Keeping Secrets, sample chapter

 

Chapter 1

I remember what it was like Before. I flew over the ice like a swallow on the wind. Music filled my whole body, and I soared like a bird above the city of Johannesburg—eGoli—place of gold. I dreamed of gold medals and going to the Olympics someday.

But that was Before.

I was too young to know that life can collapse as fast as a skater can lose an edge and tumble to the ice. It hurts to fall, but you get up; you keep skating. You smile for the judges, and you don’t let them see the pain. That’s what winners do.

But sometimes, the hurt is too much, and you can’t get up. You can’t keep skating.

Then you lose.

* * *

The pounding pulse in my ears threatened to drown the announcer’s voice on the loudspeaker. “Please welcome our next skater, representing the Skating Federation of South Africa—Sindiswa Khumalo!”

“You’ll do great, Sindi,” my American coach, Trevor MacDonald, murmured beside me. “Just relax and have fun.”

Relax? Not likely with all those people watching. If they knew the truth, would they still cheer? I shook the tight, beaded braids that covered my head and tried to absorb the calm in Mac’s eyes. Breathe, Sindi. Breathe. Don’t think about home. Forget your parents. Focus.

I pushed away from the gate. My arms spread wide to receive the cascading applause as I skated a broad arc toward center ice. Mac’s voice sounded in my mind. Smile for the judges. Even he didn’t know my secret. I stretched my lips into an expression intended to sparkle.

I searched the stands for my parents although I knew they weren’t there. The friends I had made in a month of training camp cheered enthusiastically from the back rows. Someone whistled and stomped as if this was an American ice hockey game.

Ben. It had to be Ben.

The audience grew quiet as I took my starting pose—spine arched, head back, one arm raised like a graceful branch toward the high curve of rafters. I swallowed hard, but the smile never slipped from my face.

The music started—the theme from Out of Africa. I let it pull me across the ice, flowing in deep edges and vaulting in tight jumps. My spiral sequence went straight into a double-Axel/toe-loop combination jump. The double loop halfway through the program nearly tripped me up, but I bent my knee deep and held onto the landing. I didn’t expect to win—not in my first American competition. After all, this was Lake Placid, where some of the best skaters in the world trained. But I did hope to skate clean. My final combination spin went from position to position, perfect balance, perfect centering, thanks to Mac’s relentless coaching and hours of practice.

I had never skated better in my life.

The music stopped. I froze in my final position, eyes closed to hold back tears. If only my parents were here to see me!

I took my bow, smiling and waving while stuffed animals rained on the ice. I swept up a monkey and a fat hippo on my way to the gate. Little girls in matching blue skating dresses came on to clean up the rest.

Mac hugged me as my father would have. “Perfect! I am so proud of you, Sindi.” That was what my father would have said: I am so proud of you. Only he would have called me “Nyoni”—bird—for the way I flew over the ice.

“Get your skate guards on.” Mac took the stuffed animals from my hand. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

I held his arm for balance while I wiped the slush from my blades and slid the plastic guards over them. A little girl in blue thrust a large plastic bag toward me.

I frowned at it. “What’s this?”

“Your presents.” She gestured at the ice.

“All these?” 

She giggled, and another little girl held out a second bag.

“You’re popular.” Mac handed me my blue warm-up jacket with the Lake Placid logo embroidered on the front. Tomorrow I would go home to South Africa, but I would keep the jacket forever. 

“Leave your gifts in the locker room and come on.” He led me out of the arena, down a corridor.

“What about the scores?” I trotted after him as quickly as my blades in their clunky plastic guards allowed. The next skater’s music already played behind us.

“They’ll be posted in the lobby. Don’t worry. It’ll take a few minutes. We have plenty of time.” Mac stopped in front of a room marked “VIP Hospitality” and ushered me in. A buffet table at one end was covered with salads and fruit. The smell of crisp, hot rolls tickled my nose.

“There you are!” A woman set down her glass of white wine and stood. She was as tall as Mac, and the skintight clothes on her long thin body made her seem even taller. Her hair was short and curly and very blond. Diamond earrings sparkled when she shook her head. She came toward me with her hand held out. “You were marvelous, Sindi. Absolutely marvelous!”

I shook her hand politely and glanced at Mac for a clue.

“Sindi, I’d like you to meet Amanda Etherington,” he said. “Amanda, this is Sindi.” He was grinning like this was a special occasion.

“Oh,” I said, suddenly understanding. “The lady who loaned me the dress.” I glanced down at the pink lace and chiffon studded with hundreds of Austrian crystals that my parents never could have afforded. “Thank you very much for letting me use it. I’ll take it off as soon as they have posted the results. But I think …” I glanced at Mac. “I think Mac wanted to have it cleaned first.”

Ms. Etherington waved a long elegant hand. “Forget the dress, darling. It’s yours. It’s perfect on you.”

I stared at her openmouthed before I could muster the presence of mind to say thank you for the amazing gift. A designer dress like this cost hundreds of dollars.

She led me to a chair beside hers. “Now sit down. I want to talk with you.” Everything about the way she moved and dressed said that she was young, but something about her face didn’t fit. A hint of sag? Tightness where there ought to be wrinkles? Under that blond hair color, I was pretty sure there was gray.

Ms. Etherington looked at me. “Mac says you have had a very good summer.”

“Well, I was only here a month, but I learned a lot. Mac is a wonderful teacher.”

“I know. He trains all my skaters. How would you like to stay here and train with him?”

“Stay here? In Lake Placid?” The beads in my hair rattled when I shook my head. “I would love to, but the Federation only sent me for a month. My family can’t afford—”

“Yes, yes, I know. But what if I were to pay your expenses? You could stay in the dorm again or live with a local family. I spoke to Jenni Cameron’s father about the possibility. I believe you girls are friends, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.” My stomach fluttered with excitement so I could hardly get the words out. Stay in Lake Placid? Train with the best? Jenni Cameron had introduced me to girls who had been coming to Lake Placid summer skating school for years. That had made all the difference between being an exotic stranger from Africa and having friends.

“You could go to school with Jenni. They make special arrangements for the skaters so you’ll have plenty of time to practice. I would pay for your coaching, your costumes, your entrance fees.”

“It’s called a sponsorship,” Mac put in, seeing my confusion. His eyes urged me to say yes.

I looked from him to Ms. Etherington and back, uncertain. “But what would I do in return?”

She laughed, a deep, guttural laugh. “You would work harder than you have ever worked in your fifteen years or I will send you straight back to South Africa.”

“I’m a hard worker!” I said.

“That’s what Mac has told me, and I was certainly impressed with the results today. I suggest that we try the arrangement this season.” She looked at Mac as if for agreement. He nodded. “And then we can re-evaluate.”

So I would be on trial. Coming here for the Federation was pressure enough, but this? What if she found out about my father? Would she still want me?

“I don’t understand. Why would you want to pay my expenses?” My parents had pulled themselves out of poverty before there was any such thing as affirmative action in South Africa. They would not want me to accept charity even though there was nothing I wanted in the world more than to skate and to train here with Mac.

Well, one thing.

Ms. Etherington leaned back in her chair. “Because I love skating, and a competition is always more fun when I have invested in one of the skaters. I think an investment in you could take me a long way. Maybe even to the Olympics.”

The Olympics? I had had dreams, dreams I never even told my parents, dreams that seemed far beyond possibility from my home rink in a shopping mall outside Jozi—Johannesburg. My heart pounded in my chest. This was my chance, my chance to go for the top.

“I’ll need to talk to my parents.”

“Of course you will.” She picked up her glass of wine and sipped. “And you’ll need to change your flight. Mac can make all the arrangements.” She was obviously not used to hearing no.

A timid knock sounded at the door. It opened and Jenni Cameron stuck her head in. “Excuse me.” A mischievous grin lit her face when she glanced at me. “Sindi won. They’re waiting on her for the awards ceremony and pictures.”

“I won?” My mouth fell open.

Ms. Etherington smiled. “Didn’t I say you would be worth the investment?”

On Writing Keeping Secrets

 

From 2005 to 2008 I lived in South Africa where I worked with children affected by HIV&AIDS in after-school clubs in Tembisa township. My hobby is figure skating, and I was thrilled to find a rink ten minutes from my home in Kempton Park. Skating is no longer and all-white sport. I found myself wondering: What if a promising African figure skater were worried that people would find out her father had HIV? What if the expenses of his illness forced the family to move from upper-middle-class Kempton Park to working-class Tembisa? What if my skater saw people mistreated because of the virus? How far would she go to keep her secret? Who would model living positively with HIV?

Talk about Keeping Secrets

A book club is a good way to talk about books with others. Here are some questions you might want to discuss after you have read Keeping Secrets. If you don’t have a book club, there are lots of online resources to help you start one. Or you can go to the discussion page on my website  and start a conversation there. I would love to hear from you. 

1. What surprised you most about South Africa as shown in this book?

2. Sindi points out several things her American friends would say or do. What differences do you see between the South African worldview and the American worldview Sindi has been briefly exposed to?

3. Sindi is afraid people will find out her father has HIV.  How would you feel if you lived next door to someone with HIV? Would you respond any differently if the person had cancer?

4. Why do you think Sindi’s parents aren’t willing to talk about HIV even within the family?

5. In the Prologue Sindi says, “It hurts to fall, but you get up; you keep skating.” In what ways is Sindi hurt by the things that are happening in her life? Why isn’t continuing to go through the motions of normal life enough to solve those problems?

6. How is Solly hurt by his father’s illness and death? In your culture, how do boys learn how to be men?

7. Why do you think Solly understands Sindi’s love of skating better than other family members? How difficult do you think it was for him to sell his skates? Why do you think he did?

8. How does her skating define who Sindi is? How does NOT skating affect her image of herself? Why doesn’t Sindi want her family to know when she watches skating on TV? 

9. Why does Sindi buy her mother a cheap vase for Christmas? 

10. In order to hide the family’s secret, Sindi cuts herself off from friendships. How do you think the different characters would have reacted if they found out?  Why?

11. In Chapter 21 Jabu ridicules Sindi’s suggestion that she should be tested. Why do you think she reacts so strongly?

12. Why do you think Jabu gets involved with someone like Makatso? 

13. Makatso jokes about HIV. In what ways do young adults you know take risks while denying that anything bad will happen to them?

14. Which characters model living positively with HIV? In what ways? Can you think of other difficulties where these ways of coping might be helpful? 

15. What is MakaLerato’s advice to Jabu (pp. 163-4)? Do you agree or disagree? Why?

16. Several churches are mentioned: Wonderful Words of Life in Tembisa; the Khumalo’s mostly-white former church in Kempton Park; the small Baptist chapel on the ridge in KwaZulu; and Uncle Njabulo’s Apostolic congregation by the river. How do they differ? Which would you most like to attend and why?

17. How is leprosy (Hanson’s Disease) in biblical times similar to HIV today? How are they different? How do you think Jesus would treat someone with HIV if he lived in your community today? Why would that encourage someone living with HIV?

Keeping Secrets

I remember what it was like Before. I flew over the ice like a swallow on the wind. Music filled my whole body, and I soared like a bird above the city of Johannesburg—eGoli—place of gold. I dreamed of gold medals and going to the Olympics someday.

But that was Before.

I was too young to know that life can collapse as fast as a skater can lose an edge and tumble to the ice. It hurts to fall, but you get up; you keep skating. You smile for the judges, and you don’t let them see the pain. That’s what winners do.

But sometimes, the hurt is too much, and you can’t get up. You can’t keep skating.

Then you lose.

Talk about The Wooden Ox

 There are more questions here than can be satisfactorily answered in a one-hour discussion. Not all may be appropriate for the age level or spiritual maturity of your group. 

1. Contrast how the war affected Keri and Kurt before they were kidnapped and how it affected Mozambicans.

2. Why was the wooden ox important to Kurt? Do you think it was hard for him to give it away?

3. Why do you think the parents used code words like ‘the situation’ instead of talking openly about the war? Do you think Kurt and Keri would have been better off talking about what was happening, or would that have made them unnecessarily afraid?

4. Why didn’t Dad ‘save’ Pastor Makusa? What do you think he would have done if Commander Dube had threatened to leave Keri, Kurt or their mother behind?

5. Leila wanted to return to Lomweland. If her mother, Mamani Argentina, had the opportunity to go home, do you think she would go? Why or why not?

6. What did Keri think Mfana was like when she first met him? How did he change? How easy do you think it was for Mfana to go back to ‘normal’ life?

7. How did the following people show faith? Pastor Makusa, Kurt, Mom, Dad, Keri
When did each find faith the hardest? Why? Has there been a time when you found it hard to trust God?

8. God answered Keri’s prayer for Sarita with a ‘no.’ What if he had answered her prayer for Mfana the same way’? Why does God sometimes say ‘yes’ and sometimes say ‘no’?

9. If you were trying to decide whether or not to move to a country in civil war, you might make a list of ‘pros’ (reasons to do it) and ‘cons’ (reasons not to). What would you put in each column? Would you have made the same decision as the Andersons?

10. Kurt and Keri had the opportunity to see how others live as they observed the refugees on the coluna and distributed clothes to needy people. What experiences have you had that helped you to sympathize with hurting people? 

Africa Bibliography

If you enjoyed The Wooden Ox, try some of these other books about African life. This is only a sampling of our family’s favorites. For more books about Africa, many published outside North America, see my Goodreads page or ask your librarian to help you.

The Wooden Ox, sample chapter

 “Ow!” Keri rubbed the top of her blond head where the springy seat had thrown her painfully against the Land Rover’s ceiling. Every muscle in her long, skinny body ached from hours of jolting over the gravel road. 

“Do it again, Dad!” Seven-year-old Kurt bounced on the seat beside her.

“Please don’t!” Mom gave a tight laugh and gripped the dashboard. 

The Andersons had been up before dawn to meet the coluna, as Mozambicans called the military convoy to Gaza Province. The column of cars and trucks racing across the African countryside stretched as far as Keri could see ahead and behind them. From time to time they passed a burned-out vehicle at the side of the road--a reminder of what could happen if the Andersons pulled out of line. The coluna wouldn’t wait while you changed a tire or a fan belt. No one traveled in this part of the country without the coluna since the war had spread this far south.

There was not a herd boy in sight nor a sign of a cow or goat. Telephone lines hung in loose strands from poles leaning at odd angles. 

“Look, an orange grove!” Keri said. 

“Where?” Kurt demanded.

Keri pointed, but even as she did, she realized this wasn’t like any orange grove she had ever seen before. Weeds choked the orderly rows. Heavy branches drooped to the ground, and a smell of rotten fruit filled the air.

“There’s the farm house,” Kurt said as a dark tile roof came into view.  His voice faltered with uncertainty.

Keri put her head out the window as they passed and stared back at the building until it disappeared from sight. Most of the roofing was gone, and sunlight poured into deep pink and blue rooms. All the windows and doors had been taken out, leaving jagged holes where even the frames had been hammered away. The walls were scarred with little holes like chicken pox. No one needed to tell Keri they had come from gunfire. 

She pulled her head into the car and stared at the back of the seat in front of her. No one said anything. 

If I don’t talk about it, I won’t be afraid, Keri thought. She crossed her arms and pressed them into her stomach. Dad kept his eyes on the road. Mom sat straight. She was as still as the jostling car would allow. They aren’t afraid, Keri told herself, and I’m not afraid either. Kurt stared at her with eyes as big as mangos. Keri rubbed her nose to brush away the tingle of rotting oranges.

“Not much farther now.” Dad broke the silence. “We’re almost to the Limpopo River.” 

The cloud of dust ahead thickened, and the brake lights of the yellow Peugeot in front of them flashed a sudden alert. Dad braked quickly as the coluna lurched to a halt at the side of the road. Dust rolled in from behind.

“Close your windows!” Mom ordered, and everyone jumped to obey.

The trucks and jeeps of their escort whipped out of line and careened by. Kurt jerked back when whirling tires spattered pebbles against the glass. A truck swayed past, soldiers clinging to its sides. Most of them looked only a little older than Keri’s thirteen years. She wondered if they were afraid.

As the last military vehicle passed, the driver of the yellow Peugeot turned off his motor. Dad did the same. 

In the sudden quiet they heard the sounds of gunfire. 

Keri sat very still. She could taste the dust that had seeped through the window cracks. It tickled her nostrils. Kurt sneezed.      Mom fished a handkerchief from the pocket of her denim skirt and handed it to him. 

“Please, don’t wipe your nose on your arm,” she insisted. 

As if staying clean is the most important thing to think about right now. Keri chewed the nail on her left index finger, and slowly exhaled. The heat and stillness of the closed car pressed in on her.

“What if the armed bandits come while the soldiers are all gone?” Kurt asked. The rebel faction in the Mozambican civil war had an official name, but where the Andersons lived in Maputo people thought they acted more like armed bandits. Kurt’s eyes were wide. His fingers gripped the back of Mom’s seat until they turned white.

“The bandits are up ahead.” Dad’s voice was calm, but he didn’t move his eyes from the direction of the shooting. Both his hands gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles as pale as Kurt’s. “That’s where the soldiers are going. I think we surprised them. They won’t come here.”

Keri hoped he was right. She didn’t want to think about what could happen if he was wrong.

Slowly the dust began to settle, leaving the windscreen coated with an orange film. Dad turned on the windshield wipers to brush some of it away.

A cluster of traditional huts spilled over the top of a hill a few hundred yards ahead. Their mud walls and conical grass roofs blended with the dry ground. A flock of frantic chickens flew over a thornbush hedge, squawking noisily. A river of people streamed down the hillside. Most of them carried nothing except a child or the hoe or mallet with which they had been working when the attack began. 

Kurt edged toward the far side of the car.

“Do you want to come up here?” Mom asked.

“Come on, Kurt.” Dad turned and held out his arms. Kurt pushed off with one tennis shoe from the seat behind him and slithered head first into the front. He quickly righted himself and took up a position on Mom’s lap as far from the fighting as he could get.

“There’s room for you, too, Keri.” Dad tapped the padding over the gearbox.

“That’s OK.” Acting like she was afraid would be worse than saying the words. She dropped her arm over the back of the seat so it pressed against her father’s shoulder. Her stomach felt like it was some place up around her heart, and maybe about ready to squeeze past and pop right out through her mouth. She hoped she wouldn’t throw up.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” said Kurt.

“Not now, Kurt.” Dad pulled Keri firmly up against him and gripped her hand. “Let’s pray,” he said.

“I agree,” said Mom. Keri recognized the deliberately controlled voice her mother used when Keri had lost her temper and Mom was trying not to lose hers.

“I’m already praying!” announced Kurt, nodding emphatically. 

Keri took her mother’s hand as they always did for prayer. It felt cold and damp. Their arms were all tangled and crisscrossed in the car, not like the neat circle they made around the dining room table at home in Maputo. Everyone was touching everyone, and that was the way Keri wanted it right now.

“Help us, Lord God,” her father prayed. “We don’t know what’s happening, but we know you do. We don’t know what will happen, but we know we can trust you. Help us not to be frightened.  Please protect us and bring us safely out of this, if it’s your will. Protect the people of this village, too, and give this country peace. We’ll give you all the glory. Amen.”

Keri prayed with her eyes open. She thought God wouldn’t mind if she watched what she was praying about. Her stomach seemed to settle back a few inches, and she was pretty sure it wouldn’t pop out through her mouth after all. Her chest hurt where her heart thumped against her ribs. 

Her father’s eyes were also open. They both watched the refugees from the village. Some of them had reached the coluna. They spread out along its length, putting the vehicles between themselves and the thick black smoke rising from the village beyond the hill. There were a couple hundred people, most of them women and children. Loud wails filled the air like a funeral. Kurt put his hands over his ears.

A woman with a baby on her back frantically questioned neighbors. A naked toddler clung to the hem of the cloth wrapped around her like a skirt. The capulana must have originally been printed with a bright red-orange pattern and black border, but it had faded to a pale gray and pinkish-pumpkin. Some neighbors merely shook their heads. Others pointed back toward the village. Whatever it was the woman searched for, she didn’t find.

“Will Chibuto be like this?” asked Kurt. His voice sounded tight as if he might cry.

“No, sweetheart.” Mom squeezed him on her lap. “Chibuto’s a safe city. Pastor Makusa assured us that we won’t go any place dangerous, and we’ll always get back to Chibuto well before dark.”

Keri had heard her father say how foolish it was to be outside the city at night. When they drove to the neighboring country of Swaziland to buy groceries every few months, they always traveled in the middle of the day. Even then, they would turn back if the soldiers at the checkpoints said it was dangerous.

Far ahead jeeps raced up the hill between the acacia trees. Foot soldiers swarmed toward the village. Spears of light brighter than day flashed from their guns in a rhythm that seemed to have nothing to do with the delayed sounds that punctured the air. Straggling villagers fled both soldiers and bandits.

A soldier approached the Land Rover from the back reaches of the coluna. His AK47 was trained on the refugees streaming from the village. He hunched tensely over his gun, and Keri hoped it wouldn’t go off by mistake.

Kurt sat up straighter. “There’re still some soldiers here.” He pointed toward the young man’s camouflaged uniform. 

The driver of the yellow Peugeot opened his door and got out. He looked like a middle-aged Portuguese. Thinning gray hair covered his round head, and his belly hung over his belt. He called to the soldier, and the two talked excitedly.

Dad rolled down the window. Keri breathed deeply of the fresh air, but the men’s voices were too far away to catch what was said. 

“I’m going to see what’s happening.” Dad opened his door and jumped to the ground.

“Don’t go!” begged Kurt, grasping his shirt.

“It’s OK.” Mom soothed him. “He won’t go far.”

Keri opened her door to follow.

“Keri! Stay here!” Mom’s tone was not one Keri dared to disobey. She closed the door again and watched her father’s back.

Dad had Kurt’s stocky build. His khaki shorts and open-necked shirt made him look more like a big game hunter than the head of an African relief and development team. He was brave and clever, and Keri was very proud of him.

The other man greeted Dad as though they had known each other for years. His gestures were wide and dramatic. He followed Dad back to the car and stood behind him, adding details in the whishing lilt of a Lisbon accent.

“The bandits attacked the village a few minutes before we got here,” Dad explained. “Evidently, they expected the coluna to have already passed through.” He glanced back over his shoulder. Four soldiers were pulling smoking thatch from the roof of a hut. “Our soldiers will drive them off.” Dad looked apologetically at Mom. “He says this is the third time this month this has happened.”

Behind him the Portuguese began an explicit story of the last attack he had seen, what the soldiers had done, and how many had been killed. Kurt seemed to shrink into Mom’s side until there was nothing left of him but eyes. Dad put a hand on the man’s back and guided him away from the car.  Keri glanced at Mom and didn’t dare to follow. She sat with her ear to the open window, but all she could hear was the wailing of the refugees and the sounds of gunfire from the hill. 

All up and down the line people got out of their vehicles to watch and wait and talk to the villagers. The woman in the orange capulana moved up the coluna. She questioned everyone she met.

“You know, this is exactly why we have to go to Chibuto,” Mom explained in her teacher voice. “The bandits will steal what they can and destroy the rest. These poor people will be left with nothing.”

“Do you suppose the clothes got there all right?” Keri asked. She had helped her father and the workers from Africa Assistance fill the truck with bags of used clothing donated by people in North America. Two weeks helping distribute them to needy villagers had sounded like an adventure. Now it was scary to think of going where the bandits had been.

“There’s a public phone in town. Pastor Makusa called last night to say the truck had arrived with no problems,” Mom assured her.

“They don’t have enough food in Gaza either, do they?” Kurt said.

“No, Kurt, they don’t. Some of the trucks in this convoy are probably carrying corn and chickens. The only food in Mozambique right now is what the relief agencies like ours bring in.”

Dad slid into his seat and smiled weakly at Mom. “Sorry about this,” he said.

Keri wrapped her arms around her father’s seat back. He smelled clean and minty like the antacids he always kept in his pocket. “Dad, you brought corn up one time, didn’t you?”

“Yep.” He shook his head at the memory. “Even an overloaded truck wasn’t enough. Each family only got food for a couple days. Kids littler than Kurt picked up grains of corn that had fallen in the dust. They didn’t lose one kernel.”

Thinking about hungry people made Keri flush with anger. Why did there have to be a war? Each side claimed to be for the people, but it was the people who died and went naked and hungry. There was no reason for it that Keri could see—only selfishness and greed for power.

Usually the war seemed too far away to touch her. In the three years they had lived in Maputo she had gotten used to the gunshots of nervous guards that they heard almost every night. It was scary when she lay in her bed and listened to the booming of heavy artillery from the other side of the bay. The first night she heard it Dad sat on the edge of her bed and prayed with her. He told her the guns were far away, and it was only the water in between that made them sound so near. But he didn’t go away until Keri had fallen asleep.

Keri seemed to be constantly holding her breath, waiting for something terrible that was just out of sight, not talking about it, pretending it wasn’t there. She was proud that their family had come to Africa to help. She knew her parents wouldn’t let anything really bad happen to her. But right now, if she let herself think about it, she would be more frightened than she’d ever been in her life.

The shooting grew more distant. 

“I’m hungry,” Kurt said. 

“I suppose we could have lunch.” Mom brought sandwiches out of the cooler. It felt odd to sit in the car eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with carrot sticks and listening to the war.

“Shall we read The Silver Chair?” Dad asked.  He picked up at chapter 3 where they had left off last night, but no one could concentrate. Even Dad’s voice sounded forced, and after a few pages he stopped.

The Portuguese man came over to talk and brought chocolate for Keri and Kurt. He told them all about his grown children in Portugal and the grandchildren he hadn’t seen since they were babies.

The refugees sat on the side of the road or paced nervously up and down. The woman in the orange capulana stopped near the Andersons and sat on the ground with her legs straight out in front of her while she nursed her baby. Her face was tense. Her black hair was done in tight braids neatly tucked under. The toddler sat at her side in exactly the same position with his patient little face turned, like hers, to the hill.

Suddenly the woman leapt to her feet, shouting and waving frantically. There was a responding shout, and a boy about Kurt’s age appeared, running amidst the scanty shrubbery at the foot of the hill. He bounded toward her over rocks and around bushes. He wore only a pair of ragged shorts, and his dark legs and bare, callused feet were thickly covered with yellow dust. His mother shouted at him and boxed his ears when he came close, as if her worry had been replaced by anger that he should have scared her so.

Keri found herself grinning. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Kurt relax and readjust his position on Mom’s lap. Mom squeezed him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I love you, too,” she said. “Both of you.” 

At last the sounds of gunfire ceased. The jeeps made their way back down the hill and foot soldiers returned to the waiting trucks. Keri took a deep breath and settled back on the seat. Everything was going to be OK. The bandits hadn’t come near them. Their family was safe.

“Thank you, Lord,” Dad prayed as he started the motor.

The coluna slowly moved forward as clusters of villagers straggled across the hillside to discover what was left of their homes. Keri felt a pang of guilt. Not everything was OK. Not for everyone. Her eyes darted here and there trying to find the woman in the orange capulana and her children among the figures climbing the hill. To leave not knowing what became of them felt like not reading the last chapter of a book, or turning off a television program five minutes before the end. 

They’re real people, Keri thought. Not book people or TV people.

“I hope their house wasn’t burned,” Kurt said. Keri didn’t have to ask who he meant.