“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 209
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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 210
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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 211
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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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Th
ey belonged with the story Junior had written. Th
ey needed
Junior’s story for backup. No, backup wasn’t quite right. Th e
audience that was going to read Amiq’s story needed to read Junior’s story fi rst. Th
at’s how it worked. Th
e story Junior said
didn’t belong anywhere belonged with Amiq’s.
Th
at’s what Luke decided, walking down the hall toward the library.
Father Mullen was mad. Who was responsible for this? He waved a newspaper at them. It was the “Letters to the Editor” section of the Dallas Morning News, a newspaper none of them had ever even seen before. Th
e headline read: “From
the Ice Cellar to the Bomb Shelter: Seeking Missing People.”
It was signed “Aamaugak, a student at Sacred Heart School in Alaska.”
Who was Aamaugak?
Looking at the headline, Junior felt all the blood drain from his face. For a couple of long seconds, he couldn’t even breathe. Maybe he would suff ocate. Or throw up. He looked at Amiq. Amiq looked at him and shrugged, smiling the way he always smiled. Like everything was all part of some grand plan he’d always had.
“I’m sure there’s some explanation,” Father Flanagan was saying, standing next to Father Mullen, ringing his hands.
Junior could tell that Father Flanagan was trying hard not to look at him.
“We will sit here until we get the truth, ” Father Mullen said.
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Th
ey all sat, rigid in their seats, trying not to eye each other. Th
e silence roared in their ears like a military plane.
A plane full of weapons landing. Father Mullen’s gaze swept across the room, pausing on Amiq’s downturned head. Amiq sat still. Calm and certain. Th
en, very slowly and very delib-
erately, he stood up.
Luke looked at him and frowned, shaking his head with a movement so slight, most people wouldn’t have noticed it.
Amiq looked away.
“I’m responsible,” Amiq said in a loud voice. “I did it.”
Junior let out a big sigh of relief. He hadn’t realized that he’d been sitting there with his fi sts clenched, holding his breath. He was suddenly grateful that he was the kind of kid people never seemed to notice.
But wi
th his fi sts unclenched, he felt strangely fl at and defl ated. And then, just as suddenly, he was mad. Amiq had done it again! Even though he’d been trying to protect Junior, he’d done it again. Made Junior invisible. Made Junior’s writing invisible.
Junior raised his hand. It seemed at fi rst that no one even noticed him, way in the back, his skinny arm poised like a question mark.
Father Mullen looked at him with curiosity. “Junior?”
“Actually, sir,” Junior said, shoving at his glasses. He saw Donna’s face, closed as a book, and looked at Leo Pete, scared as a rabbit, and at Amiq, who frowned at him and said no with his eyes.
Yes?” Father said.
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“I wrote it,” Junior said. Th
e words seemed to fl y out of
his mouth. He looked straight at Father, thinking about his story, which was now a newspaper story no matter what anyone said. Th
e tape was rolling in his head again, and he could
hear it loud and clear: the word family. Suddenly his story seemed to belong to everyone, even Amiq. “In a way, sir . . . in a way, we all wrote it.”
He hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud.
Leo Pete shuffl
ed awkwardly, and the girls looked at Junior
with betrayed eyes, then they looked at Father with looks that said, “We never!” Amiq grinned at Luke.
Luke stared back. “It’s true,” he said.
Father Mullen looked at Junior and smiled. “Th
at’s very
noble of you, son,” he said. Th
en he told Amiq to follow
him.
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Civil Disobedience
SPRING 1964
Amiq was piling stuff together on his bed, acting like he was all alone in the room—all alone in the world, maybe. Acting like Luke and Sonny and the Pete boys didn’t even exist. He was staring at the bed as he worked with a look that said he didn’t see or hear any of them.
“What did you have to do that for?” Sonny said, fi nally.
It wasn’t a question; it was an accusation. Amiq fl ashed a look at Sonny.
“Because,” Amiq said. His jaw snapped shut on the word with a force that made Leo Pete think of his uncle’s steel traps.
“Pe-cuz,” Sonny mimicked.
Amiq scowled. For a second it looked like he was going to punch Sonny. Th
en his eyes got dark and his face went hard,
and you got the feeling they could do just about anything and it wouldn’t touch him. Wouldn’t even register.
Amiq’s duffl
e sat gape-mouthed on the fl oor, and he
started to cram it full of stuff : wrinkled clothes, broken pen-cils, a hunting knife and, unaccountably, a beat-up old copy 216
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C I V I L D I S O B E D I E N C E
of Th
e History of Alaska left over from Father Flanagan’s sev-enth-grade history class. He looked briefl y at the book and grinned. It was not an amiable grin.
“President Seward paid the Russians $7,200,000 for something they didn’t even own. A royal rip-off ,” he said, shoving the book underneath a wad of underwear. “Seward’s Folly.”
Th
e Pete boys eyed each other uncomfortably.
“Folly?” Leo said.
“Means ‘I jokes,’” Amiq said, no humor whatsoever in his voice. He eyed Sonny sidewise. “Least we never let them set foot on our land. Our grandfathers killed trespassers. All of them.”
Sonny leaned forward, tense. It wasn’t entirely clear exactly who Amiq was including in the word all. But Amiq had already turned away from them like he never said it, punching dirty socks into the edges of his duffl
e.
“Somebody oughta beat the crap out of that guy,” Sonny muttered, looking at the Pete boys as if daring one of them to do it.
“Don’t bother,” Amiq said, his back to Sonny. “I’m already gone.”
His voice was fl at, like he didn’t even care. Which didn’t sound at all like Amiq. Not at all, Luke thought. Watching his face, Luke felt a sudden feeling of helplessness reaching its icy fi ngers deep into his chest. No matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t fi gure it out: Amiq had been willing to take all the responsibility—he had wanted to take it. But why? He’d written the missing-person ad, all right—the ad that said Isaac 217
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had been kidnapped—but Isaac was Luke’s responsibility, and the story itself was Junior’s. And the newspaper—well, that had nothing at all to do with Amiq. Luke had sent those stories in to the Dallas newspaper. So why did Amiq want to take the whole rap himself ?
Father Mullen had said that people like Amiq didn’t belong at Sacred Heart, and right now, watching the way Amiq stood there, his back to the world, zipping up his duffl
e, ready to
run off into the dark of the night for who knows what, Luke thought maybe Father was right. Amiq was a lone ranger, and lone rangers belonged alone.
But what would happen to Amiq if he left them? Luke didn’t know. All he knew for sure was that if Amiq were to leave right now, leave before they even had a chance to get him on a plane, he wouldn’t go home. Not with his dad gone.
If Amiq left now, he wouldn’t even survive. Luke wasn’t sure how he knew this, but suddenly he knew it as sure as he knew anything. He thought about Amiq’s old man and Amiq’s vodka and all the drunks on Two Street like the one they found passed out behind a bar one time, frozen solid.
If Amiq leaves here right now, that’s exactly what’s gonna happen to him. If Amiq leaves alone, it would be like sending him off to disappear—or die.
Maybe Sonny was right. Maybe Amiq needed somebody
to beat some sense into him once and for all.
But when he looked from Amiq to Sonny, all he saw was a hard black web of anger, binding them both together in a stranglehold.
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It made him think of Bunna, watching out the window of Sacred Heat’s beat-up old bus that time. How mad he’d felt, watching Bunna roll away, his fi sts balled up against his side.
Mad and helpless.
“Only dogs get mad,” he muttered. He hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t even thought it; it just came out. It’s what his aaka used to say.
Th
en he thought of his little brother Isaac, riding off into the dark of another night, his nose pressed up against the window of a car. How scared he’d been, that time, standing there in the dark, watching. Scared and helpless. Knowing it would be forever. Just like with Bunna.
What good did it do to know things if nobody listened?
What good did it do to know things when you weren’t even sure what it was you knew or what to do about it?
Th
at hard spot in his gut tightened. He imagined it like a lump of helpless fear and anger, frozen solid. Frostbite.
I’m the one who tests the weather, Luke thought suddenly.
Th
ey have to listen.
He looked right at Amiq as hard as he could look. Without any anger, without any fear. Just knowing what he knew.
But Amiq wouldn’t look at him.
“You don’t have to do it,” Luke said. “Not by yourself.
Th
at’s how people die—going out alone.” He thought of Amiq’s dad.
“I know,” Amiq said quietly.
“If you go out th
ere now, all alone, it’ll kill you.”
Amiq looked up, fi nally. His face grew pale and helpless 219
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for just a second. Th
en with a fl ick of anger, he threw his
duffl
e over his shoulder and stalked out of the room. His whole body said it: who cares?
Luke thought of the ice age and how they’d survived it.
He imagined a white circle of frostbite on his own wrist, like a warning sign or a badge. Something you could wave in someone’s face: See? Not safe. I’m the law.
But when he looked at his wrist, he saw nothing.
It was late when Father Flanagan stuck his head into the room to tell them lights out. Later than usual. Nobody said a thing about the fact that Amiq wasn’t there. Th
ey didn’t have to.
Father looked right at Amiq’s empty bed and nodded.
“Go to sleep,” Father said quietly. “Th
e Lord will take care
of him.”
Father sounded so certain, it was hard not to believe him.
But we’re supposed to take care of him, Luke thought. Amiq is family.
Th
e thought was so loud, it startled him. He looked right at Sonny, and Sonny looked right back like maybe he’d heard the thought, too.
Father closed the door softly, and Luke leaned toward Sonny’s bed. “Hey, man, he’s our brother.”
Sonny didn’t answer, but he didn’t go to sleep, either. Th e
two of them just lay there, in the dark of night, watching shadows move while the others drifted off to sleep.
At last, Sonny sat up in the dark and spat out two words:
“Aw, hell.”
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Luke could hear Sonny fumbling around in the dark for his shoes, muttering, “Stupid Eskimo. Stupid doggone Eskimo.”
But there wasn’t any anger in his voice. Not a drop.
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