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

in trouble. Then one minute more and I think: maybe now I am monster also.
     
    A guy from my old town, he come to our camp sometime. He Khmer Rouge now, and he travel around to all the camp bringing the message to the leader. He says he can also give you news or maybe letter from your family. “You give me your dinner,” he says, “maybe I give you a letter.” To the girls he says, “You come alone with me to the woods, I tell you about your family.”
    I give him the last of my good rice, and he give me a letter from my number one big sister, Chantou. She says, “I’m at a mountain camp where I been sent with Maly and working hard. We both are fine here but no one knows where is our other sister. I write this letter in secret so no one knows I have education. They try to make me marry Khmer Rouge, but I say no. I will not marry, not till I see you again. Take care of yourself, little brother, and be brave until I can see you again.”
    Very dangerous to have this letter. Danger, too, just to think about her. You can’t trust yourself to have a memory. Because these Khmer Rouge, they can see inside your head.
     
    All the time we get extra job after practice; cook, clean—whatever they say, we do. Today I’m very lucky to be cook, because maybe I can sneak myself a little taste.
    The soup we make, it’s like water though. Only a little rice, maybe two, three can, for all these kids. All the rest is water. You eat it, you pee right away. No shit. Only water comes out even when you shit.
    We feed all these kid in line, all these hungry kid, these kid working so hard. But I save one small bowl for myself. One extra taste for me. Just this one time. In a hiding place under the stove. Then when all the kid done eating, I look to see that no Khmer Rouge is watching. Even in the grass behind the kitchen, sometime they put a little kid to spy. He catch you, you beg him not to tell; you say, “You can have my food.” He eat your food. Then he tell on you anyway.
    No kid is watching. No Khmer Rouge either. Just a tall figure in black. A big guy, but very skinny. Cheek like hollow, eye pop out. Like almost dead. In the grass, looking for food. This guy is a runaway, maybe from the prison. I don’t know why I do it, but I put the bowl of rice in front of him. “Please eat quickly,” I say. I don’t know why I’m giving this to him. I’m hungry myself. Very hungry. I just do it. I go away then. If the Khmer Rouge catch this guy eating, I want to be nowhere around. I come back after a while. The bowl is empty. The guy is gone.
     
    All the time I can smell the good food cooking for the Khmer Rouge. Chicken, fish, cardamom, and lemongrass. Sometime even palm sugar I can smell. The Khmer Rouge, their faces get fat and shiny from all this good food. The kid, their face pale, skin thin, like paper.
     
    New kid come to our camp this week and one girl, she refuse to cut her hair. So the Khmer Rouge, they take her to the temple step, to a large drum on a wooden stand. They put her inside this drum and beat it. Inside, you can hear her scream. Then they make a small fire under the drum, and you can hear her cry more.
    Finally, they let her out; and she has blood coming from her nose, from her mouth, from her ear, and her hair is all crazy like ghost.
    “So,” they say. “You still want to be beautiful?”
     
    Everything on a schedule here. Waking up, peeing, working, eating. New schedule now for work in the rice field. Wake at 1 a.m., work till 7 a.m. Rest one-half hour. Work again, 7:30 till 11:30 a.m. Soup, then work again 1 p.m. to 5. Then at night, meeting. Always meeting.
    Do this again the next day.
     
    Every day the Khmer Rouge take six, maybe ten people to the temple. One time in the morning, one time after noon, one time in the evening, they take people from the stable. Men, mostly, but also women. Hand tie behind, head hanging. The Khmer Rouge say, “Confess, tell us what you did before. You were doctor. You