Authors: Katherine Applegate
stuck to the bottom of his running shoes,
I leave the room.
Lou calls for me on my aunt's telephone
to see if I will change my mind,
but I won't talk to her.
She tells my aunt I'm a hard worker.
She says she and Gol miss my smile.
One morning Mr. Franklin says,
Hey, Cowboy,
and I almost start to cry.
I say, Please don't call me that
anymore.
I am just Kek now.
But I don't tell him why.
Hannah says I am
cutting off my nose to spite my face.
I don't know what this means,
so she explains:
It means you are being a stubborn
moron boy.
She looks a little sad when she says this,
so I don't get mad at her.
Why don't you at least keep going
for a while? she asks.
It could be months before she leaves.
Because at the end I know
Lou and Gol and the farm
will be gone forever, I say.
Can't you understand this feeling?
Hannah chews on her lip.
Yeah, I guess I can, she says at last.
I wonder if maybe she is
thinking about her mother
who is not a foster.
But I don't ask.
The days warm and the world
begins again.
I think of Gol nosing the ground,
grateful to find tender grass
appearing at her feet.
After spring, Ganwar says,
comes the time called summer
and no school
and sun strong
as a young man.
He says Lou may not leave until summer ends.
But I close my ears to his words.
The last day of school
Ms. Hernandez and Mr. Franklin
put our desks into a circle.
Ms. Hernandez stands in the middle.
Here comes a speech, she says.
We all groan.
That noise is the same in all languages.
She laughs.
I promise it'll be a very short speech.
I just want you to know
that I'm very proud of all of you.
You have learned much and
come far this year.
She makes a funny sound in her throat,
but I do not think she has a cold.
Like so many immigrants before you,
I know you'll help make this country
a better, stronger place.
She wipes her eyes. OK.
Speech over.
Mr. Franklin brings over a big box
and places it on a desk.
Inside is a cake,
an amazing long cake.
I wonder if maybe it's the
biggest cake in the world.
Ta-da! he says.
In the middle of the cake
is a green lady with her arm
in the air.
She's holding
a green candle.
Anybody recognize this ol' gal?
Mr. Franklin asks.
The Statue of Liberty!
everyone yells at once.
Why is she falling over?
Jaime asks.
Hey, I'm a teacher, not a baker,
says Mr. Franklin.
Maybe she's tired,
Ms. Hernandez suggests.
She has a big job, after all.
Why does she have a dog? Pedro asks.
Mr. Franklin sighs loudly.
That isn't a dog.
It's a cow.
It's supposed to be Gol.
He shrugs. I thought it would
be a nice touch.
I look away.
I still haven't told anyone at school
that Gol will soon be gone.
There are words all over the cake
in green letters. Many words in squiggles.
Before we eat,
Ms. Hernandez says,
we read.
Everyone groans again,
but she holds a finger to her lips
and you know that means business.
Mr. Franklin lights the candle,
and Ms. Hernandez
makes her voice extra soft
so that we will pay attention.
That is a trick teachers like to use.
These are important words, she says.
They mean that
this is your country,
now and forever:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
The candle glows
in the green lady's hand,
and I don't understand all the words,
but somehow I know
they're strong and fine.
I wonder if someday it will feel
like they are meant for me, too.
And then we eat the cake.
All of it.
Except Gol.
I would not be truthful
if I said that winter
is my favorite time.
Winter is wet and heavy work.
True, I learned to make snowballs
like perfect moons
and to catch a snowflake
on my tongue.
But I grew weary of looking
for missing gloves.
After such a winter,
summer comes like a present with a bow.
Summer is ice cream and skateboards
and sweet grass under your
free toes.
And just as Dave promised,
the not-dead trees had been teasing me.
Their leaves stop hiding
and over my head they weave
a cool roof of green.
Ganwar says that the farm will
have its new owner at the end of summer.
Lou can stay till fall,
and then they will tear down the buildings.
Lou is sad, he says.
She misses me.
I say he can tell Lou and Gol
that I miss them.
But I will not be coming back.
Hannah tries to take my mind off the farm.
She knows all the secret summer things.
We take the bus to a swimming hole
shaped like a giant brick.
It's filled with blue water and
laughing children.
First hot sun is on your skin,
then you jump in!
For a while,
you are a fish
in a warm, pretending lake.
She takes me to the library, too,
like the one at school,
only with enough books
for the whole world to read.
They give me a card with my name on it,
and let me look at book after book.
The library workers don't even know me,
and yet they promise I can take books home.
To be trusted with such precious gifts
is a great honor.
My father would have sung me
a song of pride
to see his son so trusted.
Hannah helps me find books
with pictures of Africa.
They don't seem real, these flat colors
smooth to my fingers. They make me
happy but also sad.
I see a picture of a woman,
tall with strong arms and sunny eyes,
and for a moment,
a crazy moment,
I think it might be my mother.
She's like her,
I say to Hannah.
But not.
She's very beautiful, Hannah says.
I'm starting to not remember,
I whisper. Sometimes I can't
see her face in my mind.
Only when I'm asleep now
is she real.
I know, Hannah says.
It's the same for me, too.
The words steal her smile away,
like clouds over sun.
On the library table is paper
in little pieces in a box,
and a cup filled with short yellow pencils.
I give a pencil to Hannah.
You can still send a letter to her, I say.
I wait. She doesn't speak.
I say, You can, but
I cannot.
Hannah lets air out slowly
from her mouth.
She looks at me with her
leave-me-alone face.
But she takes the pencil.
It's a very small paper, I say.
It can be a very short letter.
She chews on the pencil.
She twirls hair around her finger.
She makes another face at me.
But when she starts to write,
she can't stop.
She fills paper after paper
with words.
At last she's done.
There, she says.
Happy?
I smile. Yes.
Now we'll go mail it.
Fine. She makes another
sighing noise.
And then I'll whip your butt
at basketball.
I don't mind that so much.
She's mad, but it's a
good kind of mad.
Besides, she always
beats me at basketball.
One hot day, Dave comes by to see how we are doing.
Hannah and I are in the parking lot.
She's teaching me how to skateboard.
I have many hard places on my knees and elbows
and a hat like a round ball on my head.
This is good because I fall down every time
I try to stand on the skateboard.
Hannah is trying not to laugh.
I am trying not to fall.
Lookin' good, buddy, Dave says,
but he is just being kind.
Why don't you take a break for a minute?
I've got some things to talk over with you.
I talked to Lou yesterday.
We sit on a bench in front of the apartment.
Hannah comes, too.
So you know about the farm, I say.
I take off my round extra head
and give it to Hannah.
I'm sorry, Dave says. I know you
liked working there.
I'll try to find you another place to help out.
Another place won't have Gol, I say.
Listen, buddy, Dave says,
I'm afraid I've got some more news.
I heard from Diane.
They tracked down the people who made it
to the two refugee camps we told you about.
Something grabs my throat
and tries to steal the air away.
None of them was your mom, Kek.
I look away.
Nearby a crow flaps his great, black wings
to chase away a sparrow.
Hannah pats my back.
There's still hope, though,
right? she asks.
Dave clears his throat.
There's another small refugee camp
about eighty miles south.
We're checking out that one.
I nod.
Remember how your aunt told me
you're an optimist, Kek? Dave asks.
I need you to stay strong.
In my pocket I feel the soft blue and yellow
fabric I have carried for so long.
I remember something Ganwar said to me.
Thank you for your helping, Dave, I say,
but what I'm thinking
is that a man knows when he's defeated.
I'm in our tent at the camp,
and all around me children and women sleep.
We are too crowded to lie down.
We sleep on each other, legs and arms twined.
There is moaning and snoring and muttering and drooling,
but it's a kind of uneasy peace.
I'm not so hungry tonight.
Grain came in bags from the helping people today.
Mosquitoes buzz at the tent flaps,
louder and louder still,
and then I know it is the drone of a flying boat.
The gunfire is almost gentle at first
â
pop
â
pop
â
pop,
and then it gets closer
and the world goes crazy with fear.
Children scream, mothers sob, men threaten.
A fire is burning somewhere close.
My mother takes my hand, firm, sure.
Come, my child, she says, as if we are
going for a walk to look at the moon.
We run from the tent
pretending a safe place lies just a few steps away.
My mother falls, her dress caught on a bush,
and then the gunfire comes harder,
flying toward us like hot little stars.
Run, Kek, my mother screams, run now.
I kneel beside her. I can't leave you, I say,
or I think I say, for my voice is swallowed
by the roaring night.
My leg's hurt, I can't run. You hide in the trees.
You can get help for me when it's safe.
Go. Now.
I start to run and I don't know
that I'm clutching her dress
and a tiny piece rips free
and I run
and the trees are waiting
and the men come
with their knives and their guns and their mysterious hate.
I wait with other children.
I hold a little child and cover her mouth
when she tries to cry.
Dawn comes, silence comes,
blood and death are everywhere.
And my mother is gone.
I awake to no blood, no bodies,
no Mama.
I'm on the sofa, and Ganwar sits on the floor
next to me.
You were moaning, he says.
It must have been a bad one.
I wipe my wet cheeks.
Very bad. I was in the camp,
and the men with guns came.
Ganwar nods. He clicks on a light
and the shadows take form.
I still have that one sometimes.
Not like this one. I shiver.
How can you be so sure? he asks.
You can't visit my head.
Because mine has truth in it, I say.