Somkit lifted his eyes to her portrait. He looked back at Pong.
“Please,” said Pong. “Tell them.”
Somkit nodded. He uncurled himself slowly and sat up a little straighter. “I know what Ampai was planning,” he said, too quiet to be heard. He cleared his throat and said it again. When the other conversations in the room didn’t die down, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “I know what Ampai was planning!”
Two hundred heads swiveled to look at him.
Mark blinked behind his glasses. “Somkit, you know this secret of Ampai’s?”
“Yes,” said Pong. He stood up and hooked his hand under Somkit’s armpit. Before his friend could protest, Pong pulled him to stand beside him. “We both do. We were helping her with it.”
“Well, come up here, boys,” said Mark. “Come on, don’t dawdle. All these people are waiting.”
The crowd sitting on the floor scooted aside to make a narrow lane for the two boys to reach the front of the room. Pong suddenly felt tiny and embarrassed.
“Your lantern,” he whispered to Somkit. “Show them.”
Somkit had one small sun orb tucked in the cloth satchel hanging from his shoulder. It was the only one left, just a little lantern that he’d rigged together and kept at the Mud House back door in case of emergencies. After the fire, Pong had made sure to grab it so none of the police would find it.
Somkit stood with his hand on his satchel for so long that Pong thought he was going to refuse to show it. Finally, he reached inside and pulled out the sphere of glass. He twisted the copper contacts together on the top of the orb, and a beam of soft Gold light shone out from his hand.
Everyone in the room gasped.
“Gold light!” said a voice in the crowd.
“You stole that?” said another.
“No,” said Pong loudly. “He made it. Somkit, tell them what you did.”
There was a hush of wonder over the room as Somkit explained how he had used the faded orbs to collect light from the sun. He was nervous and went into way too much technical detail, but he must have been clear enough, because when he was finished, awed whispers rippled through the crowd.
“That light is impressive,” said the educated man. “But don’t forget what the Governor can do. He makes all the light in our city! We could never outshine him in a hundred years!”
“The point wasn’t to outshine him,” said Pong. “The point was to show him —” Pong shook his head and started again. “The point was to show yourselves that you don’t need him. You don’t need his light. You don’t need his laws. You can do it without him.”
He tried to say the words exactly as Ampai had said them during their nightly missions together, but somehow it didn’t sound the same coming from him. Ampai had believed those words down in her core. Pong realized now that it wasn’t Ampai’s words that people had been willing to follow — not her words: her heart.
Somkit straightened up and squared his stance. “It doesn’t matter!” he shouted angrily. The crowd quieted. “It won’t work anyway. Every orb I made except this one burned in the fire. Along with everything else.” He grimaced and looked down at the lantern in his hand. “It took us days to gather up enough faded orbs just to do this. The march is tomorrow night. That means we have one full day of sunlight. We’ll never get enough orbs in time.”
The giant Kla stood up again, towering over everyone around him. “I’ve got a faded orb for you. Our only light went out last night. My wife and me are in darkness. But I’d rather give that empty orb to you than have a thousand new ones. It’s yours.”
“I have one that just went out tonight!” called a voice at the back.
“And me!” cried another. “I brought it to take to the recycler, but you can have it!”
An older woman leaned on a cane and stood up. “The people of this city are heartbroken. We would give anything to honor the memory of our beloved sister. If we all work hard and spread the word quickly, I know we can get you what you need.”
Pong looked at Somkit. “What do you think? There’s no reason to keep all this a secret anymore.”
“But what about my rig?” said Somkit. “The catcher, the sun juice jar. All of that was destroyed in the fire.”
“Hey, Somkit!”
They turned to see the guy from the motor repair shop with the short-long hair standing up at the side of the room. “You need any help? I got a crew that’ll lend a hand.” He nodded at the other guys from the shop, who sat around him. “And any supplies you need, I’ll get them for you. I’ll pay for them out of my salary if I have to.”
Somkit looked at the portrait of Ampai, then back to Pong. “Okay,” he said. “I guess we should get started.”
The crowed hummed with nervous energy.
“All right, all right, everyone, calm down,” said Mark, trying to hush them. “You have all heard the arguments presented tonight. Ampai herself would never force anyone to be a part of this if they didn’t want to. If you choose to bow out, no one will hold it against you. But clearly, if there is a time to finish what she started, we cannot wait. Those who will join the march tomorrow, gather with me at the south side of the building. Thank you, everyone.”
And with that, the crowd stood up to take their sides.
There,” said Pong, rising up on his knees and arching his back. “One hundred and eighty-six. That’s even more orbs than you had before.”
Somkit sat back on his heels and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “When I close my eyes, all I see are copper wires and glass spheres.”
They sat in the back bedroom of Mark’s sister’s apartment. The morning sunlight had just begun to shine through the tissue-paper screen covering the window. In front of them, orbs of every size were arrayed in tidy rows along the wall, largest to smallest. Pong and Mark had stayed in the warehouse all night, receiving the faded orbs that people brought in from all over the city. Somkit had taught a team of Short-Long’s friends how to rig up the orbs and sun juice collectors so they’d be ready to start charging at daybreak. Soon they’d take the catchers and jars up to the roof and lay them out on tar paper to soak up the sunlight.
Pong felt woozy. Sunup was usually his bedtime. But he was relieved that his friend seemed to have turned a corner. He’d lost himself in the work and was acting more like the old Somkit now.
“Do you think people will still come?” asked Pong, standing up stiffly. “I mean, not just the people we know, but everyone else Ampai signed up. Remember, she thought she could get a thousand people to march?”
“Hmm. More like nine hundred and ninety-nine, actually.”
“Huh?”
Somkit wiped his grease-stained palms on his trousers and stood up. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to Pong.
“What is this?”
“Border permit. And I got you a boat to go with it. Don’t worry, it’s not a pink taxi. It’s a fast boat with a souped-up motor.” Somkit pressed his thumb to his chest. “The souping-up done by yours truly.”
Pong flipped the permit from front to back. He looked at it for a moment and then held it out to Somkit. “Thanks, but I’ll take it after the march is over.”
Somkit pushed the permit back to Pong. “You’re not marching,” he said firmly. “You can’t be on that bridge tonight. There might be police there. If they start checking people, you’ll get taken back to prison.”
“But what about you?” said Pong.
“They can’t arrest me for walking with my friends.”
Pong nodded to the rows of orbs. “What about for making light?”
“That’s not illegal. Yet.” Somkit’s smirk turned serious again. “Come on, man, you know it’s not the same. Even if they did arrest me, it would be for a little while. If they get you, it’s forever.”
Pong studied the permit again. It was true. If he stepped out on that bridge, he might as well turn himself in at the police station.
�
�I know you wanna be there,” said Somkit, “but you’ve done a lot already — more than you had to. It’s the perfect time to leave the city. With the march going on, the police will be distracted.” He swallowed and added, “If Ampai were here, she’d tell you to go.”
Pong nodded. So this was it. He was really going.
Somkit twisted his mouth side to side, the way he did when he had something to say but didn’t want to say it. This might be the last time Pong would ever see him. If Pong wanted to tell him anything, he had to do it now.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out.
“It’s okay,” said Somkit. “Like I said, hopefully all the people who promised to march will still —”
“No, that’s not what I mean.” Pong took a breath. “I’m sorry that I left you behind at Namwon.”
Somkit’s mouth froze mid-twist. “Huh?”
“When I escaped, I left you alone to fend for yourself. I wasn’t thinking about you or how your life would turn out without me. Honestly, I wasn’t thinking about anything, really.” Pong’s words spilled out faster than he intended. “I got out, and you had to stay. That wasn’t — that wasn’t fair. I hated myself for that. I wouldn’t blame you for hating me, too.”
Somkit stared at Pong, one nostril crinkled, his upper lip curled back, as if he were trying to locate the source of a bad smell. “What the heck are you talking about?”
Pong was slightly annoyed. It was hard enough to say all of this. Somkit didn’t have to make it harder.
“The day I escaped,” he said with a sigh. “I left you behind, and —”
“You left me behind?” Somkit shook his head. “You didn’t leave me. I’m the one who set that whole thing up, remember?”
Pong blinked. “What?”
“You mean all this time you thought you managed that escape all by yourself?”
Now it was Pong’s turn to be confused. “Well, I . . .”
“You honestly thought that it was a coincidence that I had you help me gather up those durian rinds just when the guards happened to not be watching?”
Pong blinked again, trying to remember that day: Somkit’s weird coughing and his funny raised eyebrows. He had forgotten about it until now.
“But you never told me. . . . We never talked about it. . . .”
“Come on, man, we couldn’t talk about it in front of the guards. I gave you the sign!” Somkit did the funny eyebrow-cough again, meaningfully. A smile tugged at his lips. “And all the time you sat in the basket, you think I didn’t know exactly where you were? I put the lid on and clamped it on tight so it wouldn’t fall off! I watched the trashman pull up to the dock and put you on the boat. I stayed close by the whole time to make sure that none of the guards got suspicious and nobody stopped you from going.”
“You . . . did all that?” said Pong.
Somkit frowned darkly. “I did. And I regretted it. I didn’t think about how serious it would be for you to run away from Namwon. It wasn’t until after you were gone that it hit me that if you ever got caught, you’d go back to jail forever.” Somkit looked up at Pong and bit his bottom lip. “You just seemed so miserable. You weren’t yourself anymore. You wanted out so bad. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I started thinking that if you stayed, you’d die there. I thought I was helping you. All those years you were gone, I wondered what happened to you. I dreamed that maybe you made it across the border or down to the sea. But when you showed up that night in the canal and I saw your tattoo, I realized that what I did was curse you. You’re going to be on the run for the rest of your life. I’m the one who needs forgiving, not you.”
Pong stood frozen, not knowing what to say.
There was a knock on the wall, and then Mark appeared in the doorway. “All right, Somkit, you ready? The guys are here to take everything up to the roof.”
Somkit looked at Pong, then back at Mark. “Um, give me just one more minute and I’ll come with you.”
Mark nodded and left.
Somkit looked down at the border permit Pong held in his hand. “I guess we both have things to be sorry for. Does this make us even?”
“I don’t know,” said Pong. “There’s one thing I don’t think I can ever get over. . . .”
Somkit’s brow lifted, worried.
“You making me sit in a basket of rotten durian rinds,” said Pong.
Somkit grinned. “It was that bad?”
“I threw up on my own crotch. Twice.”
Somkit threw his head back and laughed. He elbowed Pong in the side and then put his arm around Pong’s shoulder. The boys hugged, a brief and awkward embrace.
Later, as Pong made his way to the boat waiting for him, he wished he’d given Somkit a proper hug goodbye.
But it was too late now. There was a current pulling him south, and he couldn’t fight it anymore, even if he wanted to.
Mr. Prapan put his hands on his desk and stretched his spine left, then right. It had been a long day for him. On the corner of his desk were two stacks of papers that he still had to transcribe into his border control notebook before he could leave for the evening. One stack represented all the people who crossed the northern border out of Chattana province that day; the other stack was for all of the people who had come in. The second stack was twice as tall.
Prapan leaned over his desk and looked out his little square window. He sighed gratefully. There was only one person left to process, thank goodness.
“Next!” he called.
A girl who couldn’t be much older than twelve or thirteen approached his window. She set down her bag and walking stick, then slid her passport through the slot under the glass.
“Good afternoon,” said Prapan, opening the document. “Where are you off to today?”
“To Lannaburi, sir,” replied the girl without meeting his eyes.
Prapan looked past her, into the waiting room. “Are you traveling by yourself?”
The girl kept her head down so her short black hair fell over her cheeks. “Yes, my mother and siblings went on ahead of me. They’re meeting me at the ferryboat station.”
Now she did look up at Prapan, and he noticed that her eyes were red and puffy, as if she’d been crying. She fidgeted, rubbing the fabric of her left sleeve between her fingers. The whole situation was a little suspicious, but the girl’s passport was in good order, and she’d been approved to cross the border before. Besides, Prapan wanted to go home already.
He had started to flip through her papers when his coworker slid into the chair beside him. Everyone in the office called her Shorty.
“You still here, Prapan?” Shorty asked, smacking her chewing gum. “Time to shut down for the day, don’t you think?”
“Tell me about it,” said Prapan. “We had so many people crossing into Chattana today! More than we’ve had in months.”
“Really? What for?”
“Well, they all gave different reasons, but I can tell what they’re actually here for because they’re all wearing black armbands.” He lowered his voice a bit. “They’re going to the city. For that march.”
Shorty’s eyes widened, impressed. “Really? But I heard that woman who was leading it — Ampai — was killed.”
Prapan nodded. “In that fire. So sad. Can you imagine if it had gotten out of control? Could’ve been like the Great Fire all over again.”
Shorty let out a slow whistle. “Hard to believe. But the people are going to march without her?”
“Guess so.” Prapan shrugged and kept flipping through the girl’s passport. Flip, stamp. Flip, stamp.
Shorty scratched the back of her head. “Are you gonna go to the march?”
Prapan paused mid-stamp. “Are you kidding? I don’t want to get in trouble. If I got arrested, I’d lose this job! Then what?”
“Aw, you wouldn’t get arrested for walking across a bridge,” said Shorty, leaning back in her chair. “As long as you don’t cause any trouble, there’s no law against it.”
“Not yet,
anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Prapan leaned toward Shorty and said quietly, “At the central office this morning, I overheard that the Governor is cracking down. After the fire, he’s got no choice. He’s changing the law to make marching a crime. If anyone shows up on that bridge, they’re going straight to jail.”
Shorty leaned back, shocked. “But can he do that?”
“Aw, you know that he does whatever he wants,” said Prapan, stamping the last page of the passport. “And we just have to make do and keep on living. Now — hey, where’d she go?”
The girl who’d been standing at his window was gone. Prapan leaned over the desk and called into the waiting room. “Miss? Excuse me, miss?”
“Now, isn’t that odd?” he said, sitting back down. “I didn’t even hear her leave.”
Pong was getting a late start out of Chattana. After staying up all night to help with the orbs, he had slept for a few hours. He had jolted awake, sweaty and anxious to get going, but then had to wait for Short-long to meet him in a safe place with the boat. By the time he had started up the motor, it was already late afternoon.
Pong turned up the speed, trying to follow the instructions that Somkit had given him. It wasn’t too complicated, thank goodness. This was a long-tail boat, designed with the motor, orb, and rudder all attached to the same long pole. Pong could sit at the back of the boat and operate everything all at once. It was terrifying at first, but at least there was hardly any traffic on the river to worry about.
He was ready to get pulled over by police boats at any moment, but so far he hadn’t been stopped. In fact, he hadn’t seen any police craft on the river at all, which was peculiar. Somkit was right — the police had their attention elsewhere.
A Wish in the Dark Page 19