Never Fall Down: A Novel by Patricia McCormick Read Free Book Online

thing to do. To be out at night. If I get caught now, I can say, “Sorry, I can’t find the latrine.” But if this new music teacher can’t teach us, if we play bad in front of Khmer Rouge meeting, no chance to be sorry. I know this now from the mango grove.
    This guy not really asleep, just looking far away into air. I shake him, say, “Wake up. They gonna kill you if you don’t teach us to play good.”
    He says he doesn’t care. He says already he’s dead in his heart. His children, all dead; his wife, he doesn’t know where she is. Once before he already prepared to die, after his baby boy starve to death. He lit incense, pray to Buddha, and wait to die himself. Then the Khmer Rouge tell him to come be a music teacher. No choice. He goes. But he hate this music, this music about blood and about hard work, about the glory of Angka. He refuse to learn it.
    “So they can kill me,” he says. “It’s okay.”
    I hit this guy with my fist. “Okay if you die!” I say. “But what about us? You don’t teach us to play, we die too. Us kid. Like your kid die, we will die also.”
    Now he wake up. First time any light in his eye.
     
    The next day this guy, he different. He still hate these Khmer Rouge song, I can tell. He grit his teeth and make a frown face. But now he really teach. He show one kid how to hit the xylophone, show the fiddle player how to make a good sound, not screeching like a cat. And now the band, it start to get better.
    I think a minute about the first music teacher. I never even ask him his name. Because too short of time. That guy, he save my life, but nothing I could do when they kill him. This new guy, I ask what’s his name.
    He look at me like I’m crazy. No one says the name anymore. We all just comrade, we all just workers, all the same, no name, no personality.
    “Mek,” he says. “My name was Mek.”
    This guy, Mek, he decide to live because of what I say. Now, I know, it my job to keep him living.
     
    Now the band, it get better every day. And every night I give a little of my soup away. One night to the drum player, another night to Kha. These kid think maybe I’m crazy. “Why you give us your food?” Kha says.
    You can say maybe it’s a gift. Or maybe you can say it’s also payment for my life. These kids eat better, maybe they learn the song better. They learn the song, the Khmer Rouge let us live. They can live, I can live, we all can live. They don’t learn the song, none of us can live.
     
    The camp leader, big moonface guy, he come to the building where we play the music. Glorious news, he says. Big meeting is in one day. More good news: tonight, the band, we can have one extra bowl of rice so we can be strong and give glory to Angka.
    This rice is real rice. Not rice soup, rice water. Rice to chew. White and sweet. We eat it slow, like maybe not believing it’s real. But Kha, he eat it all very quick, like never again he’s gonna see this kinda rice. Me, I eat some now, put some in my pocket. Because this good rice, I know it can be like money. You save it, maybe you can use it to get something later you need.
    All night we practice, only a flashlight from Mek to see what we doing. We make many mistake and stop many time because a couple kids sick in the stomach from this good rice. Kha, he’s the worst; many times we have to stop so he can shit. We see it, his shit, we see rice in it, not even chewed. And Kha, he cries, so much pain, and all his rice is wasted.
    You think maybe you feel sad when you see this, kid in pain and also so scare for the big meeting. But instead you feel like angry, like he can get us all kill for this stupid thing he does. But after all the kids, they fall asleep playing, too tired, too sick to practice anymore, I wake Kha up, give him some of the rice I save. Little bit at a time, very slow, I tell him to chew it good.
    “You play good at the meeting,” I tell him, “later I give you more.”
     
    Tonight is the big meeting. The