Everybody’s raring to go, but I’m saying wait, which Emily pointed out is very strange and dangerous since people might lose their enthusiasm. Chloe agreed with her. I started to feel pressured, but Nathan said, “K. C.’s the one who’s had an inside line to Darfur for a year, so we should back off.”
Nathan’s doing a lot better. At the counselor’s, he signed a no-jumping agreement with his parents, so they unlocked the windows.
I wish I could call you, Nawra! You and Adeeba might have an idea. Here I’m supposed to be this thinking-outside-the-box person, and all I can see are four cardboard walls.
Mom suggested I talk to Dad since he was really good at raising money long ago before he went into selling office supplies.
“She said that?” he asked.
According to Mom, he was Mr. Campus Activist, and he tried to get all the janitors at their college a raise, which happened. Just before graduation he applied to work for a health foundation, but the interviewer told him that he was too young to be talking about preventing sexually transmitted diseases with middle-aged matrons who didn’t know what do with their dead husband’s millions.
Dad looked at me for a long minute, kind of sad and thinking. “Actually there was no interview,” he said. “I never finished the application.”
“That sounds like something I’d do!” I said. We laughed. Later I thought about his making up a story to impress Mom. Once you start to lie, Nawra, the second time’s easier and the third’s a cinch. By the time Dad met Sharon, he probably couldn’t tell the difference between what he wanted to believe and what was true.
Dad told me that I should stress the hopeful, not the hopeless, because people will give once out of pity but repeatedly when they think their money is turning lives around. That fits: I feel very hopeful about you, don’t you? But how to get this hope into a fund-raiser—that’s the problem.
More later.
Dear Nawra,
I miss you.
Is Hamdu crawling yet? Cilla is almost. Mrs. Clay refers to her as “my little redecorator.”
Wally’s more like Parker. Their idea of sports is surfing the Internet. That’s not really true. Wally would love to play baseball, only he swings at a pitch like it’s a piñata. His mom signed him up for T-ball and bought him the whole rig, so I spend a lot of my babysitting time as a batting coach.
Parker loves to walk. Sometimes we take the bus and wander around Richmond. In Hollywood Cemetery he showed me the grave of Jefferson Davis, who was president of the Confederates, the rebels in our Civil War. I told Parker what you said, about scars lasting generations.
Because of the gray, cold day, we were shivering side by side, trying to mix the fog of our breaths, and then somehow we were kissing.
In a graveyard! But it wasn’t vampirey at all.
I think I know what the sweet waters of Umm Jamila used to taste like.
More later.
Dear Nawra,
Steven took us hiking last weekend on his favorite trail in Shenandoah National Park. He invited Greg and Parker, too. “Jebel” means “mountain,” right? The Shenandoahs are some really beautiful jebels, even at the muddy end of winter. At one point I got way out in front of everybody. I swear my brain works better when my feet are moving because I had a knockout fund-raising idea.
I’ve been rereading your letters, which are what made me hopeful, after all, and writing down my favorite sayings.
If you can walk, you can dance; if you can talk, you can sing. Whatever we do has to be really joyful.
Too much of anything makes it cheap, except for people, who become more valuable. It has to involve a lot of people.
God is the greatest. Who could argue with that, right? We should get church people involved; they usually don’t mind doing a lot of work for free.
We live in the world we created. I wish people could hear your voice, Nawra. I was picking my way over some roots and I thought, Why don’t we write your sayings down and make them part of this fund-raiser? Then it will belong to you and your mom and your sisters and all the grandmothers of Umm Jamila.
We could stick little cards on the dashboard after we wash cars. Alms do not diminish wealth. We could tuck them into cookie bags. Do not regret what is gone. We could get a lot of people together to buy cookies and pins and cards with sayings while their cars are being washed.
But something was still missing. All these people standing around—they need something to do.
I remembered what you wrote: When I close my eyes, I see two kites dancing across the sky on the breeze.
Kites—we could fly kites for Darfur!
Dear Nawra,
I was sure my brilliance was going to dazzle everybody.
I tried it out first on Parker, in the jebels. He said, “Every time I fly a kite, it nose-dives.”
“You probably don’t run fast enough,” I said. He was annoying me. My mom had brought trail mix, and he was picking out the raisins.
I called an emergency meeting of the Darfur Club executives. “Kites?” said Emily. “That’s so . . . Afghanistan.” Just because there’s this famous book and movie about cutthroat kite flying there.
Then Mr. Nguyen raised a point about money: We’d have to buy the kites.
“Maybe we could make them,” Parker said. I decided to forgive him for the raisins. They do look like turds. “Ben Franklin did.”
“See, kites are American,” I told Emily. “And international.”
I made Parker and Nathan into a committee so Parker can find some books and Nathan can actually make the kite while Parker reads the directions and drinks coffee.
More later.
Dear Nawra,
Nathan and Parker brought a prototype kite to our Darfur Club meeting. A contractor is enlarging Chloe’s kitchen, so Nathan bummed some Tyvek, which is this really light and tough material, perfect for the kite body, and he made the frame with a fiberglass rod. It happened to be a breezy, sun-kissed day, so we trooped outside. Parker held the kite—actually he saluted it—and Nathan started running, his ear-puck flapping, and then Parker let go, and whoosh, the kite just took off, did some show-offy swiggles, and kept climbing. Everyone cheered.
So the kites are a go.
Dear Nawra,
My head’s about to explode. Decisions. We’re picking a spring day, a Sunday, so we won’t conflict with my track meets or all the other sports. Sunday afternoon so people can still go to church in the morning. Our principal agreed to let us use the football field as a kite arena and the driveway for our “information fair.”
We need a name for the event. I suggested Go Fly a Kite for Darfur. Frieda said it sounded rude. For a new member, she has an awful lot of opinions. We dropped the “Go.” Fly a Kite for Darfur. That decision took a week. At this rate we’ll be holding our Darfur fund-raiser three years from now at our senior prom.
It sounds so simple—bake sale, car wash, kite rally—but now the details are running around like a bunch of sugared-up kids at a birthday party. We have to make the kites, bake the sweets, glue the pins, enlist the sponsors, line up the volunteers, and advertise, advertise, advertise.
Dear Nawra,
Mom told me maybe I should pull back from Fly a Kite for Darfur because my homework’s suffering. It’s not my homework suffering—it’s me!
I had a little breakdown and told Parker he was a jerk who cared more for dead heretics than live women and children like you and Hamdu because he told me he had to finish a paper on the Spanish Inquisition and couldn’t go with me to the local building association and plead for more Tyvek.
For about a week we hissed at each other as we passed in the hall. Then he showed up at my meet with a sign that said, BURN UP THE TRACK, K. C. I guess this is his way of making up, with a shout-out to the inquisitors who burned people alive.
Emily said we had to delegate. “The way you do with your homework,” she said. “Parcel out the jobs.”
“Hey—I do my own homework.” I w
as deeply offended for about 2.2 seconds.
“I meant, chunkify,” Emily said. “Break up the big job into little ones and assign them to people. Think of our club members as your personal assistants.” That girl knows me. We made Frieda the recording secretary, in charge of keeping track of who is doing what. Nathan—kite construction, of course. Todd and Gregory—publicity. The Sunshine is letting Todd write a preview article about the event, with a photo of us making kites, and it’s also going to run Fly a Kite for Darfur in the calendar section. Milton Stanley took charge of the bake sale because his parents have a stand-alone freezer where we can store stuff we make ahead of time.
“Are we sure he won’t eat everything?” I asked.
“I’m more worried about what else he might be storing in the freezer,” Parker said.
We decided we don’t want to know.
Dear Nawra,
We’re putting signs everywhere: schools, gyms, community centers. Emily has practically wallpapered the health food stores. I’m the main mouth. I often rope in Florinda, who can translate into Spanish, and Chloe, who can translate into Rich and Proper. Some people try to wave us away, but they don’t realize they’re in a closed room with mosquitoes. It’s amazing how many Americans don’t really know about Darfur, but once they do, they want to do something, and they appreciate that we have an idea. One hardware store owner just wrote a check on the spot for thirty dollars, which is what I said was the price of a stove.
We’re pricing donkeys at five hundred dollars, including fodder, which is Parker’s guesstimate. As you know too well, so many donkeys have died and trade routes are blocked, so Darfur prices have skyrocketed.
Dad’s getting SuperOffice to donate all our markers and glue and poster board and stuff. Lots of churches want in too. Blessings is taking on the ribbon pin project.
Jack called up all his minister friends to give me an audience. We’ve got the knitting guild of Northside United Methodist making blankets for Darfur (do you need blankets?), and Covington Baptist is coming with their slow cooker to sell barbecue for the cause. I went to a mosque, too, Nawra! My first time. The imam was really nice. He taught me how to say “Peace be upon you” in Arabic, asalaamu alaykum. So, greetings. The imam introduced me to three students from Sudan, but from the east, so they didn’t get involved in the wars in the south and the west.
I guess Sudan is like the United States, so big that people in the lucky states can forget about the other ones.
Dear Nawra,
Crisis: Nathan got a sinus infection from his nose ring, and he’s fallen behind in kite production. What if we don’t have enough kites on May 18?
Dear Nawra,
Nathan’s antibiotics have kicked in, thank God. Mom sponsored an all-weekend kite-making session in our basement that was really fun but expensive from all the pizza she had to order.
“The kites are so white,” Florinda complained.
“Like the milk of birds,” I said. Then my brain burst out of the box again. “We’ll write Nawra’s sayings on every one,” I said. “Big black letters. Then people can draw on them. We’ll have markers. Kids will love it.”
“My dad will buy a whole bunch if he can advertise on them,” said Frieda.
“Buy a car, save a girl,” I said.
“My dad does not sell cars,” she huffed. “He’s a consultant.”
“K. C. doesn’t want to make this commercial,” Parker said. My translator.
“But we’re trying to raise money,” Frieda said.
In the end we decided we’d allow sponsors—but only at tables. The kites belong to your sayings.
Dear Nawra,
Tomorrow’s the big day. We need another month to get ready. We have 163 Tyvek kites, 23 dozen cookies, and 200 pins. I’ve called Dad all week for updates from the Weather Channel, and the forecast for the weekend keeps flipping from partly to mostly cloudy with a 30%—no, make that 40%, 60%, back to 40%—chance of rain tomorrow.
Whatever we don’t sell we plan to donate to the Richmond Boys and Girls Club. This morning it was so gray outside that we might be giving them everything.
MAY 18, 2009
Dear Nawra,
I’m so tired that all I want to do is sit in front of the TV and drool. I will soon, even if I have to watch public broadcasting with Mom. But it’s time for me to send you this good-bye letter, which makes me sad, so I better write it before my high wears off. No “more later.”
The sky was spitting when we went to Blessings this morning. Jack led off with a prayer for Fly a Kite for Darfur. Actually he led off with the story of how he went looking for a prayer for sunshine, and he thought, “Native Americans!” since they were famous for their weather dances. But he was getting discouraged because Google kept sending him to Indian gift shops that sold turquoise earrings and headdresses.
Then he found a Pueblo prayer called “Hold On” that seemed to “say a lot about K. C. and Nawra.” See, we’re celebrities.
Anyway, the prayer worked. Jack gave me a copy.
Hold on to what is good, even if it’s a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe, even if it’s a tree that stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do, even if it’s a long way from here. (Like in Darfur.)
Hold on to your life, even if it’s easier to let go.
Hold on to my hand, even if someday I’ll be gone away from you.
When we left Blessings, the sky was still cloudy, but the spit had stopped. Mom drove us straight to WJLL so we could set up.
It was the best day of my life, Nawra. First off, Dad showed up, and he handed Mom an envelope. “I guess we got a twofer with that diagnosis,” he said. “I wish my mother had been there for me the way you’re there for K. C.”
Mom practically threw herself at him, and they ended up in this long-lost hug. Later Mom showed me what was inside: a check for four thousand dollars, the whole two thousand dollars for Dr. Redding plus another two thousand dollars toward tutoring.
Or tutoring and an iPhone, I suggested.
Sharon wasn’t mad, either. She parked her red Mazda outside WJLL, roof down, and we all took turns sitting in it and honking at people driving by so they’d slow down and turn in. Many did, including a fire truck that had spotted the smoke pouring from the slow cooker. All my village came: Blessings people, my old Sunday school teachers from St. Luke’s, all the runners and hurdlers on the track team, tons of teachers. Mr. Nguyen has a fiancée, this gorgeous Vietnamese pharmacist.
Even Mr. Hathaway from old Hardston Middle School showed up with his wife! He borrowed a marker to correct the spelling on one of our signs. His wife whispered in my ear not to take it personally since he even calls up billboard companies.
Dr. Redding and a moll roared up in one of those ridiculous sports cars that can accelerate from zero to warp speed in five seconds although there’s not a road in America with a speed limit above eighty miles per hour. The convertible top was down, so he declined the car wash, but he jumped over his door like James Bond and cleaned out the baked goods. He and Nathan had a moment of mutual earring admiration.
After that, Mom did a supermarket run for soda and cookies, which we bagged and sold for triple markup.
You know what Steven brought? A donkey! That’s why it’s handy to have a trailer hitch on your car. Mom got all teary; she’ll be a basket case if he ever gives her a ring. You would have loved this donkey, Nawra. His name is Hershey because he’s chocolate brown. He belongs to a farmer who brings his barnyard to birthday parties. Without the farmer, we couldn’t do rides, but kids could pet him. We put Milton Stanley in charge of shoveling the poop into a burlap sack to return to the farmer.
Luckily, Emily had her Darfur binder, and Chloe with her beautiful handwriting made a big poster with donkey facts.
Someone said our information was as good as our brownies.
Plus, the stove people returned, and Save the Girls sent someone to set up one of those tables
you know so well with the folding legs.
Everybody snatched up the kites. Some people bought one as a souvenir because of your beautiful sayings. Florinda translated some into Spanish. Nathan and Parker were the kite wranglers, but I helped out with the little kids.
Wally, of course, wouldn’t even look Nathan in the eye at first. He chose a kite that said A LITTLE SHRUB MAY GROW INTO A TREE, and drew trains all over it, and then we got it airborne for a good ten minutes.
When Mrs. Clay asked how it was, Wally whispered, “Awesome.”
Just as we ran out of about everything, the sky started spitting again, so everyone hurried to pack up. I nuzzled Hershey for you.
We think we cleared about three thousand dollars! But we passed all the money boxes and receipts to Mr. Nguyen until the Darfur Club’s next meeting since we were so tired our eyes were crossing. Todd was whining to go home and download his pictures on the computer, but I made Mom wait so I could fly the kite Dad had bought me.
“What if there’s lightning?” she said.
“Mom!” Todd and I groaned. Was she joking? Either way, I didn’t mind. If I’m a kite, she’s the runner, always picking me up after I nose-dive and hoping I’ll catch a breeze.
I grabbed my PEACE IS THE MILK OF BIRDS kite. I’d outlined a big dove on it. The wind was kicking up, so the white bird tore into the air.
All of a sudden, Emily was trotting beside me, panting. “Hey, Wonder Woman, could you run at mortal speed?”
We cruised below the kite, zigging and zagging and marveling at the day. We wondered what you and Adeeba were up to at that very second. Walking home from class? Standing in line for water? Playing peekaboo with Hamdu?
The Milk of Birds Page 25
