boys who are making a bunch of noise about nothing,” I write.
All of a sudden there’s a sound like a gun going off , and Sister Mary Kate jumps up like she’s been shot. Th
e bus
sputters to a stop, and there’s total silence. Father Flanagan leans out from the driver’s seat.
“Not to worry, boys and girls, not to worry,” Father calls out. “Just a spot of engine trouble, nothing to fret over.”
He looks out over the top of his glasses at Sister Mary Kate, who, of course, blushes. Th
en he jumps down out of
the bus, and the boys all crane their necks, trying to see what he’s doing. I’m guessing pretty much every boy on this bus knows more about engines than Father.
“Our bus broke down, and Father is going to fi x it,” I write.
“Man,” Bunna mutters. “Why can’t we have a real bus, like the kind they have at real schools?”
“Now, Bunna,” Sister Mary Kate says, “we must not covet what others have. We must be grateful for the Providence the Lord has provided.”
“Oh, Lord,” Amiq says, folding his hands and looking up toward the roof of the bus with what he thinks is a pious look.
“Th
ank you for providing us with military trash. We are not worthy.”
Sister acts like she doesn’t hear him, but you can tell she 102
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M I L I T A R Y T R A S H / C h i c k i e does by the way she looks out the window and frowns. Amiq is lucky Father Mullen’s not here.
“Stay put, girls and boys, stay put,” Sister says, wringing her hands and glancing nervously out the window of the bus.
“I need to assist Father.”
Evelyn makes a funny noise, and Rose covers her mouth with her hand. I fi gure pretty much any Indian girl in the world knows more about engines than Sister.
Of course as soon as Sister steps off the bus, the boys start going crazy as loons. Sam Pete grabs my diary with his grubby little paws, and just as I’m getting ready to pound him to pieces, he tosses it back to his brother, Leo, but Leo misses it and it hits Junior, hits him right square on the head. Junior looks up, annoyed and owlish, but before he can fi gure out what’s happened, Leo slides into Junior’s seat like it’s home plate and grabs the diary. Th
en he and Sam start playing catch
with it, lobbing it back and forth the length of the bus, and the harder I holler, the faster they throw.
All of a sudden here’s Bunna, popping up in the middle of it all like an Eskimo jack-in-the-box, grabbing my diary midair.
“You lose something, Snowbird?” he says, tucking my diary into his stinky old armpit and throwing himself down onto his seat where he sits, slowly opening it up and sticking his nose right inside the front page, right into the part where it says, “Property of Chickie Snow. DO NOT OPEN.”
He lifts the page and gives me an evil grin.
“BUN-NA!”
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“Hey, I saved your old book, didn’t I? Least you could do is let me read it.”
I fl y at him like a banshee, hollering my head off . “Bunna, you dirty animal, I’m gonna choke you.”
He’s laughing so hard he almost is choking, ducking his head like he’s avoiding a blow and holding his hand in front of his fat face.
“I jokes,” he says, handing me the diary. “What do I want your silly old book for, anyway?”
I grab my diary, fl ying backward and bashing into
Junior with a force strong enough to knock his big black-rimmed glasses clear off his face. Junior looks up just in time to watch his second eyes go sailing across to the other side the bus, where they dash into the window next to that new white kid, Michael O’Shay. O’Shay leans down a long arm and starts groping around on the fl oor for them.
“Sh . . . sh . . . SHAVING CREAM!” Junior cries.
Rose and Evelyn start giggling.
“Th
at’s right, Junior, let it all out,” Amiq cooes.
Rose and Evelyn are laughing so hard, they’re almost crying.
Junior glares at me like it’s all my fault. “What are you trying to do, k . . . kill me?”
Right then Michael O’Shay emerges victorious, handing me the glasses.
“Look, Junior, they’re okay,” I off er.
Junior grabs them defensively, adjusting the nose piece as he shoves them back on his face.
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M I L I T A R Y T R A S H / C h i c k i e
“Jeez, Snowbird, create a ruckus, will you?” Bunna says.
I spin around, ready to deck him, and he raises his hand again.
“Hey! Don’t ruffl
e your . . .”
He stops midsentence. We all stop because we all realize, suddenly, that Sister Mary Kate is standing at the front door of the bus, glaring at us. Well, maybe you wouldn’t really call it a glare. Sister doesn’t know how to glare. But that’s what she intends, I’m sure.
“Ladies! Gentlemen! Please!”
I slink back to my seat.
Sister sets her hands on her hips like she wants us to believe she means business, when of course we all know Sister doesn’t have the slightest idea how to mean business. Especially not with a bunch of kids nearly swinging from the rafters of a rickety old piece of a military-trash bus.
“Father has suggested that you children need my guidance more than he does right now,” she says, narrowing her eyes at me and Bunna. “And I do believe he’s right.”
She stands there, arms crossed, looking at us with what she probably fi gures is a stern expression, and all of us make a real eff ort to settle down, even though we all know Sister couldn’t hurt a fl ea.
“Children, let’s recite the Twenty-third Psalm,” Sister says, launching into it with fervor.
“Th
e Lord is my shepherd,” she announces, looking at us girls, waiting for us to catch up with our good voices, which we do, of course, because we know full well that the boys 105
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y
couldn’t manage the words to the Twenty-third Psalm to save their sorry souls.
“. . . and I shall not want,” we all chime in.
Right then the door to the bus opens with a breath of cool air, and Father steps inside, brushing snow from his sleeves.
“Behold the shepherd,” Amiq announces, like he’s a narra-tor in a Christmas play or something.
Sister drops the psalm like a hot potato, crying, “Father!
You fi xed it!”
“God willing, Sister. God willing.”
Th
e boys give each other looks that say, God’s will wouldn’t touch a project like this with a ten-foot pole. Th en there’s total
silence as Father takes to the driver’s seat. When he turns the key, we all strain right along with that engine.
“Come on girl, you can do it,” Bunna says. Like he was talking to a dog or something. “Come on.”
Father keeps right on cranking away, but that engine doesn’t make a sound, not even a mutter.
Th
at’s when I remember just how long a walk it is back to the school. “Come on,” I whisper. “Come on.”
Father lets up on the brakes, and the bus starts to roll down the hill, easy at fi rst, then bouncing a little on the rocky road. Th
e engine gives a little sputter like a dog sneezing, and then it starts to kick in. As the bus gathers speed, Sister orders us all to pray, clutching the side of her chair with her eyes clenched shut like she’s afraid to even look.
“Yea though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil . . .”
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M I L I T A R Y T R A S H / C h i c k i e She’s praying so fast that the psalm takes off like a snow-ball down a hill, and I get so caught up in the momentum that before she comes to the end, I accidentally say, “Amen” ahead of everybody else.
Bunna laughs, looking right at me with that evil little grin of his.
I open up my diary and write “BUNNA A IS A DUMB
ANIMAL.” Th en, just for good measure, I underlined every word twice, pressing especially hard: “BUNNA A IS A DUMB
ANIMAL.” Th at’s when I realize I have accidentally added an extra A . But that’s okay; Bunna’s last name is Aaluk, so “Bunna A” makes sense.
I snap the book shut, happy in the knowledge that I have recorded a thing for all posterity, as Sister would say—last name and all.
Meanwhile, the bus limps along in the snow-bright darkness, headed down the mountain, straight for Sacred Heart.
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The Day the Soldiers Came
APRIL 5, 1962, 8:00 A.M.
LUKE
—
Bunna is standing by the window in the hallway of the dorm, his nose pressed up against the glass. Th
at white kid, O’Shay, is
leaning over top of him, and both of them are staring out the window without hardly moving. Like the yard’s full of moose or something. Bunna turns around when he hears me.
“Soldiers,” he hisses.
I go look out, and sure enough, it’s soldiers: jeeps, uni-forms, and all.
“What the heck,” I say.
“Maybe the Russians have invaded,” O’Shay says, grinning.
Bunna moves away from the window fast.
“Aw, c’mon,” O’Shay says. “You don’t really believe that stuff , do you?”
Bunna frowns like he thinks O’Shay is making fun of him.
I tell O’Shay, “Back home, when the sky gets real red over 108
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T H E D A Y T H E S O L D I E R S C A M E / L u k e the ocean, our mom always says it could be Russia burning.”
Bunna nods.
“No way,” O’Shay says.
“Way,” Bunna says.
Guess O’Shay don’t know what it’s like living on the coast across from Russia. He’s from Fairbanks, which is what they call the Interior, and it’s about a thousand miles from the ocean. Besides, he’s white.
“We got Russian subs out there in our ocean all the time,”
I tell him. “Just under the surface, like killer whales.”
“Killer whales,” O’Shay says. “Th
at’s a good one.”
“You aren’t supposed to joke about killer whales,” Bunna says.
“I wasn’t joking about killer whales,” O’Shay says.
“Yeah, ’cause the way it is with killer whales, they never forget the people who tease them,” I say. “Th
ere’s a guy
making fun of them whales one year, and two years later, whales surround his boat and he’s dead.” It’s true, too.
We look out the window. Th
e soldiers are marching right
up into the school.
“Least they’re on our side,” Bunna says.
I breathe deep. No kidding. Least they’re on our side. But what the heck are they protecting us from? It’s a question I don’t really want to think about, but I do anyhow. I think about it all through breakfast, and it follows me down the hall and into class, where it lurks just under the surface, like a killer whale. How can Father Flanagan stand there spouting Latin like nothing’s happening?
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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y
“O fi lii mei boni bellifera, ” Father says loudly. “What does it mean? Anyone?”
Chickie giggles and Evelyn snorts because it sounds like he’s saying, “O feely me boney belly” with some kind of accent. Junior shoves his glasses onto his nose and clears his throat.
“Junior?”
“Oh my great warring son,” Junior says fast, his voice cracking.
“Good. Very good.”
Father writes those words on the blackboard in neat writing. Th
en he looks up over our heads toward the door. Seeing the expression on his face, we all turn around and stare. Father Mullen stands just outside the door, waiting.
“I want you to turn to chapter six, class, and get started,”
Father Flanagan tells us. “I’ll be right with you.”
Everybody makes a show of turning pages, but all of us are really watching Father Mullen and Father Flanagan talking together just outside the door. We can’t see no good reason for Mullen to interrupt the class like that, and we know that wherever Mullen goes, trouble follows sure as snow.
Father returns to the class, rubbing his hands like he’s trying to warm them.
“All right, then,” he says. “All right. Slight change of plans, boys and girls. Slight change. I need a few of you for testing.”
“You didn’t tell us there was going to be a test, Father,”
O’Shay says nervously.
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T H E D A Y T H E S O L D I E R S C A M E / L u k e O’Shay’s dad is real strict about his grades. Not like the rest of us. Th
e rest of us passed our parents’ grade levels about fi ve years ago, so our parents think we’re geniuses no matter what kinds of grades we get. But O’Shay’s dad is a lawyer, and O’Shay’s grades are never good enough.
“Not that kind of test, Michael,” Father says. “Th
is test is
more like an eye test.”
Evelyn looks at Junior’s glasses, suspicious. “Whatsa matter with our eyes?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” Father says. “I didn’t say it was an eye test, I said it’s like an eye test. And it’s only a few of you that will need to be tested. Not to worry.”
But I get a funny feeling watching the way Father goes through his grade book, running his fi nger over the page like he’s looking for something hidden.
“Luke Aaluk,” he says, and I stand up, not knowing what else to do.
“Donna Anaivik,” he continues without looking up.
Donna stands up, eyeing her feet.
“ . . . Billy Stone, Jr., . . . Fred Qavik.”
Father looks up and then back down at his grade book.
“Let’s see. Have I forgotten anyone?”
Amiq stands up while Father is still running his fi nger over our names, searching.
“Oh . . . yes . . . Amiq,” he says fi nally, looking straight at Amiq, who’s standing directly in front of him, as cool and calm as only Amiq can be. “Amiq Amundson.”
“Eskimos front and center, eh, Father?” Amiq says.
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“It would appear so, Amiq. It would indeed appear
so.”
But it isn’t all Eskimos. Out in the hallway there’s other kids, even Indians from the villages up north by ours, even the kids from the lower levels, all of us standing around, eyes big.
Bunna moves up next to me.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen, form a line,” Sister Sarah orders.
We march down the hall behind the white fl ag of Sister’s habit like a blind army. Where we’re going and what we’re fi ghting is a mystery none of us wants to think about. Sister stops at a little room next to the
offi
ce, a room that’s mostly
used for storage because it’s too small for a classroom and doesn’t have a window.
“All right people, I want you to remain in line here. You’ll be called in one at a time for testing,” Sister Sarah says.
And sure enough, right after she disappears into the room, one of those soldiers ducks his head out and looks directly at me.
“Luke Aaluk?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Looks like you’re the leader.”
And I’m thinking, Why the heck did I have to be fi rst? I’m not even a Catholic. Should’ve been somebody else, somebody daring like Amiq. I don’t believe in being daring. Daring people are just dumb people who never live long. Not in the Arctic.
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T H E D A Y T H E S O L D I E R S C A M E / L u k e But Amiq’s not fi rst in line. I am. Amiq’s at the dead end of the line, in fact, and he’s scowling. I’m the leader, with Bunna right behind me, which is not right, that’s for sure. But I lift my shoulders up and march right into that room, my mouth dry as sand.
Inside is two soldiers who say they’re doctors. Th
ey have a
table full of equipment.
Sister Sarah eases the door shut, leaving me alone with the military. I stand there in the middle of that room, an army of one, trying to look tough.
“Sit down, son,” one of the soldiers says. “Th
is isn’t going
to hurt one bit.”
It don’t feel right when he calls me “son,” but I sit down anyway. He sits down, too, across the table from me.
“My name is Dr. Smith, Luke, and I need you to hold real still while Dr. Bergstrom here hooks you up to his machine,”
he says.
Suddenly I’m more curious than scared. “Why are you hooking me up to a machine?”
“So we can learn a few things about your body,” he says.
Th
e way he talks about my body is like it’s not connected to me, not real. And the way he’s taping these little wires onto me makes me feel like Frankenstein, that guy in a movie they showed one time.
My Name Is Not Easy Page 10