LITTLE GIRLS
“There is a convoy of government soldiers coming our way.” Lizard snapped his cellphone shut and rammed it in his pocket. The phone was a badge of authority, proof that he was in command. “Who will volunteer to fight?”
Once again, hands shot up. Jacob, Paul, and Norman just sat on their haunches, secure in the knowledge that they would be passed over.
“You—do you fight today?” Lizard looked down at the three and grinned.
Startled, Jacob and Paul leapt up. Yes! Food, they wanted food.
Lizard laughed and nodded. “Give them pangas,” he yelled.
Both boys took the long knives. Norman looked on.
He was not given a panga.
Preparation for battle began. The soldiers knelt down, facing east. Lizard retrieved a damaged prayer book from a pocket.
“Saint Michael, Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defence against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And you, Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into Hell Satan and the other evil spirits who prowl the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.”
In chorus they all responded, “God is on our side.”
Lizard and his second-in-command, Eddie, dribbled water over their heads to wash away their sins. Now Jacob would kill—and perhaps die—but if he lived, he would eat. And if he ate, so would Norman. He dreamed of food; they all did.
The main group of girls, their children, and slaves were left behind in the tall grass as Jacob, Paul, and the rest went off to do battle.
They lay in two ditches beside the road, one ditch directly behind the other. Jacob and Paul, and many boys from their school, hid in the second ditch, pangas clutched to their sides. The rebel soldiers, including Tony, were in the forward ditch, the one closest to the road. They carried guns.
Lieutenant Lizard was poised to give the signal, his bloodshot eyes focused on the road. Jacob’s heart thumped in his chest. He fingered the stones sewn into the tiny cloth bag that dangled from his wrist, magical stones that had the power to protect him from bullets. His fingers curled around the panga. He had gripped it so long and so hard that his hand hurt. All his muscles hurt. Everything hurt.
They waited, heads down. Then, a pop, pop, pop. Not the rat-a-tat of a big gun but the little sound of a little gun. A rebel soldier hiding down the road had shot out one of the truck’s tires. In a flash of memory he thought of grasshoppers in a pot in Bella’s kitchen. Pop, pop, pop was the sound they made as they tried to escape the inevitable.
Lizard held his hand up in the air. Wait. Wait. The open- backed truck veered all over the road before coming to a stop and tipping to one side. And then, “Attack!” The first wave of rebel soldiers surged out of the ditch, guns trained. Tony whooped the loudest.
“Attack!”
Lizard, Eddie, Tony, and the rest swooped down on the truck like great birds of prey. They pointed their guns but did not fire.
Lizard shouted the command again. “Attack!” The second wave rose up out of the ditch.
Jacob turned and looked Paul in the eyes. All they had to do was stand, raise their pangas, and kill. Then it would be over. Then they would be rebels. Then they would eat.
“Attack!”
Jacob felt his body lurch forward. He scrambled up and out of the ditch. He ran. His arms and legs seemed to spin but his brain stood still. And then he stopped, suddenly. He stood on the sandy road with his panga held over his head. Paul slammed into the back of him.
These weren’t government soldiers.
These were children.
A dozen children and a few mothers sat on wooden benches in the back of the truck. They were on their way to school. The students wore blue tunics over pink shirts, and their book bags were flung over their shoulders. The children cried out at the sight of the soldiers bearing guns and knives. The mothers screamed.
Again Lizard shouted, “Attack!”
Jacob felt his body jolt forward. “Arrggghhh,” he cried. Over and over. “Arrggghh.” It was a guttural sound that came from a place deep within.
All around him the rebels rushed toward the truck, screaming, screaming, screaming. The high-pitched shrieks filled his ears and the air around him.
A little girl in the back of the truck clung to her mama. The mama poured her body over her child, cupping her in her bulk. Two rebel soldiers tried to peel the mama off. The mama hung onto her daughter’s arms, then she seized the hem of the girl’s school uniform, and as the material was ripped from her grasp she grabbed onto the girl’s legs.
“Let her go! My baby, my baby!” she shrieked.
Jacob held his panga in the air, his face blank. The mama was strong. The muscles in her arms bulged and the veins in her neck swelled. He froze. The mama’s shrill squeals stung.
Kill! Kill!
And then it came to him, a voice jumped into his head:
“Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?”
In that moment, Jacob’s world stood still.
Lizard sprang up onto the truck, knocked Jacob aside, then reared up and smashed the mama’s teeth with his rifle butt. Still, the mama gripped her child’s feet. Jacob wanted to shout at her, Let go. Let go. It’s too late. Your girl is lost! But nothing came out of his mouth. The butt of Lizard’s gun came down on her head a second time. She fell sideways. And then it was over, all of it.
Jacob stood on the road. His hands shook. His knees nearly buckled. He staggered to the edge of the road and heaved and retched until his whole body quivered with the effort. What had he heard? Mother? It was his mother’s voice that had stopped him from killing. No, he was hungry, that was all. He was starving. He was imagining things. But dead is not dead. Spirits do not die. If they love you, they stay and protect you.
He looked up and saw Paul slumped in the ditch. Paul’s panga lay on the ground beside him. There was no blood on the knife. For a moment, however brief, Jacob felt relief. But they had not killed, so they would not eat.
Three girls were abducted. The youngest was ten, maybe eleven, the oldest perhaps thirteen years old.
Under the cool, clear sky with hardly a cloud in sight, Jacob counted eight bodies on the road: two old women, an old man, the rest were mothers with babies. Not a single shot had been fired.
Paul hauled away crates of live chickens, while Jacob sifted through the belongings of the dead. Inside pockets or strewn in the dirt they uncovered a few coins, plastic water bottles, a basket of bananas, and a book on mathematics. It must have come out of a book bag. A soldier made off with the bananas while Jacob fingered the pages of the book.
“What is it?” Lizard had a habit of disappearing and reappearing. He could be in two places at one time, Jacob was sure of it. He was the devil, a wizard. If such things existed, then Lizard was one.
Lizard knocked Jacob back into the dirt. “What have you there?” He snatched up the book. “Arithmetic! You still think this matters? Killing is what matters! Being a good soldier matters. Making Kony proud matters.” He threw the book on the ground, then stomped away in disgust.
Jacob picked up the book and dusted off the cover.
67 times 80.
He could not remember the last time he had tried to visualize numbers or multiply in his head.
67 times 80. It should have been so easy.
He said it out loud: “67 times 80.”
He didn’t know the answer. He couldn’t see the numbers anymore.
Lizard was shouting. Jacob threw the book away and picked up his panga. He hoisted the last crate of chickens up on his head and began to walk back to camp. Rebel soldiers had tied the little girls up with tree vines, wrist to wrist. They were crying.
Back at camp the little girls, still tethered, huddled together. The older soldiers preferred to marry the very little girls and make them wives. The small ones had no hatching chiggers between their toes and no twoo jonyo AIDS between their legs.
As the chickens were being cooked over an open fire, Jacob pulled his legs up to his chest. Tony strutted past Jacob, a bloody, pink chicken leg in his hand. Tony was now a respected soldier.
“Tony?” Jacob whispered his name. Tony ignored him.
It was late in the day, time to rest if not to eat. Jacob folded his arms across his knees and let his head loll back and forth. What had Lizard read out of the prayer book, about Saint Michael, the Archangel?
“Michael, Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defence
against the wickedness and snares of the devil.” Where had he heard that before? Church, maybe? School?
“Come, eat.” Paul pulled at Jacob’s arm.
“But I didn’t kill anyone,” Jacob said.
“I did not kill either. Never mind. We have to try and eat.” Paul pulled Jacob’s arm again.
Slowly Jacob got up on his feet. Norman, silently, stumbled behind. Norman seemed to be growing backwards, shrinking, getting smaller and smaller.
As usual Oteka stood by the fire. Without looking at the boys directly, he handed them three big pieces of meat. They shoved the meat into their mouths. Streams of fat rolled down their chins. The chicken was stringy, tough, pink, and delicious.
“Stop! You did not kill today!” Lizard pushed Jacob aside, grabbed the hunk of chicken out of Norman’s hand, then turned and stared at Oteka. His pea-sized eyes narrowed. It was apparent to all watching that Lizard was beginning to distrust Oteka. He flung the chicken into the dirt. A group of children pounced on it like small animals.
“You do not kill, you do not eat.” With one hand Lizard rammed the nub of his gun barrel under Norman’s chin, and with the other he grabbed him by the arm, spun him around, and sent him sprawling into the dirt. The few bites Norman had managed to cram into his mouth shot out in a spurt. Some soldiers laughed, others applauded. It was one less mouth to feed, all the more for them. Lizard raised the butt of his gun up and made ready to smash it into Norman’s face. Norman held up his hands and cried out.
Jacob lurched forward. Wait, I did not kill today either. The voices in Jacob’s head screamed and screamed—No, no, no!—but his feet were rooted to the ground.
A rumble—deep, menacing, distant—circled the village. It came from all directions at once. There was a pause, a collective drawing of breath. With the gun poised above Norman’s head, Lizard stopped and sniffed the air like a rodent. A shout went up. Then they heard the trucks, dozens of them.
“Kony! He’s here!”