Home of the Brave Read online

  stumbling in the stubborn snow.

  Dave and Lou follow.

  Lou has on a thick red coat

  and a hat with a fuzzy ball on top.

  Ganwar is still leaning against Gol.

  You cousin has an idea, says Dave.

  My grin is so big it hurts.

  You can work with me here! I exclaim.

  Helping with the farm!

  All is quiet.

  Ganwar looks doubtful.

  He doesn’t say yes,

  but he doesn’t say no, either.

  I don’t have much cash, Lou says.

  You’d have to split

  the pay I’d promised Kek.

  But come spring I sell

  organic veggies and flowers

  at the farmers’ market,

  and you could help with that.

  She pauses. Assuming, that is,

  I hang onto this old place.

  Ganwar looks at me hard.

  I can’t take your charity.

  But I’m taking yours, I say.

  You’re sharing your home with me.

  I don’t know anything about farming, Ganwar says.

  I don’t either, I say.

  Ganwar turns to Lou and holds out his hurt arm.

  What about this? he asks.

  His voice is soft,

  but his words are shouting.

  We all look at Lou.

  Lou shrugs.

  Guess you’ll have to use the other one, she says.

  For some reason

  this makes Ganwar smile.

  He slowly nods.

  He glances at Dave.

  Can you come back later? he asks.

  We have dung to shovel.

  I laugh.

  It’s much harder here, I warn him.

  Everything freezes.

  Even that.

  Gol moos softly,

  as if she’s sorry to make work for us.

  Dave shakes my hand, then Lou’s, then Ganwar’s.

  Folks, this is great, he says.

  Ganwar, don’t let Lou down, buddy.

  He won’t, Lou says.

  She winks.

  Dave and Lou leave us

  in the cold barn.

  I look around me.

  It’s not a great herd I see,

  dotting the grass

  like clouds in a vast green sky.

  It’s just a tired flock

  of scrawny chickens

  and a cow with ribs trying to hide

  behind her muddy coat.

  But for a moment,

  as Ganwar and I hum

  one of the old songs,

  we are where we belong

  in the world.

  FIELD TRIP

  The next week,

  my ESL class takes a field trip to the zoo.

  Field trip is another English trick,

  like raining cats and dogs

  and a barrel of laughs

  because there is no field

  and it’s not a far trip

  like the one I took from Africa.

  We take a yellow bus.

  When we get to the zoo,

  we must stand in line to get our tickets.

  The other kids complain,

  but I am used to lines.

  One day in the refugee camp

  I stood in line for nine hours

  to get a handful of corn.

  At last a guiding lady walks us past

  birds and lizards,

  fish and butterflies,

  zebras and elephants.

  We’re looking for animals

  from our homelands.

  I see gazelles

  standing on a low hill

  beyond a fence.

  I remember such animals bounding

  through tall grass,

  riding the air like

  wingless birds.

  I wonder,

  How did they come to be here in this strange, cold world?

  They flick their tails

  and check the horizon for danger.

  They’re safe here,

  but they don’t know it.

  We visit the petting zoo,

  with its animals for touching

  who will not eat your hand.

  There are goats and chickens and pigs,

  a llama and a turkey,

  but no cows.

  We are supposed to be watching the animals,

  but I can’t stop looking at the people

  looking at all the animals.

  A class of little children

  laughs at the pigs

  rolling happily in cold mud.

  Their class looks like our class,

  or maybe we look like them:

  many colors and shapes

  and words.

  Of all the things I didn’t know

  about America,

  this is the most amazing:

  I didn’t know

  there would be so many tribes

  from all over the world.

  How could I have imagined

  the way they walk through the world

  side by side

  without fear,

  all free to gaze at the same sky

  with the same hopes?

  What would my father have said,

  to see such a thing? My brother?

  What will my mother say?

  I walk behind my classmates to the next exhibit,

  but I am not alone.

  My family is with me,

  and every sight is something they cannot see,

  and every hope is something they cannot feel.

  To carry them, unseen as wind,

  is a heavy burden.

  THE QUESTION

  All afternoon my belly aches.

  Maybe I should have eaten more, I tell myself.

  But I know the hurt of hunger well.

  Hunger is a wild dog

  gnawing on a dry bone,

  mad with impatience

  but hoping still.

  It isn’t hunger I feel today.

  This pain is worse,

  one without pity

  like an icy night.

  This pain is a question,

  the one my heart will not stop asking:

  Why am I here,

  when so many others are not?

  Why should I have a desk

  and a pair of fine jeans

  and a soft place for my head to rest?

  Why should I have the freedom to hope

  while my brother and father

  sleep in bloodied earth?

  I should not take these gifts

  I do not deserve.

  And yet I know I will take them,

  warm food

  and soft bed

  and fresh hope,

  holding on tight

  as that wild dog

  to his bone.

  APPLE

  Before ESL we have homeroom.

  I don’t much like it.

  In my homeroom are only

  three other ESL students,

  and I don’t speak their words.

  All the rest are from America.

  One morning,

  a folded paper waits on my homeroom desk.

  I think maybe it’s a note to pass.

  I’ve seen other students

  hand paper to each other

  during the loud man in the wall

  named Announcements.

  It’s exciting to think

  I might already have a homeroom friend.

  When I open it, I see a picture.

  It’s not a good drawing.

  But after a moment I can see

  it’s a dead body made of bones.

  Hungry, Kenya? a boy in the back asks.

  His voice has knives in it.

  He holds up an apple half eaten.

  None for me, thank-you, I say,

  using my polite English words.

&nbs
p; And my home, I add,

  is not Kenya. It’s Sudan.

  He tosses the apple across the room.

  It lands on my desk

  and drops to the floor.

  My homeroom teacher

  looks up from his newspaper.

  Can the flying fruit, he says.

  Of course, I don’t want

  the apple to be wasted.

  I pick it up off the floor

  and throw it back to the boy.

  It hits him on the nose.

  I’m a fine thrower of rocks and balls.

  It is not my fault the boy moved.

  The teacher gives me a detention slip.

  I’m not sure what this slip means,

  but I do know I’m the only one in class

  who receives one.

  I feel very lucky

  to be selected by my teacher

  for such an honor.

  GROCERY STORE

  The next afternoon,

  Hannah invites me

  to visit the grocery store with her.

  Her mother she calls a foster has asked her

  to buy some food for dinner.

  We take another bus to a place

  of many cars in neat rows.

  By the time we get there

  the sun has already said good night.

  That’s it, Hannah says.

  Safeway.

  There isn’t enough food in the world

  to fill such a building, I say.

  I follow her inside,

  and she grabs a shiny cart.

  You don’t pay for this fine cart? I ask.

  You just borrow it, she explains.

  The grocery store

  has rows and rows

  of color, of light,

  of easy hope.

  Hannah moves down the aisle,

  but I stand like a tree rooted firm,

  my eyes too full of this place,

  with its answers to prayers

  on every shelf.

  Hannah glances over her shoulder.

  You OK? she asks.

  I reach out and touch

  a piece of bright green food

  I’ve never seen before.

  And then I begin to cry.

  Hannah rushes to my side.

  It’s OK, she says.

  We can leave if you want.

  She takes my hand

  and we leave the empty cart

  and go outside.

  We sit on the icy bench

  and wait for the bus.

  A car whooshes past.

  Its lights cut the gloom

  like the eyes of a great cat

  prowling for food

  in the moonlight.

  THE STORY I TELL HANNAH ON THE WAY HOME

  In our tent in the camp

  a baby was dying.

  Flies teased her eyes

  and her arms hung

  like broken sticks.

  Her mother was

  not much older than I am.

  All day long she

  whispered to the baby

  drink, drink, drink.

  All day, all night.

  We couldn’t sleep

  for the sound of it.

  But the baby had been hungry

  for too long

  and the bottle

  went untouched

  and after a while

  the mother stopped rocking

  and went silent.

  When the baby died,

  she covered her child

  with a feed sack

  and she said to no one,

  I told her to eat.

  Why wouldn’t she eat?

  When I’m done with the story,

  I stare out the window

  at the sunless world.

  Hannah stares with me.

  This time, she’s the one

  who cannot find any words.

  LIBRARY

  Ms. Hernandez and Mr. Franklin

  take us to the school library twice a week.

  It’s filled with books on shelves,

  climbing to the ceiling like

  little buildings.

  Each book is like a door

  waiting to be unlocked.

  Today I sit at a table

  but I don’t pick a book to read

  like everyone else in my class.

  Today,

  I don’t know why,

  feels like the day at the grocery store.

  Today I’m thinking of how my mother

  always wanted to learn to read,

  to own a book,

  to open one of these magical presents

  and see what’s inside.

  Ms. Hernandez shows me a book about cows.

  She asks me to find a picture of a cow like Gol,

  but I tell her I don’t feel

  in a library mood

  today.

  That’s OK, she says. I know how that goes.

  It’s just so hard to choose, I add.

  There are so many books.

  And where I come from,

  there are hardly any.

  Ms. Hernandez nods.

  I felt that way a lot

  when I first came here.

  Once I went to the mall and ended up

  hiding in the corner of a clothes store.

  It was just too many lights,

  too many clothes, you know?

  And I still feel kind of funny at movies.

  Have you been to a movie yet?

  I shake my head. Not one of the big movies.

  But I did see a little one

  on the flying boat.

  I went to a grocery store, though.

  I started to—

  I whisper the last word—

  cry.

  Ms. Hernandez pats my hand.

  It’s just too much sometimes, isn’t it?

  When you had almost nothing.

  And when you know that many people

  still have so little.

  I don’t know what to do with it all, I say.

  I kick at a chair leg.

  To have all this food and

  all these books

  and all this freedom.

  I feel sort of …

  I don’t know the word.

  Too lucky.

  It’s a big gift, she agrees.

  I reach for the cow book.

  My father would have liked

  this book, I say.

  I’d like to hear

  about your family, Ms. Hernandez says.

  I think for a minute.

  My father was a fine singer, I say.

  Tell me more, Ms. Hernandez says.

  And I do.

  GOING UP

  Time passes,

  the kind they call weeks.

  I have a little money from my job.

  I have to make myself believe that a

  crumpled piece of green paper

  means something,

  means anything.

  In my old world, it was easy—

  you could know a person’s

  wealth by counting his cattle.

  Hannah and I take the bus

  to a giant store filled with many things to buy.

  I’ve promised her

  I will not get upset this time.

  I want to buy my aunt some new dishes.

  There are stores within stores here

  and music and food.

  It’s bright and big,

  with toys and chairs,

  TV machines and T-shirts.

  What do you call such a place? I ask.

  The mall, Hannah replies.

  I follow her to a huge shiny store.

  I’ve herded cattle for hundreds of miles

  with only the stars to guide me.

  But I’m certain I could never

  find my way out of this place.

  Hannah takes me to two magic silver staircases,

 
; one going up,

  one coming down.

  I watch as the stairs melt away,

  then reappear.

  It’s just an escalator, she says.

  No big deal. C’mon.

  I shake my head. They had these at the airport,

  but Dave let me take the stairs instead.

  Is there another way to climb?

  She laughs. Well, there’s an elevator.

  That would be a better way, I think.

  OK, but you gotta promise me you’ll try it

  next time. It’s fun, Hannah says.

  So are elevators.

  The elevator is hiding near a row

  of puffy white coats,

  like clouds with arms.

  Hannah pushes a button.

  We wait.

  A bell rings, and then

  the doors vanish.

  I follow her into the little room

  waiting for us.

  She pushes another button,

  then—zoom!—

  up we fly.

  I think I left my stomach

  downstairs, I say.

  Hannah smiles.

  Told you it was fun.

  HEARTS

  Hannah leads me to shelves

  full of colorful dishes.

  I like some with many stripes,

  but she says I can’t afford them.

  She picks out a small box of white ones.

  This should pretty much

  replace what you broke, Hannah says.

  I cradle the box gently in my arms.

  the way I would carry a newborn calf.

  On the way to the paying place,

  we pass many red sparkling cards

  and much candy.

  Some of it is even chocolate.

  Valentine’s Day is in a couple days,

  Hannah explains.

  You give stuff to people you like.

  Plus it just happens to be

  my birthday.

  Hey, when’s your birthday?

  I don’t know, I admit. We don’t

  have birthdays in the way that you do.

  But I know I was born in the time

  you call summer.

  Hannah looks confused by this news.

  It’s hard for me to remember

  that she sometimes finds my ways

  as strange as I find hers.

  I must find you a gift, I say.

  After I pay you back the money I owe

  for the bus and the washing,

  how much do I have left?

  No way, Hannah says.

  You’re not spending your

  hard-earned money on yours truly.

  But it would make me very proud, I argue.

  And it’s my duty as your friend.

  Hannah grins out of one side of her mouth,

  a silly tilted smile

  like a new moon rising.

  OK, OK. See that little box of heart candy?

  You could afford that.

  It must be chocolate,

  I say firmly.

  She scans the shelves.

  Here, she says at last.