But most astonishing was her way with people. Anka had a gift for making those around her feel entirely at peace. Without realizing it, the townsfolk found themselves going out of their way for a chance encounter with the girl. Although the town had previously been small, with Anka’s arrival, it was as if the town sprang up around her. By the time she was eight years old, the township had more than tripled in size. It was a happy place.
As Oto and Anka grew, so did their love for each other. So it was no surprise to anyone when they announced at the beginning of Anka’s sixteenth year that they were to be married.
Oto felt that they had truly lived a charmed life. They had only been married a few years when Anka’s belly began to swell with the promise of new life, and Oto felt a sense of happiness and peace flood every part of his being.
So, when Mirka arrived one night to tell the pair that the time had come to leave the town they had lived in all their lives and to seek their future elsewhere, Anka and Oto merely smiled and shook their heads. “I am too old to travel, but you are the future. Sometimes you need to walk your journey to find peace,” Mirka pleaded. Even as she did so, she knew the ears of the young ones were deaf to her knowledge.
“We already have everything we could wish for right here,” Oto said. “Perhaps in a few years, when the baby is old enough to travel, then we could venture out, couldn’t we, Anka?”
Anka smiled her radiant smile, her hand resting on her stomach. “Of course. It’s just that now isn’t the right time.”
Both Oto and Anka were fond of Mirka, but she was old now, and they wondered if her perception of the world was deteriorating. They were both well aware of the war which was slowly eating its way across the country, but their town was so small and remote it seemed implausible that anyone would venture this far.
Mirka nodded. She had tried.
Later, Oto and Anka would remember the fear in Mirka’s voice when she told them to go, and Oto would never forget the look of sadness when she realized they would not listen.
And so, despite the warning, Anka and Oto were still living in the town when the soldiers came.
“Subhi.” Jimmie puts her hand over the pages. “I’ve got to go. Sorry.” But even though Jimmie is packing up the thermos and standing already, I don’t want to stop. Not now, when the soldiers are coming. I know from Queeny what happens when soldiers come. “Wait, just a bit more…”
But Jimmie looks at me with that don’t argue all over her face.
“Subhi. I don’t want it to end. I want this to last.”
I hand back that book without another word. I get it. I don’t want my ba’s stories to ever end either. “Good thing you don’t know them, then,” the duck says quietly. “They can’t end if they never start.” He thinks he’s being funny.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Jimmie holds out another flashlight, smaller than the one she usually carries. “We can use these to signal each other. Like Morse code or something.”
I have no idea what Morse code is. The duck says, “Wait! We aren’t allowed a flashlight….” But my hand reaches out and takes the flashlight even though I don’t think I really want it. I guess I didn’t want that tattoo at first either.
“I don’t know Morse code,” I say, the flashlight feeling heavy in my hand.
“Oh,” Jimmie says. “Okay. Well, real Morse code uses a whole alphabet so you can write messages and everything. But we’ll do our own one. I’ll give three quick flashes on my flashlight to let you know I’m here, and you flash back three times if you’re there and it’s safe to come in. If I don’t see the flash, I won’t come.”
My head nods but this seems like a pretty stupid idea, because what if someone sees us?
“Two long flashes means help. That way, if ever you need me, you just flash, okay?”
The thought of that makes me laugh, and now Jimmie looks kind of cross. If she’s even a bit like Queeny, I really don’t want to make her cross.
“Got it,” I say, and give the flashlight a practice flash. “But what if I need help when you’re not at the fence?”
Now Jimmie sees the stupid in her thinking and laughs as well. “Well, it might work farther up the hill. I’ll try, okay? Watch for me and flash back if you see me.”
As she’s turning to go, she says, “What do you see when a duck bends over?”
“What?”
“Its butt quack.” Then she’s gone.
“That wasn’t even funny,” the Shakespeare duck says, but it’s hard to hear over the sound of my trying to snort back giggles.
After a bit, I see a light flash over by the fence. I flash back, real fast, then shove the flashlight under the dirt in case anyone comes.
That light flashes three more times, each time moving higher in the dark. I flash back every time. I wonder how far away Jimmie is now. It feels nice, knowing we’re talking, even though she’s not here.
I wonder if we can learn Morse code for real.
All the way up the hill Jimmie turns and flashes the light. When Subhi flashes back, she lets loose a long howl of happiness into the sky. She wonders if he can hear it from their corner. Or if he’s still even at their corner. Or if he’s in one of those big tents already. She wonders which tent is his, and how many people he lives in there with.
She wonders what it would be like, only knowing what’s inside that fence. Never being able to go exploring. Never swimming in the creek or running down a hill. “He’s probably never even climbed a tree,” she says out loud. Jimmie feels the howl in her throat turn from happy to sad at the unfairness of it all.
How could people be so mean to each other when isn’t everyone just the same anyway and why can’t anyone work that out? Jimmie can feel the frustration growing inside her chest until she’s just about ready to burst from not being able to do anything about it, and suddenly the whole world seems to get darker, like she is looking through sunglasses.
So when she gets home and sees the phone, the idea just seems to pop into her head. Jonah will never notice it’s missing. He’s used up all the credit anyway, and when he can’t find it he’ll probably think that he’s lost it himself.
So Jimmie slips the phone into her pocket. Someday she’ll show Subhi around for real. But she can still show Subhi everything he wants to see now. She’ll show him her house and Raticus and Jonah and Dad and the bike with the bent wheel and her room. And her mum. She’ll show him the trees and the river and the termite hills and the ant nests and the bus stops waiting to take him wherever he wants to go.
She’ll show him everything he has to look forward to and everything he’s going to see. Everything they can share together. Jimmie’s never had a friend she wanted to share everything with before.
That night, Jimmie doesn’t sleep with her mum’s book. Instead, she puts it in her drawer along with the phone. Waiting for Subhi to share it with.
Queeny is talking to Eli. She’s over by the fence, and even though I know it’s stupid, I feel a kind of angry watching him talk with her and not me. Eli tries hard to meet up with me every day, but things are different now that he’s in Alpha. Their meals and showers are at different times and mostly he’s always busy with the other men, walking the fences, their heads bent over, talking about things that Eli won’t tell me. “It’s nothing. Just boring blabber,” he said when I asked. It’s not his fault. He’s the one stuck over there. He’s the one needing to make friends and keep strong. But mostly now I don’t get to talk with Eli. Not for real. And I miss him.
I still haven’t told him about Jimmie. I will. I just haven’t found the right time, is all. A time when it’s just us and Eli is looking at me for real again, like he used to. Some days I get the feeling that Eli isn’t really hearing much of what I’m saying anymore. Like his head is busy thinking on other things that aren’t me.
When I go up to the fence, Queeny shoves something in her pocket. She’s no good at hiding things.
“Show him,” Eli says. “Subhi won’t
tell.” The way he says it makes me feel about ten times bigger than before. I wish more than ever that Eli was back in Family with me.
Queeny looks me hard in the eye. “You tell even that stupid duck you carry around and I swear, Subhi, I’ll rub you in pig fat and set the Jackets’ dogs on you, you hear?” The duck squeaks in shock.
Then Queeny pulls out a camera. A real camera. The only cameras I’ve ever seen were when the newspaper guys came and took a big photo of all of us in here, waiting. I was right at the front and smiling, which Queeny said was stupid because we weren’t meant to be happy. I told her I was happy though, and then she said something so quiet and low that I couldn’t make out the words. I didn’t ask her to repeat it.
For a while after that, we got a whole lot of stuff from people Outside who saw our picture. They sent us all sorts of things, and each week was an exciting kind of wait to see what would turn up through Security.
But then the newspaper people and their cameras were stopped from visiting and any mail sent to us was returned to the person who sent it, and it was just like those newspaper people had never been.
And now Queeny is here with a camera she’s trying to hide.
“It’s so people on the Outside know the truth,” Eli says. He’s beginning to sound a lot like Queeny. I wonder how many times they’ve talked when I haven’t been around. “This camera, it sends the photos straight out into the world, right on to people’s computers. We don’t even have to plug it in. All I have to do is get it into the computer room.”
I’ve never been in the computer room. Kids aren’t allowed. There are only eight computers in there, and the adults are put on a roster so they know when it’s their time. I guess that’s one good thing about Eli being in Alpha. Now he gets to use the computers.
“It’s tricky though,” Eli says, “because those Jackets stand right over your back and take notes on all the stuff you try and look up. But I’m doing it, Subhi. I’m doing it. I’m getting the photos out there for everyone to see.”
I smile and nod and say, “Great,” but both Queeny and Eli know I’m bluffing because the excited goes out of their faces pretty quick.
“You don’t get it, Subhi,” Queeny says. “It’s so the Outside will remember us.”
When I don’t answer, she shakes her head at me. “That’s why we’re all dumped out here in the middle of nowhere, Subhi. So everyone forgets us. Don’t you see? This way, we don’t even exist.”
Queeny says that kind of stuff a lot. And she thinks I’m the stupid one.
“But that will change,” Queeny says. There’s something about the way she says it, quiet but with her chin sticking out like it does when she isn’t going to stand for any argument, that makes me feel all cold inside.
“Soon, Subhi, the people out there will remember us. Soon they’ll see that living in here isn’t living at all. We just need to show them who we are, that we’re people, and then they’ll remember. This time, they won’t forget.” Her eyes zip over to Eli, and they give each other a look. I don’t know what that look means, and I don’t feel ten times taller anymore. I feel like I’m not even there at all.
“But if you get caught…they’ll call you troublemakers. They’ll put you in Beta—”
Eli laughs and sticks his arm through the fence to give me a shove. “We won’t get caught, little bruda. Don’t you worry about that.”
Queeny just shakes her head at me like I’m some vomit she’s stepped on with bare feet. “Some things are worth the risk, Subhi. Don’t you see that? When are you ever going to notice what’s going on around you? When are you going to grow up?”
Eli turns to Queeny, a quiet hard in his eyes. “Leave it, Queeny.” And Queeny doesn’t say anything else. But neither does Eli. He doesn’t even tell her she’s wrong.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve been standing there for only a few minutes, I don’t want to be at the fence anymore. Not when Eli is like this. Not with Queeny going on about that camera. “Well, I’ll see ya,” I say, a lump in my throat. Eli gives me a smile, and the two of them wait for me to walk away before they start back talking again.
Queeny wasn’t always like this. She used to be different. It was Queeny who taught me how to read and write and do math. For a bit, a teacher came and taught everyone. But then the Jackets said it was too expensive and there were too many kids, and that the Outside school had said we could go there instead. Everyone had cheered, thinking on going to an Outside school. But it didn’t work out how they said. It never does. The school only had enough spaces for five kids, and in the end those five kids decided they didn’t want to go anyway. That was after some of the Outside kids had grouped on them at the school and chased them around with sticks, and the school bus driver wouldn’t let them get on the bus wearing flip-flops, and a teacher had made them all miss lunch because they hadn’t done their homework.
They didn’t bring another teacher back here after that. They just got a Jacket to watch us so we could do connect-the-dots and trace over pages with letters on them and color in pictures of the flag. But Queeny said that was a joke and that she knew enough to be a teacher anyhow. She taught a whole bunch of us.
That was when Queeny still looked forward. When she still talked about Someday. That was back when Queeny was still good at playing. We would make up imaginings and Queeny would pretend she was a bad guy and chase me over the dirt and catch me and tickle me until the breath got too tight in my chest and I’d snort out snot. Queeny taught me about all sorts. About how to swim and how to ride a donkey and how to climb trees. And even though there was no river or donkey or trees, she’d still make me practice, imagining as best we could. Her favorite was the tree climbing. She told me all about the tree she used to climb back in Burma, and how you just have to take it one step at a time and not look down until you reach the last branch. Then when you do, you can breathe in the brand-new air that is sweet and fresh from the clouds and the best air in the whole world to breathe.
Queeny would make things for me too. Little people from rope and sticks, and plastic-bottle cars and trucks and fences. I’d sort through the stick people and choose one to be our ba. Queeny would say ói! and her head would nod yes. “That’s our ba!” Then all of us Stick People would walk out of those fences, like the only reason every one of us was in here was to wait for my ba to come.
For years I didn’t get it. That we aren’t wanted in this place, or in Burma, or in any other place. I didn’t get that we aren’t wanted anywhere. For a long time I thought we were just waiting on my ba, is all.
Queeny stopped looking forward a long time ago. “Why do you need to be able to read, stuck in here forever?” she said one day. “Here, we are the dead rats they leave out to stop other rats from coming.” It doesn’t really make much sense though, because no matter how many dead rats the Jackets leave in traps around the place, the living ones come back. If rats don’t fall for it, I don’t know why people would.
I always told myself that Someday Queeny would remember how to look forward again. And sitting back in the tent I realize that she is. All her talk about soon this and soon that. It’s just not the way I thought it would happen. This isn’t the Someday I imagined.
Nasir died today.
I’m back in our corner, waiting for Jimmie, and all I can think on is Nasir. When Harvey told me, it didn’t feel real. That I wouldn’t see him again. That I wouldn’t sit with him again. It felt more like an imagining. Like when I’m thinking about sailing on the sea or climbing a mountain or riding a bike. My brain can’t work out being here without Nasir.
I said that to Harvey.
“Of course it doesn’t feel real, kid. You’ve seen Nasir every day of your life. He’s your friend.” Then Harvey held me close, even though he’s not supposed to, and whispered in my ear so only I could hear. “Tonight, you look up at that sky, and there will be a new star there. The brightest star in the sky. That will be Nasir. He’s looking out for you, kid.”
&n
bsp; Then Harvey went and led a new boy over to Nasir’s bed. “Here you go, son. Make yourself at home. This here’s the best Family tent we’ve got, isn’t that right, Subhi?” All I could do was blink at the kid come here on his own, already sleeping in a bed that Nasir just died in. I bet he’s a head-whumper. The new ones usually are. I can just tell that that banging will keep us all up all night.
And that boy’s got no idea why everyone is staring at him with tears in their eyes.
“Nasir used to sleep there,” I said. “He died this morning.”
But knowing didn’t make the boy feel any better. Instead it made him run outside and pull at the fence and cry. Queeny came and punched my arm. “Good one,” she spat.
When I curled into Maá and let my tears soak her pillow, Maá didn’t even wake up. I moved her arm onto me.
I’m sad for Nasir for dying in here, for never getting his Someday. I’m sad for me too. Nasir understood things that other people don’t. Like sometimes, some of the oldies call me Aussie Boy. They say the way I talk sounds just like Harvey, and that even the way I walk is more Australian than Rohingya. They say it to make me feel good, but it doesn’t. It just puts more heaviness on my back so that even my footprints are deeper in the dirt, and I whisper the few words of Rohingya that I know, just so my brain doesn’t turn to thinking that they are right and that I am only Aussie Boy.
Nasir, he never called me Aussie Boy. Not even once. And now he’s dead.
When Jimmie flashes her light, for a moment I wonder if I shouldn’t flash back. Not tonight. But I do, and when Jimmie comes she can tell straight off that something’s wrong. She doesn’t ask me about it though. She doesn’t even try to joke around. Instead, she just pours us both out a cup of hot chocolate from her thermos and sits with her back leaning up against mine. We don’t even say anything. Not for a long time.
The Bone Sparrow Page 8