My Name Is Not Easy (8 page)

I will not cry.

“Yes, Father,” I say, looking down like I’m supposed to.

I will never cry.

Th

en, before Father can say another word, Bunna grabs his milk and drinks the whole glass fast, lumps and all, gasping for air like his life depends on it.

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Indian Country

SEPTEMBER 6, 1960

SONNY AND
CHICKIE

—

—

Sonny
was here last year and so was Amiq. Th ey both knew

the rules. Th

is side of the cafeteria is Indian Country and

that one over there is for Eskimos. Two sides, just like a board game—just like that chess game one of the volunteers had taught them how to play last year. Th

e fl oor even

looked like a chessboard, with big black and white squares.

On this side of the board, Sonny was king. Th

e other side

was Amiq’s.

Everyone else knew the rules, too, everyone except those two girls, sitting at their own table in their own fi eld of squares: one black-haired and one blond. Th

ose two were out

of the game altogether. Or maybe they’d already been cap-tured,
Sonny thought, watching the way the dark one’s long hair rippled across the side of her face. Her name was Donna and she’d been here last year, too. She never said a word to anyone about anything.

Skittish as a wolf.

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I N D I A N C O U N T R Y / S o n n y a n d C h i c k i e
Last year she always did the same thing: held her cafeteria tray in front of her chest like it might protect her, trying to fi nd the safest spot to sit. Sometimes she found a spot off in the corner, away from everyone, where she would sit real quiet.

Sometimes she wouldn’t even eat. Sonny paid attention to these kinds of things because he was used to looking after kids.

Th

at’s how it is when you’re the oldest kid in a big family.

Th

e freckled white girl with her was new and younger and, unlike Donna, she was so full of words she didn’t seem to have any control over when they came out or what they said. And you could tell that it didn’t make a bit of diff erence to her where
she
sat. Her name was Chickie, and she and Donna were roommates. Sonny’d heard her talking to Sister Mary Kate.

Sonny hadn’t seen that other kid until just now—he was small and unnoticeable, wearing huge black-framed Alaska Native Health Service glasses and sitting at the far end of the girls’ table, all alone—a little Eskimo with bad eyes. Sonny hadn’t noticed him until he shoved those glasses up onto the bridge of his nose, shifting himself into Sonny’s fi eld of vision with that one little movement.

Suddenly two more new girls were steering their trays across the room toward Sonny, sliding down onto the bench next to him like they’d known him forever, which they hadn’t.

Sonny, in fact, had never before seen either one of them. But even though they weren’t from his village, they were Athabascan, just like him, and they’d fi gured out the lay of the land in one shot. He moved over to make room for them.

Th

e one girl was named Rose and the other was Evelyn.

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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y

Evelyn reminded Sonny of old Anna Sam back home. Tough as a wolverine, with the kind of eyes that never missed a thing.

And right now she had her eyes trained on Amiq, who was marching across the cafeteria with his little string of Eskimo pawns. Evelyn didn’t like the looks of Amiq, you could tell, but she’d already fi gured out how things worked here at Sacred Heart School, and she knew that Amiq was the one Eskimo you had to deal with if you were going to deal with Eskimos.

“Somebody oughtta teach that kid a thing or two
,
” she muttered, looking straight at Sonny, like she fi gured Sonny’d be the one to do the teaching. Sonny nodded.

Th

e nuns had given them plates full of stringy meat,

mushy vegetables, and perfectly rounded scoops of potatoes with brown gravy poured on top, which made them look like ice cream sundaes, the kind you could buy at Dairy Queen in Fairbanks if you were rich. Th

e meat was okay, but the pota-

toes had no taste at all. Th

e gravy didn’t taste right, either. Like

someone had drained all the fat off .

“Swede never lets us eat fake potatoes,” Chickie announced loud enough for the whole place to hear. She wrinkled her nose for emphasis.

Donna didn’t say anything and neither did any of the others. Rose and Evelyn watched Chickie suspiciously from the sides of their eyes, and the Eskimos gave each other looks.

Chickie put her chin up high, looked right at Sonny, then grinned at all the Eskimos, even at the little one sitting off by himself.

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I N D I A N C O U N T R Y / S o n n y a n d C h i c k i e
Fearless,
Sonny thought.
Dumb, but fearless. Where the heck
did she come from?

“Hey, Junior. Come sit by us,” she called out, and the little kid with the big glasses picked up his tray, obediently, and moved over, shoving his glasses onto the bridge of his nose again and glancing around, like he was embarrassed to be singled out, embarrassed to move and embarrassed not to. All the Eskimo kids nodded at him and smiled like they all shared some private joke.

Th

is made Sonny nervous.

You don’t quiet down, them Eskimos gonna catch you when
you go outside to pee and chop your head right off . Play kickball
with it.
Th

at’s what Sonny’s mom used to tell them when they

got too wild back home. And when you’re a little kid needing to pee and it’s dark outside, talk like that can scare the pee right out of you.

But when you’re a big kid at Sacred Heart School and you know your grandfather and his brothers used to kill Eskimo trespassers . . . well, that kind of talk just makes you tough.