He wanted to yell something brave and defiant, but instantly thought better of it. Stuffing everything into a pocket, he jumped the brook for the third time and ran back up the slope. At the first fork in the path, he took a sharp right. And in three minutes he was back among the houses of the village, and in four minutes he was back on the main road.
Only then did his heartbeats begin to slow. His mouth was dry, and his breath came in rough gasps, so much so that an old woman beside a doorway said, “Child, do you need water?”
Sadeed nodded and stood panting on her porch while she ducked inside and came back out with a large blue mug. He drained it, said, “Thank you, Mother,” and then hurried along toward home.
It was a lot to think about—the way the man looked, the feel of that grip on his arm, the way he talked, and how he hated America. He wasn’t from around here, Sadeed knew that much.
And Sadeed was furious with himself, to have hidden behind his sister’s name on the letter that way. I should have told that guy that she had the right to go to school like anyone else. I should have kicked and punched and fought like a leopard. I should have pushed that man backward into the brook, then jumped onto him and tied him up with his own turban. And then delivered him to Akbar Khan, marching him right up the middle of the main road.
Still, it was good to have gotten away. And to have gotten Abby’s letter back too. So really, the victory belongs to me, he thought. That man walked away with nothing!
He got home, let himself in, and poured himself a glass of water from the large plastic jug in the kitchen. Then another one. And as he wiped his mouth, Amira came bursting into the room.
“My letter,” she demanded, holding out her hand. “Give it here.”
Sadeed shook his head. “I have to go talk to Mahmood Jafari. Something happened, something bad. And you have to walk with me back to where Mother is. Right now.”
Amira stamped her foot. “No! I want my letter, and I want it right now!”
Sadeed reached in his pocket and pulled out the crumpled mass of letter and envelope and plastic bag. “Fine, here it is. This is your letter. Happy now?”
Amira’s mouth fell open. Then her eyes narrowed and she pressed her lips together. “Who did that?” she hissed.
“A bully, that’s who,” said Sadeed. “And that’s all I’m saying about it. I have to go and talk to the teacher. So out the door with you. Now. And no more questions.”
And as they walked the stretch of road to the house where their mother worked with her sewing group, Sadeed kept his arm across Amira’s shoulders the whole way.
CHAPTER 16
DECISIONS
A bulky man, you say?”
Sadeed nodded at his teacher. “Yes, but not old. About your age, I think. And strong. I’ve never seen him before.”
Mahmood stood just outside the doorway of the school as the older boys and girls arrived for the afternoon session.
“And wearing a turban? Was it . . . a color?”
Sadeed knew what Mahmood was asking. He wanted to know if the man had been wearing a black turban. Because that’s what some of the Taliban fighters wore. He shook his head. “No. White, or pale gray. And he went up into the hills, the trail beside the brook. He got very angry when he saw the stamps on the letter, the flags. And he spat and cursed America. And he said none of the girls should be going to school.”
“Keep your voice lower, please,” said the teacher, nodding to greet the last students arriving for the afternoon class—two girls. “I have to stay here, so you must go and ask for Akbar Khan at his home. Speak only to him, Sadeed, and tell him I sent you. And tell him what you told me. All right?”
“Yes, sir,” Sadeed said.
“And tell this to no one else. And then go directly home.”
“But, sir,” Sadeed said, “I’m expected at my father’s shop. To work.”
“Ah, of course. And that will be fine. But first, find Akbar Khan.”
Sadeed nodded and turned to go.
“And Sadeed?”
He turned back to his teacher.
Mahmood smiled. “You did well.”
He nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
The teacher went inside, and Sadeed walked briskly through the school yard, his chin held high, off to speak with Akbar Khan.
Sadeed obeyed Mahmood’s order, and after talking with the headman, he told no one else about the incident by the brook.
But someone else must have spread the word, because by nightfall in Bahar-Lan, it was the talk at every dinner table in the village.
And it was the topic of discussion at the home of Akbar Khan as well. There had been only one serving of tea, but the seven men seated around the low table had already gotten down to business.
“I don’t like to say I told you so,” said Hassan, stroking his chin. “But I did. This letter-writing business was a bad idea from the start.”
Mahmood was in no mood to be polite. “That’s not the point. A stranger has threatened one of our village boys, plus all the girls who attend school. And for all we know, he has a band of fighters camped nearby. The issue is simple—the safety of the schoolchildren.”
“Which would not be an issue,” Hassan snapped, “if there had been no letters to and from America!”
Akbar Khan raised a hand. “Gentlemen, please—courtesy. I already notified the district police by radiophone, and they will make a careful patrol of the area in the next week or so. I suspect this is all a gust of wind. And it will pass. But until then, we stay alert. And keep our weapons handy. And our children will walk the main road to and from school, morning and afternoon.”
“May I speak?” said Hassan, addressing the headman.
“Of course.”
Making eye contact with each man in the group except the teacher, Hassan said, “I think it would be wise if the letter writing stopped. Because it is such a public thing now. Everyone will know if it continues. Word will get around. And why dangle red meat in front of an angry bear?”
Mahmood felt the thinking of the group tilt into agreement with Hassan. And he knew it was pointless to object.
So he nodded and smiled the most sincere smile he could manage. “I agree with Hassan one hundred percent. A wise decision. Except I do think we must send one more letter to the American girl. To explain. Out of courtesy.”
The teacher was done speaking, but he held his hand out, palm up, asking for consideration as he looked at each man seated around the table.
And Akbar Khan said, “One more letter, to be handled discreetly. A reasonable request. And during the next weeks, everyone stays on high alert. Are we all agreed?”
Everyone nodded, and the headman smiled. “Good. And now, more tea.”
Even though Mahmood hated giving in to Hassan and his old, narrow-minded habits, part of him was glad about this decision.
The truth was, with Sadeed’s involvement in the letters, and now with the American girl beginning to talk more about her feelings, it was a good time to stop, a wise time to stop. And it was also not such a bad thing that the most recent letter had been torn to bits before a person like Hassan could get hold of it.
It would be disappointing for the children, to have the exchange cut short. But this was a matter of putting safety first. Besides, Mahmood knew how to take the long view. Before too many years went by, every child in this village would have a laptop computer, he was sure of it. And he would use his defeat at today’s meeting to win a more important battle some other time. He could afford to be patient.
Because he intended to be a teacher in this village for the rest of his life. And as sure as the sunrise, change would come. It would.
It just wouldn’t be coming during the next few weeks, that’s all. And Mahmood knew he could live with that.
He just hoped the children could be patient too.
CHAPTER 17
NOT STUPID
Zakir had also heard about his son’s run-in with the man by the brook, and
as they walked home after work and evening prayers on Tuesday, both his father and his uncle praised Sadeed.
“But I don’t want any talk of this to your mother or Amira tonight. They will know soon enough, and I don’t want them to be frightened.”
So Sadeed and his family ate a good dinner, and afterward he motioned to Amira. “Come, let’s try to fix up that letter from your friend.”
As they walked to the far end of the room, Amira whispered, “I know all about what happened to you this afternoon.”
“You do?” Sadeed said. “Father said not to tell about it, because he didn’t want you and Mother to be scared.”
Amira looked at him and made a face. “Do you really think anything ever happens in this village that the women don’t know about—and usually before most of the men? Mother said not to talk about it, because she didn’t want Father to be upset.”
Working by the light of a kerosene lantern, they put both pages of Abby’s letter back together, piece by piece, laid out neatly on the floor. Then their uncle went out the door, and a gust of wind blew it apart.
The second time, the puzzle seemed a little easier, and they assembled the letter on a small prayer rug laid on the charpoy, up off the floor and away from sudden drafts. They didn’t have a way to fasten the pieces together, so Sadeed quickly copied the letter into his school notebook, word for word.
He stopped writing and said, “There. That’s the whole thing.”
Amira said, “Good. Now read me the rest of it. In Dari.” She glanced across the room at their mother, still busy in the kitchen, and whispered, “Start near the place where she said she does not have a boyfriend.”
Sadeed nodded and scanned his notes to find the right place. And as he began to read, he whispered too, because “boyfriend” was a word certain to get a reaction from his mother.
“I really like that idea, that of all the people who have ever lived on the Earth, I am the very first one to touch this spoonful of soil. And now you are the second one. And then maybe your family, or kids in your class.
It’s the kind of thing that makes you think. And my friend is so clever to have thought of this. And I’m going to thank him the next time we talk. But we don’t talk a lot. Because it’s not like he’s my boyfriend or anything. Because I don’t have a boyfriend. Because I really don’t think much about that. A lot of my girlfriends do, getting all crazy and everything. I mean, a couple of my friends are boys. But not boyfriends.
I wonder about the books you like to read. Because even though I don’t read a lot of books now, when I was about six years old there was one called Frog and Toad Are Friends that I really liked. I probably read that book fifty times. Do you have it there? It’s a book that’s funny and smart at the same time. And I’m sort of like
Toad, a little grumpy sometimes. And sometimes I start big projects I never quite finish, like all the tree forts I’ve tried to build in my woods here. Anyway, if you get a chance to read that book, you should.
I hope the days there are getting warmer like they are here. Actually, Linsdale is about 600 kilometers farther north from the equator than Bahar-Lan—I checked on Google Earth, which is this cool computer program. So spring might arrive there a little sooner than it does here. Except since you’re up near the mountains, it might still be colder there. Or about the same. I’ll try to keep track of the high and low temperature here every day until your next letter arrives, and you do the same, and we can compare.
Well, I’ve got to start my other homework now. I have a big test tomorrow in math, which is not my best subject at school. Truth is, I don’t have any best subjects. Unless you count gym class.
Anyway, I hope you are well and happy. And your family. And I’ll look forward to hearing from you again.
Your friend,
Abby”
As Sadeed finished reading the letter out loud, he had the same feeling he’d gotten at school—that Abby had been talking only to him the whole time. It was such a new thing, to be sharing thoughts like this. With a girl.
And he imagined Abby as a young child, sitting in a fine house in America, spending time with Frog and Toad, reading the very same words he had read, looking at the very same pictures. And he wondered if she had ever read the book Hatchet. She should, he thought. She would like it, especially the parts about how the boy made his own little house in the wilderness. Almost like a tree fort.
“I want to write back to her now.”
Amira’s voice brought Sadeed back to the room.
“What? Oh—no, it’s too late. And the letter doesn’t have to be ready until Thursday. We can do it tomorrow, right after school.”
“Then let’s make the farm field, like she said. With the dirt she sent to me.”
“All right,” Sadeed said. “I’ll put it on a piece of paper.”
“And I want to be the second one to ever touch it,” said Amira.
Sadeed shrugged. “Fine with me.”
But the truth was, he had picked up some of the soil that had spilled into his pocket from the ripped plastic bag. So he had already touched it. Second.
He laid a piece of notebook paper near the edge of the prayer rug on the charpoy, and then poured out the dirt, a small dark mound. With one finger, Amira gently pushed it around on the paper.
She frowned. “That’s stupid. Doesn’t look like a field one bit.”
“Wait,” Sadeed said.
He picked up a piece of the ripped envelope, and, using one edge like a tiny bulldozer, he plowed the dirt into a perfect little square, like a plot of land on a hillside in the Panjshir Valley.
“Now,” he said, “get your eyes down very close, and imagine all the other fields around it. But look only at this one.”
And Amira knelt next to the charpoy, got her eyes level with the paper, and squinted. She stared for about five seconds.
“It’s still stupid.”
“Here,” he said. “Let me try.”
Sadeed got his face down close to the paper. He looked at the soil. He was close enough to smell it—a deep, rich scent, almost like fresh mushrooms. And he had no trouble seeing a flat, dark field in the heart of Illinois. And he could see the slender girl with the short brown hair bending down in the woods to pick up this very same bit of earth. And he saw her put it into a bag and carry it back to her house in her pocket. To send to Afghanistan. To him.
“Well?” Amira demanded. “What do you think?”
Sadeed shook his head. “You’re right. It’s stupid.”
And he picked up the notebook paper, folded it, then folded it twice more into a tight, flat packet with the soil safely contained.
And as Amira got up and went to do her homework, he tucked the packet into his vest pocket. It was a tiny piece of America, a secret message, sent to him by a friend.
And it wasn’t stupid. Not at all.
CHAPTER 18
FLAG
As Amira and Sadeed finished putting the ripped letter back together, it was about seven thirty on Tuesday night in Afghanistan. It was also Tuesday in Illinois, but it was about ten o’clock in the morning, and Abby Carson was walking into her language arts classroom.
The bell was about to ring, and as she went toward her desk, she glanced back at her bulletin board. She stopped in her tracks, frowned, then walked right over to her teacher. “Somebody messed up my pen pal display,” she said. “They stole the flag.”
As the bell rang, Mrs. Beckland said, “We can’t talk about it right now, Abby, but stay a minute after class, all right?”
Abby sat down and got out her homework. For the next forty-three minutes she and all the other kids stayed busy learning how to identify the main ideas in nonfiction writing samples, and then make inferences and draw conclusions. They would have to do that when they took the Illinois Standards Achievement Test in less than a month.
After the class ended and the room began to empty out, Abby went up to the front and waited while Mrs. Beckland finished writing s
omething in her grade book.
When her teacher looked up, she smiled and said, “All right. Now we can talk. First, I’d like to ask you to keep what I tell you to yourself. You can certainly talk to your parents about it, but I’d rather not have other students know, all right?”
That seemed like an odd request, but Abby nodded and said, “Sure.”
The teacher paused a moment, then said, “I’m the one who took the flag down, Abby. I took it down because the principal asked me to. Mrs. Carver got a letter from a parent of one of the sixth graders. And the parent said that the Afghan flag was making this student feel ‘uncomfortable’—that’s the word the parent used.”
Abby made a face. “But how could . . .”
Mrs. Beckland held up her hand. “The letter to the principal said that this student was telling the parent about your project, and about the letters from Afghanistan and about the bulletin board. And the parent and the student looked up some information about Afghanistan on the Internet together. When they saw the Afghan flag, they wanted to understand the words that are written on the flag. They learned that the words are actually a prayer that’s an important part of the Islamic religion. And this parent told the principal that since the child knows what the words say now, the words should not be on display in a public school classroom because that prayer promotes one particular religion. There’s also a picture of a mosque on the flag. And all this makes the student ‘uncomfortable.’ And also the parent. So the principal asked me to take down the flag. And that’s the whole story.”
After a moment Abby asked, “Which student?”
“Only the principal knows. She decided it would be best that way.”
Abby turned and looked at the bulletin board. The missing flag left a giant hole near the top of the display.
Abby wanted to say something like, “Didn’t you argue with the principal? Didn’t you tell her that the flag is only part of a report?”
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