When I looked back a while later I saw that Said was busy with his kite. I decided to stop and to film him, the perfect closing shot, just what I needed. I was just about organized and ready to film, when Said sprang to his feet. The sheep were bounding away from him, scattering all over the hillside.
Then I saw the kites. The sky above the settlement was full of them, dozens of them, all colours and shapes, a kaleidoscope of kites. Like butterflies they danced and whirled around each other as they rose into the air. I could hear shrieks of joy, all coming from the other side of the wall. I saw the crowd of children gathered there, every one of them flying a kite. Some of the kites snagged each other and spiralled down to earth, but most sailed up magnificently, skywards. The settlers were running out of their houses to watch. Then, one after the other the kites were released, and left to the wind, and on the wind they flew out over the wall towards us.
From behind us now, from Said’s village, the people came running too, as the kites began to land in amongst us, and amongst the terrified sheep too. Uncle Yasser picked up one of them. “You see what they wrote? ‘Shalom’,” he said. “It says ‘Shalom’. Can you believe that? And look, look!” On the other side of the kite they had drawn a dove. We soon discovered there was the same message, and the same drawing, on all of them.
Everywhere, on both sides of the wall, children were cheering and laughing, and leaping up and down. I could see the girl in the wheelchair was struggling to stand up. When at last she made it, with the help of a couple of her friends, she took off her scarf and waved it wildly over her head.
All around me, Said’s family, and many of the other villagers, mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, began to clap, hesitantly at first. Soon everyone was joining in, Uncle Yasser too. But I noticed then that it was only the children who were whooping and whistling and laughing. The hillsides rang with their jubilation, with their exultation. It seemed to me like a glorious symphony of hope.
I had to be with Said at his moment of triumph. I stumbled as fast as I could back towards him, and as I came closer I could hear him laughing and shouting out loud, along with all the other children. I realized then, idiot that I was, that I had quite forgotten to film this miracle. But almost simultaneously I understood that it didn’t matter anyway, that it was the laughter that mattered. It was laughter that would one day resonate so loud that this wall, like all the others, would come tumbling down. No trumpets needed, as they had been once at Jericho, only the laughter of children.
And then Said was running up to me, and taking me by the hands. “Mister Max, are you seeing it? The girl, she is sending back the kites. I knew she would do it. I knew it. It’s her dream, it’s my dream, it’s our dream. But it’s not a dream any more is it? It’s a real happening, isn’t it? Are you hearing me, Mister Max? It’s me, me speaking my voice, isn’t it?” He put his head back, closed his eyes, and shouted out loud to the sky above. “Hey, Mahmoud! Mahmoud! Can you hear me? Can you see this? The kites are flying, Mahmoud! The kites are flying!”
Afterword by Jeremy Bowen
Palestinian children like Said and Mahmoud really do fly kites. On hot afternoons in the West Bank a perfect kite-flying breeze blows out of the desert into the hills. In Gaza it comes in off the sea. Just like Said and Mahmoud, the children make their own kites, out of newspapers, old plastic bags and bits of wood. They turn what sounds like a pile of rubbish into something beautiful.
For the best part of a century Arabs and Jews have been fighting over this small piece of land that lies between the river Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. The conflict often sends shockwaves around the world.
Many children have been wounded and killed. The pain that families on both sides feel when it happens is just the same. In my work as a reporter I have been to many funerals, and to homes full of sadness, where there are children who have seen brothers, sisters or parents killed.
My job is to help people understand why the conflict exists and why it doesn’t stop. Sometimes that means trying to show what it is like to be a person caught up in it, at the very worst time of their lives. And sometimes, though not often enough, we find a few signs of hope too.
This edition published 2014 by Walker Books Ltd, 87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ • Text © 2009 Michael Morpurgo • Illustrations © 2009 Laura Carlin • The right of Michael Morpurgo and Laura Carlin to be identified as author and illustrator respectively of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 • All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher. • British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library • ISBN 978-1-4063-6255-8 (ePub) • www.walker.co.uk
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