
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O U R S T O R Y

and stood up. It was time for lunch, and Junior suddenly felt a deep, nameless hunger.

“Let me see it,” Amiq said. “Let me see your story.” Th ey were

walking down the hall toward the cafeteria, and Junior was still clutching his notebook. He pulled the story out and handed it to Amiq. Why not? Who cared, anyhow?

Amiq’s dad was still missing. Th

ey had looked and looked,

and they hadn’t found him anywhere, not even a clue, and now they had quit looking. Amiq looked out the classroom window, frowning. Junior’s story had made a lot of sense, but the world itself made no sense at all.

Watching Luke fi dgeting at his desk, Amiq thought about Bunna, about the fi rst time he’d seen the two of them. Th ey’d

been sitting side by side on the plane. No—that wasn’t right.

Luke had been sitting on one side and Bunna had been sitting on the other. Th

eir little brother sat in the middle. What was

that kid’s name, anyhow? Amiq couldn’t remember.

He glanced at Luke, who sat there rubbing his wrist and looking bored.

“What was your little brother’s name—the other one?”

Amiq asked him.

Luke looked up, surprised. “Isaac,” he said.

Amiq tried out the name. He liked the way it started breathless in the back of his throat, then clicked sharp against the roof of his mouth. “Isaac. Yeah.”

He wrote it on a piece of paper. ISAAC. And then he wrote
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some more. At fi rst it was more like doodling, but the more he wrote, the more he thought about brothers and fathers missing and missing people in general, people who should have been part of the family but were gone. People who just burned up or got lost or died, one way or another.

Before he knew what he’d done, he’d written something that looked like a plea. No, it looked more like an ad—a missing persons ad. It only had one name on it—Isaac—but he’d written it for all the people they were missing, somehow.

Amiq was surprised by what he’d written—he wasn’t the writer. And true enough, his writing wasn’t very long and it wasn’t at all fancy, but it was right. Just right.

He centered it on his desk for everyone to see and stood up feeling light as a bird.

Let them just see it. Let them all see it.

Luke watched Amiq leave the room in the thick press of students. He stood up, leaned over Amiq’s desk, and looked at the words scrawled across the top of the page lying there.

Isaac

What made Amiq remember Isaac all of sudden? Th

en he

read what Amiq had written and blinked, surprised. It felt like a huge weight had suddenly been lifted from his chest. He’d lived with it for so long that until it fl icked its heavy tail and disappeared, he’d forgotten it was there.

He picked up Amiq’s paper, breathed deeply, and tucked it into his book. Th

ese words didn’t belong on Amiq’s desk.

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