Jakarta Missing by Jane Kurtz Read Free Book Online Page B

ears will never be hearing my beloved baby sister pouring forth speech again.”
    At the door Dakar hesitated. “About the Bible,” she said. “I went to a boarding school for a while where they thought Memory Work was very important. Mrs. Yoder would write the verses on Holy Cards and make us practice. What if you were on a desert island sometime, she would say to us, or in a prison cell? If you have the words in your heart, no one can take them away.”
    â€œUh-huh,” the cook was saying as Dakar turned. “It all pretty much comes down to what’s in your heart.”
    On her way up the stairs Dakar thought about what the cook had said. It probably all pretty much did come down to what was in your heart. But it was so terribly, terribly hard to have a pure heart. She should care more about the people Dad was finding cures for, for example. The truly true truth was that she was mad at them at least half the time. Because it seemed like Dad spent so much time with them, and when he wasn’t with someone who had some strange disease, he was thinking about them.
    â€œThis is the second time you’ve been late, Dakar,” Ms. Olson said as she walked in the door. “Second time is supposed to be detention.”
    Dakar swallowed. She wasn’t the kind of student to be late to class, and she’d never, ever had detention.
    Ms. Olson was frowning. “Every once in a while my mom gets really sick,” Dakar said. Well, it wasn’t an actual lie, was it? “Sometimes she doesn’t know that she’s going to need me, but then I can’t really leave until someone else is there to stay with her. I’m sorry.”
    Don’t give me detention, she thought. How embarrassing did life have to get? She concentrated on looking contrite. What a good word that was. She knew she didn’t have a pure heart, but she surely had a contrite one.
    â€œSee me if you need help getting it worked out,” Ms. Olson said. “It’s an important middle school responsibility to get to classes on time.”
    Dakar scowled at the kids who had turned around to look. Contriteness had helped again. Or maybe it was only that all the teachers here had probably been warned, “She’s from Africa. She doesn’t know the things normal kids know.”
    Sixth grade in the United States was harder than she’d expected. The classes were bigger than she was used to. Plus, the sixth grade had just become part of Cottonwood Middle School this year. “We have to be tough,” teachers said these first days when kids complained about anything. “We have to get you used to the system. Otherwise, you’ll never make it next year.” Were the teachers going to say that every year from now on?
    Dakar didn’t dare pull out her lists and thoughts book today, not having just escaped detention. Instead, she doodled on the side of her paper, little hoodies with frightening eyes. She gave one hoodie a talk balloon. “ Ferenji ,” it was saying. That was “foreigner” in Ethiopia. Not that the little kids who yelled it every time she walked down the Maji road were mean like the hoodies, but she still didn’t like hearing them say ferenji over and over or having them pinch her skin to see what it was made of. In Kenya, the word was mzungu . In Egypt people said khawaaga , with one of those growling sounds that were so fun to say in Arabic.
    What was the word going to be here in Cottonwood? Thinking about the hockey and football games, Dakar was sure it would be something. Which was weird, because wasn’t she supposed to be home? That morning in Nairobi Mom had said, “I can’t believe we’re really going home.” Lots of people in Africa said things like “We’ll be going home for the year” when they meant the United States of America. Dakar couldn’t remember when she had first started thinking that the little