The Milk of Birds

The Milk of Birds by Sylvia Whitman Read Free Book Online

Book: The Milk of Birds by Sylvia Whitman Read Free Book Online
Authors: Sylvia Whitman
boyfriend or contacts. Supposedly six months after that I can get a learner’s permit—after I pass another stupid test—but Mom says she’s not letting me near the wheel of her car until I get my act together.
    I’m always the oldest in my class because I got held back in second grade. “Everyone develops at her own speed,” Mom says, but I feel like one of those slow-go tractors with a big red triangle on the back about to turn onto the superhighway, which is Washington-Jefferson-Lincoln-Lee High School. Todd calls it Cover Your Bases High. I’m scared to death. Luckily, Emily is smart like Adeeba. I polled my class, and she’s the only one who knew where Sudan is. She’s faster than me at everything except the 100-meter dash, and she can read newspapers in Spanish. Although there’s no chance we’ll be in the same math class, we both put down world lit and American history, so we’re bound to overlap somewhere, and she can still check my homework. Unless she turns into the passing lane and whips right past me.
    I know it’s really crummy that you didn’t get to go to school, but I wish I didn’t have to.
    â€œWhat would you do all day if you quit school?” Mom asked me once.
    Babysit. It’s not just the money, though I make a lot. I really like little kids, and they really like me. Mom says I have a gift. At least I have one.
    What’s your gift, Nawra? Besides sayings—you know a lot of really good sayings.
    Love, K. C. (I’m no madame.)

    In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate
    27 May 2008
    Dear Madame K. C. Cannelli,
    Peace be upon you. How are you? Are you strong?
    Umar passed into the hands of God last night. Umm Hakim wrapped him in the tobe he had chased in the wind just a month ago because we have no burial cloth.
    Some people think this is wrong because white is for death, all of us the same as we prepare to meet God. Yet the colors suit the children, who are the brightness in our life. Even here the children sing and clap and make mischief. The old women complain, like Kulthum bint Issa, who was always scolding Umar for stealing her spoons for his games and kicking up sand as he ran. But today she rocks silently on her mat.
    A child is a child of everyone.
    No one has donkey milk to give the children when they cough. So many have fevers, and when the flux comes, they dissolve, like sugar in hot tea.
    Too much of anything makes it cheap, we say, except for people, who become more valuable.
    All the khawaja talk about now is washing hands. Theyhave organized some of the men to burn the donkeys and cows that collapsed near the wells.
    The children cried because the smell of meat made them hungry.
    Forgive me for burdening you with my sadness.
    Your sister, Nawra

K.C.
    M AY 2008
    â€œTell me one result of Prohibition,” Emily says.
    â€œMass production. The Great Migration.”
    â€œCome on, K. C. Prohibition. Like prohibit . . . Like we’re not allowed to do it . . . ” She holds her hand up in the air, tilts her head back, and opens her mouth.
    â€œFish! Feeding! Gargling! Karaoke!”
    â€œI’m not playing charades.” Now Emily’s all prickly.
    â€œWhat the heck were you doing?”
    â€œGuzzling whiskey. Prohibition prohibited alcohol, Eighteenth Amendment—remember? All those bootleggers. So organized crime increased.”
    Behind my back, my fingers find the indent between the cinder blocks. It reminds me of sixth grade and Jimmy Ladd, who liked to pin me against the hall wall when we were kissing so he could press his whole body against mine. It’s embarrassing to think how many people saw us. Maybe he was showing off, though I wasn’t anybody to show off. He scared me a little, and not only because I thought my glasses would fall off and smash. But at the same time the pressure was sort of exciting, that anyone could be so interested in me,

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