These people could be anybody.
Cell phones were not allowed in either the high school or the middle school. Jared always took his anyway, to use in the hall or at lunch or under the desk, but Mopsy, naturally, obeyed and never took her phone. Jared ran back in, scooped her cell off its charger in the kitchen and caught up to his sister. “Keep your phone on. If you need me, call. If the teachers whine about it, tell them you have to stay in touch because of Alake.”
Mopsy was delighted. She took the phone proudly, as if it symbolized something, and tucked it in the outside phone pocket of her book bag.
Alake's eyes drifted toward the phone.
In Austin, the two young men from Sudan lay awake all night. They did not talk to each other. There was no need.
Eventually the fifth refugee fell into that deep, almost comatose sleep of one who has traveled many hours and crossed several time zones.
At dawn the other two slipped out, abandoning the apartment to Victor. When they were safely away, they used Luke's cell phone—it was common for Christian Africans to have biblical names—and left a message at the refugee agency. “This is the kind of man we left behind. We will find somewhere else to live. Do not tell this man where we go. Do not give him our phone number. Do not tell him where we work.”
Mopsy stood Alake like a totem pole in front of the sixth-grade class. “This,” she announced, “is Alake. Isn't that a pretty name? Alake is one of the refugees I've been telling you that our church is sponsoring, but what we didn't expect is, they're living at my house. Alake's my roommate. But there's a problem we didn't know about. Alake has had a terrible shock from all the war and killing and she stopped speaking. So we'll talk to her, but she won't talk to us. Come on, Alake, sit by me.”
Mopsy had presented Alake's case so easily that even the teachers accepted her explanation. Class took place around Alake, but nobody tried to make her part of it. Alake not only didn't talk, she didn't look at the other sixth graders, didn't look out at the schoolyard and didn't look down at the book Mopsy was trying to share.
“She's not exactly like a person, is she?” whispered Quinnie. “She's more like a doll you prop up in a chair.”
“Shhh, Quinnie. She speaks English.”
“How do you know?”
Mopsy frowned. How did she know? “Well, the others speak English,” she said defensively, and got a queer little shiver in her spine. She had not said “Alake's mom and dad and brother speak English.” She had said “the others.”
Because the four Africans did not give off the aura of family.
In fact, Mopsy didn't know how Alake's name was pronounced because none of the other three had spoken it. Names were so important. Was Alake Amabo nameless inside her own family?
Third period, a counselor came to take Alake for testing, but Alake did not move, so Mopsy went first, pulling Alake by the hand.
“Like a mutt learning how to heel,” said one of the boys, and several kids laughed.
Mopsy had not known that her classmates would be mean. What was she going to do about the boy and the laughter? She hoped Alake had not understood.
In the counselor's office, Alake did not pick up the pencil to mark answers, nor did she even seem to hear the questions. The counselor couldn't do simple visual tests because Alake never saw the computer screen.
“This is beyond me,” said the counselor. “I guess first we should have her hearing tested. When does she go to the doctor?”
The principal and the nurse joined them. “You can't just bring her to school, Mopsy,” said the principal angrily. “We have to have papers proving that Alake has had her shots.”
Mopsy produced the papers provided by the Refugee Aid Society.
The nurse was not impressed. “These are photocopies. They're not dated, and they don't even have her name. They're just stuff. Go to your regular doctor and have her get all her shots.”
“But she might end up getting an extra one,” protested Mopsy, who could think of nothing worse than an unnecessary needle. Then she remembered Andre's arms.
The nurse shrugged.
Mopsy stood her ground. “Alake is a refugee. The definition of a refugee is, they didn't have time to grab their paperwork. They were running. They barely escaped with their lives.”
“That's what they claim,” said the nurse with a sniff. “Some people will tell any old lie to come to America.”
Mopsy, who loved everybody, now hated several boys in class plus the nurse. “Alake, don't listen to her. I know you didn't tell any lies.”
Alake's eyelids quivered, which Mopsy figured was a sign of strong emotion.
In the cafeteria line, Alake would not pick up a tray or touch the food, so Mopsy loaded a tray with stuff normal people liked and went to her favorite table, where everybody made room and said hello and then took offense because Alake wasn't grateful to be welcomed. “Get over it!” snapped Mopsy. “Alake is doing the best she can.”
Mopsy never snapped at anybody, so her friends giggled and got over it.
Mopsy set a little place for Alake, with plate, fork, spoon and drink. She named the foods and chatted about how yummy everything was. Mopsy's friends couldn't say whatever they were thinking, so the topic of Africans living in your bedroom was not mentioned and instead they discussed television. Everybody had watched different shows the night before, so they filled each other in.
Mopsy was pretty sure that Alake's eyes had now fastened on her food. But they were going to run out of lunchtime before Alake made the decision to chew or not to chew. Since everybody else liked five minutes in the bathroom to gossip and fix their hair, and two or three minutes to saunter back to class, the other girls left while Mopsy and Alake continued to sit.
Alake watched them go.
Mopsy was pleased. Alake knew that things were happening and one day she would jump in.
I will totally save her, thought Mopsy proudly.
Mattu's first period was spent in Guidance, with the principal, two counselors and the school nurse hanging over him. Nobody was happy with the paperwork Mattu was presenting. Jared was glad somebody was sitting up and taking notice that this was seriously skimpy paperwork to change countries by. But he said, “A person getting murdered doesn't stop to grab a list of the dates when he got shots.” He wanted to point out Mattu's scar, so that they would realize how fast Mattu had had to run. But Mattu was sitting so that the adults didn't see that side of his face, and Jared didn't want to treat him like an art exhibit or something—See this line? Its meaning is fear and speed.
“Tell us about the school you attended, Mattu,” said the principal.
Mattu spread his hands in a sort of shrug. They looked like basketball hands. Jared passionately loved basketball and was not good at it. He had a painful vision of Mattu being really good at everything.
“I finished fourth grade,” said Mattu. “Then, for several years of war, nothing. Then, in the refugee camp, missionary teachers.”
“We've got to do lots of testing, then,” said the counselor, thrilled at the prospect of making somebody suffer through all that.
“I promised Mattu he could hang out in class with me for the first day or two,” said Jared.
The argument was won by Mattu's pleading eyes, way bigger than American eyes, with a way bigger effect on the principal.
They arrived late for American history, but Mrs. Dowling beamed. “Mattu, we are so glad to have you. Your presence will make class much more interesting, with new viewpoints and experiences.”
In his beautiful English, Mattu said, “I thank you for your welcome. I am in your class with joy and respect.”
Wow. Well, he was the only one. Mrs. Dowling was not popular.
Most of the kids giggled, but Tay, who was a pistol and could start anybody off in any direction, smiled at Mattu. “My father would love you, Mattu. He's been waiting all his life for me to say things like that. And your English is excellent. Better than ours.”
Tay was one of those people who did not need a last name; nobody else in the town, maybe the state, was named Tay. She had gone through eighth grade at the Country Day School and convinced her parents to let her attend public high school. They weren't happy about her choice, and they really weren't happy about the academic standards (none, they said). From her golf game to her tan, from her yellow hair to her Latin verbs, Tay was above and beyond any other girl at school, and way out of Jared's league.
Jared got an extra chair, pulled it next to his desk, gestured Mattu into it and opened his history book, confident that it was not going to matter whether he'd read the chapter.
“English is my native tongue,” Mattu explained to Tay. He sat down, running his hands along the desk and excitedly stroking the textbook. He did not seem bothered at being the only black kid; rather, he behaved as if he were the norm and the white kids were a diorama at the natural history museum.
“You must have an African tongue,” insisted Tay.
“We speak a tribal language at home,” agreed Mattu politely.
It occurred to Jared that he had not heard any Amabo speak to any other Amabo.
“But mostly we speak English,” said Mattu, “because Sierra Leone was once an English colony.”
You're from Liberia, thought Jared. Kirk Crick said so. Liberia was never an English colony. It was founded by freed American slaves who went back to Africa.
“I got it wrong, then,” said Mrs. Dowling. “I thought when she telephoned this morning that Jared's mother said you were from Liberia.”
Mattu paused.
To think? wondered Jared. Or to think up lies?
“Because of civil wars, we had to flee from Sierra Leone to Liberia, where we lived until the war shifted and we crossed the border again. Then war broke out in the very place we hoped to be safe, and after many sorrows and much danger, we arrived in Nigeria. There was much confusion. If I may, I prefer not to discuss it.”
Tay discussed whatever she felt like discussing. “I thought a person from a refugee camp would be half starved. You look pretty good to me, Mattu.”
She was flirting, but Mattu didn't realize it. Very seriously he explained, “Food, mainly rice, is distributed. At times there is more food in the refugee camp than people in the host country have. There are riots if the refugees can eat and the native people cannot.”
“I'd just love you to give us a talk about Sierra Leone culture and the Mende tribe,” said Mrs. Dowling.
Mattu's face was blank.
He doesn't know anything about Sierra Leone or its culture, thought Jared. Maybe he's not from either of those countries! Maybe he and Celestine and Andre and Alake don't even come from the same country. They can't talk about their background because they don't share one. They can't talk in their tribal tongue because it isn't the same one. They can't talk about their escape because they didn't do it together. This is just a set of people. They needed to get out and they used each other. And now they're using my family.
Next time that refugee officer showed up, Jared was telling. These people shouldn't get away with what they'd done, any more than Brady Wall should get away with what he'd done.
Jared wondered how Mopsy was faring with Alake. God help Mopsy.
Alake almost knew where she was.
She almost knew that she was attending school.
The memory that plagued her life—if this was living—was a school memory.
Alake had been wearing her school uniform. She loved how clean and special it was, with its two deep front pockets. Alake loved pockets, and the way you could slip your treasures into them.
Everybody in Alake's compound had moved outside into the blazing hot sun. She did not know why this had happened. Had they been going somewhere? Had they thought there was time to run? Or were they just waving good-bye as the girls left for school?
It turned out not to matter.
Victor's people mowed every one of them down with machine guns.
Only Alake and her sister were left standing. Alake didn't know why, and probably Victor didn't know either. He didn't have a purpose for anything. He did things because he could.
Alake had her hands tucked in her pockets. Maybe that was why Victor grabbed Alake's sister instead—her hand was out.
Perhaps Victor had meant to take Alake's sister into the worst future on earth—to be a child soldier. Perhaps he had planned to rape her before killing her. But Alake's sister wrenched free and fled to Alake, screaming, “Don't let him hurt me!”
Alake took her hands out of her pockets and wrapped her arms around her sister, thinking, They will kill us now. There's no time to be afraid. At least I will be holding her when it happens.
But Victor—of course, she had not known his name then; she learned it later—did not order his boy soldiers to kill Alake and her sister. He ordered them to surround the school. In her memory, the school was next to her house, even though she knew the school was quite a walk upriver.
How had they gotten to the school, Alake and her sister?
Why hadn't Alake and her sister taken advantage when the soldiers' attention was elsewhere? Why hadn't they run into the bush?
The school was not a building in the sense that this American school was. It had a roof for shade. It had benches. There was a shelf of books. Alake used to love when it was her turn to hold a book and read. The school did not have walls to speak of, so when the machine guns fired, the children on the benches, the children on the floor and the children already running were cut down.
The barrage of fire missed the two teachers.
When the echoes died down and the blood ceased to spatter, Alake stood there holding her sister, and the teachers stood there staring at their fate.
Perhaps Victor was a man easily bored by the same old killing. Perhaps that was why he hurled Alake's sister across the packed dirt to land halfway between the monstrous laughing child soldiers and the terrified silent teachers.
“You want your sister to live?” asked Victor.
Of course Alake wanted her sister to live.
Victor handed the machine gun to Alake. “Kill your teachers and I will let your sister go.”
Since Jared never prayed, “God help Mopsy” had no meaning. If there was a God and Jared prayed, God might take it too seriously and expect Jared to get into the habit or something. If there wasn't a God, Jared didn't want to be a jerk, praying to nothing.
But Jared didn't like how Alake's eyes had moved that morning. Toward the phone. These people who supposedly had never used one and had had their first telephone experience in the van. If Jared's guesses were right, Alake could have grown up using a phone. Maybe her eyes flickered over that phone because she knew somebody to call. Maybe she could talk just fine.
God, thought Jared, stressing the words differently, help Mopsy.
A little shiver ran down the back of his eyes, as if the prayer had lodged there, cold and true.
No, I am cold, thought Jared. Who am I to turn these guys in? And there's no comparison to Brady Wall. These guys didn't steal anything. They just fibbed a little. I'd tell a lie or two—or several hundred—to get out of a refugee camp.
Jared almost thanked God for this insight, but he got a grip. “Let's cut Mattu a little slack,” he said to Tay, “and just have class instead of grilling him.”
“Okay, fine,” said Tay, blowing Jared a kiss.
Jared came dangerously close to catching the invisible kiss and keeping it. I am not Mopsy, he reminded himself. I will never ever behave like Mopsy. Death would be better.
School went by at a dizzying pace, which never happened to Jared. Normally, school crawled. Suddenly they were in the last class of the day, phys ed. “Stands for ‘physical education,'” explained Jared. “Sports and games, which we usually call gym, short for ‘gymnasium.'”
Mattu had never seen a gymnasium. The shining yellow wood floors with their brightly painted lines, the bleachers, basketball nets, pennants commemorating victor
ies, locker rooms—all required explanation. Mattu touched every surface, especially the shiny ones. “In Africa, there would be dust. The wind always blows; the dust always spreads. Unless it's rainy season. Then—mud.”
Outside the boys' locker room were three pay phones, installed in the olden days, when nobody had a cell phone. Jared had never used a pay phone.
Mattu's eyes landed on the phones.
“Phone calls are cheaper and easier from home,” Jared told him.
“I don't know anyone to call. I am just amazed at how telephones are everywhere. In every pocket, in every hall.”
“Jared Finch!” shouted the coach. “Get a move on!”
Jared and Mattu yanked on gym shorts, and since Mattu said he loved soccer, and since Africans were supposed to be seriously good at soccer, Coach took them outside, saying that it was very warm today, forty-three degrees, stop whimpering. It was probably worth the sacrifice, because Mattu was seriously good.
“Go, Mattu!” shouted the boys. “You're a gladiator!”
Six minutes later the coach had to take Mattu out. “It's a game, see,” he said. He was laughing, because with Mattu on board, they could whip the league. “You're still at war, Mattu. But in the suburbs we sort of frown on killing people over a soccer goal.”
Mattu nodded seriously, as if he might write this American philosophy down.
Standing on the sidelines was Daniel, one of the few black kids in school. His mother was a professor at the University of Connecticut and drove all the way to Storrs every day, while his father was a dermatologist and drove all the way to New Haven. Basically Daniel never saw his parents, who were lucky that Daniel wasn't a troublemaker. Jared had thought of calling Daniel up the day before: Hey. We're taking in a black family. Thought you'd like to know. You could be special friends.
He had decided against it.
Daniel wasn't taking gym today: he managed to sit out often and Jared never knew why. Or cared. Daniel walked over to Jared. “You didn't tell me.”