The Day of the Pelican by Katherine Paterson Read Free Book Online Page B

with the KLA, no one even breathed his name.
    Nexima gave her bed in Granny's room to Mama and Baba, and she brought her children into the small parlor. The four of them were to sleep with the five young Lleshis. The couch pulled out, so Nexima and her children slept there. Cushions were put on the floor for the Lleshi children. The small space was carpeted with bodies. Baba took one look and laughed. "I've seen orange slices with more room than this," he said. Everyone laughed with him. It felt so good to laugh, and, actually, they were less crowded than they had been in the tent. They were a lot warmer, too, and there were no rocks poking into their backs.
    The next morning the household was stirring by the time the first rooster crowed. Uncle Fadil and Baba were like the generals of a little army. Everyone except Nexima's three had duties to carry out. The cow and the goats had to be milked and given hay, the chickens fed. Meli found herself in charge of the water brigade. Uncle Fadil didn't have running water in the farmhouse, but why should that bother her? A backyard pump and a proper outhouse seemed luxurious after a mountain stream and a shack straddling it a short way down the hill.
    Meli was so excited about her job as sergeant of the water detail that she had her little brothers and Vlora help her fill every pot she could lay her hands on. Auntie Burbuqe threw up her apron in mock amazement. "Ah," she said, "you children are such marvelous water carriers that you have left us nothing to cook in! Oh, well, fill up the tub—we'll have to bathe the babies before the day is done, I'm sure."
    Uncle Fadil and Baba had brought in most of the crops while the family was waiting on the mountain, but there were still potatoes to be dug and wood to be chopped and split, and every day there were the chickens to be fed and the goats and cow to be milked.
    Between his chores with the men, Mehmet held school for Isuf and Adil. Vlora was always jumping up and down, demanding to be included, so Mehmet soon gave up and let her join them. "But you have to be in charge of her," he said to Meli. It was the closest he came to suggesting that Meli, too, would be a teacher in
his
school. The house was too small for indoor classes, so the children put on their coats and once again held lessons outdoors. November in the plains felt much warmer than October in the hills.
    Despite the crowding, Meli felt that she had never been happier. Even Mehmet seemed more content than he had since ... well, since before the day of the pelican. Baba and Uncle Fadil took care to treat him as one of the men. The farm had the traditional men's chamber—a building behind the farmhouse that only men could enter—and when the brothers retreated to it, they often invited Mehmet to join them. Meli couldn't help but notice that when news from the outside world reached the farm, Mehmet was told first, even before Auntie Burbuqe or Mama.
    So it was from Mehmet that Meli learned—even before they heard it on the radio—that the American ambassador was bringing in some cease-fire observers. "Observers!" Mehmet snorted at that. "They don't have any guns," he said. "What can they do? All they do is talk. They can yell and threaten all they like, but Milosević just thumbs his nose at them. We need action."
    "But the threats worked," Meli argued. "Haven't most of the soldiers gone back to Serbia now?"
    "Only a fool would trust that snake Milosević. Just wait. We'll be back at war in no time."
    ***
    Meanwhile, on the farm, peace reigned. The milking was done, the cheese made, the bread baked, the water pumped and brought in, the livestock as well as the large extended family fed. Auntie Burbuqe made the best pepper and eggplant sauce Meli had ever tasted, but she was careful not to say this aloud. She wouldn't want to hurt Mama's feelings. They ate goat cheese with bread and pepper sauce, and thick potato soup. As a special treat, the women would make a savory cheese