lying on the ground. Farther away is a pile of things covered with black rags sheâs afraid to look at.
She no longer knows where sheâs going. But still she trudges on, singing about the turtle and the ostrich. She wraps her bleeding feet with cloths she finds along the road. She sings all the songs she knows, until her lips bleed. She stares back at two girls who push a cart with bicycle tires.
Her bowels clench in familiar pain and she has to leave the road again.
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SHEâS trudging on numb feet when a truck snorts along the road. The refugees part without looking up. The trucks wonât stop. Even if they did, bad things happen with the soldiers, with the truckers.
A very strange-looking person leans out of the cab. Her face is white as the clouds. Her eyes are blue as the birds on a bowl Zeynaab used to eat from. Her hairâs like the silk of the maize. Zeynaab stops dead, staring. Sheâs never seen a human being like this before. If it
is
a human being.
To multiply her astonishment, the woman speaks words she understands. âLittle girl, whereâs your mother?â
âSheâs dead.â
âYour father?â
âI donât know.â
âHave you no family?â
She doesnât cry, only stares.
The woman doesnât need to invite her into the truck. She just holds out something in a bright wrapper.
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THERE are three other children in the back, all boys. For a moment her heart leaps; but none is Nabil or Ghedi. The mountains go in and out of sight, then grow ahead as the truck twists and turns upward. One mountain stays. She tugs on the womanâs arm when she needs to go into the brush. When the woman realizes sheâs sick she gives her a bottle of strange drink. Itâs salty but sugary too. Zeynaab drinks it all and when sheâs done the woman gives her another from a box on the floorboards.Then she unwraps the filthy rags from Zeynaabâs feet and throws them out the window.
The truck climbs, and the cab, where she rides with the woman and the driver, smells bad. When it overtakes refugees the woman tells the driver to slow. She leans forward, searching as they press through the throngs. Now and then she tells the driver to stop. When Zeynaab realizes what sheâs doing a chill shakes her.
Sheâs looking for children who are alone. Like the witches in the stories her aunties told her. Is she in a story now? Where are they going? She tries to muster courage to ask, but canât. The truck lurches as it climbs. Enormous rocks loom over the laboring vehicle, throwing cool shadows. Birds sheâs never seen before dart past. She needs to stop again, but puts it off so long itâs almost too late. The woman smells sweet. It comes to Zeynaab that she herself is the source of the bad smell.
At last the truck heaves to a stop, panting like a tired elephant. Sheâs never seen an elephant, only a picture in a book Auntie showed her. Her auntie went to school, when there were schools, in the Italian times. The driver lets down the gate in the back. He calls the boys to come down. He gives each of them a bottle of water. He shows them how to twist the caps off and they drink, eyes searching the sky as they tilt the bottles up.
The woman takes a pair of shoes from a box. Theyâre red as the guava flowers after the rains come. Theyâre plastic, and they
sparkle
. Theyâre so beautiful she canât take her eyes off them as the woman bends and slips them over her torn, nailless, blackened toes. Then comes around to the side and, before sheâs quite ready, holds up her arms for Zeynaab to jump down.
Her attentionâs still on the wonderful shoes, so she doesnât notice, at first. The woman tugs at her hand, and she turns. And gasps.
The mountain rears above them, a cliff that goes up to where the sun lives. Itâs half in shadow, and rocks and stones jut from it. Only after walking for some time, new