I’m tired out when I get home from school in the afternoon, but when Mom says, “What’s up, honey?” I find I can’t tell her what happened with the soldiers. I used to tell her everything, but I don’t know how she’d react now. No, I do know how she’d react, and that’s what stops me from telling her. I wish she was like she used to be—relaxed and fun.
I play with my food until I notice her staring at me, then eat a big mouthful of egg salad and try to smile.
“You look like you need cheering up, Astrid,” she says, and I look up. She’s going to say I’m not grounded anymore! But then she says, “Let’s go to the market. I haven’t been for ages.”
I look back down and fidget with my food.
“Oh, it’ll be fun,” says Mom. Her voice is bright. She reaches across the table and lifts my chin.
“We both need a little cheering up, eh?” she says.
I swallow my food. Mom seems happy today. It’s been awhile.
“We’ll give Piper a treat. It’s been boring for her these days at home with me,” Mom says.
“I’m still grounded,” I say.
“We won’t tell Dad.” She gets up and pulls Piper out of her chair, and the two of them dance around the room. Piper laughs and reaches out to me, so I get up and join them.
We take Thomas with us, since Mom is scared to drive in the maze of downtown streets. “We’ll be about half an hour,” says Mom to Thomas when we get to the market and she’s gathering her bags.
Thomas waves goodbye and pulls out a newspaper. He looks so relaxed leaning against the car, I wish I could stay there with him instead of jostling my way through the stalls.
As always, the noise of people bargaining and the smells of fresh spices and rotting fish hit us first. It’s dark in the aisles between stalls, but not cool, and the spicyfishy air makes it hard to breathe. To me the market is like a beehive—so full of motion.
“If we get separated, come back to the car,” says Mom.
“I know, Mom.” That’s what she always says. It’s one of the rules. I hike Piper up higher on my hip and trail behind Mom.
Piper’s interested in everything and squirms from side to side trying to see. We weave through the stalls, and Mom spends the whole time complaining about how there’s so little for sale even though this is a country of farmers. My face burns with embarrassment. Why did she come here if she’s going to be like that?
“Mom, a lot of these people can understand English, you know,” I say.
She shakes her head and keeps talking to herself.
I hold Piper tight to keep her from jumping down and darting away. There are so many people here, it would be easy to lose her.
A boy comes by with a softly-softly in his arms. We’ve seen him here before. The softly-softly is so cute, like a cross between a monkey and a sloth, with huge eyes so that it can see at night. Dad says it’s a kind of potto, which is like a lemur, and Gordo keeps begging for one. Thomas warned us that they can be vicious, so of course Mom always says no.
I ignore the boy, but he speaks to Piper.
“Baby, you want to pet the softly-softly? So cute, like you.” He draws close, and Piper puts out her hand to pet the little animal.
“Don’t touch, Piper,” I say, but the boy comes closer. He pats the softly-softly on the head and it closes its eyes and licks its lips with its tiny tongue. Piper reaches out again, and I twist away so she can’t reach. “It might bite your finger,” I say.
“It won’t bite—it’s almost asleep,” says the boy. He holds the animal up so Piper can reach it more easily.
“We don’t want it,” I say, but he ignores me and holds the softly-softly so that it’s almost in Piper’s arms.
“Go away,” I say. With a scowl at me and a wink at Piper, he finally walks away. Piper whimpers as the softly-softly disappears.
“Mom, I’m taking Piper to get a cold drink,” I say.
“Give me a minute,” Mom says.
“Please, Mom?”
“Wait.” She pays for a handful of tomatoes and puts them in one of her bags.
“We’ll be fine, Mom,” I say.
“Thank you,” she says to the woman, and then she turns to me and says, “Let’s go.”
Before we can buy a soda, we have to go back to the car to get empty soda bottles to exchange for the full soda bottles at the stall. At first this seemed like a crazy system, but now we’re used to it.
People call out to us as they always do when I’m with Piper. I try to ignore them, but they reach out to touch her, and she smiles and giggles at them, which makes them crowd even closer. It’s hot as an oven in here, there’s no fresh air, and there are people everywhere.
My breath is ragged, and my face feels flushed.
There’s something going on at the end of the path we usually take, and there are so many people, we can’t get through. Mom leads us down a new path, but there are too many people there too, and in a flash she’s gone. I grip Piper tightly, and she cries in my ear. She’s so sweaty she’s about to slip from my arms, and I’m having a hard time catching my breath. It’s all I can do to hold on to her.
It’s going to take forever to get to the car!
But then Thomas’s voice says, “Astrid, over here,” and we follow his voice through the crowd to a stall.
A woman sits next to him on a crate. The cloth of her dress is traditional, but the style is modern, and she has her hair done in a cornrow pattern I’ve never seen before. She fiddles with the dial on a ghetto blaster. When she hears Blondie, she turns up the volume.
“One way or another,” she sings along with Blondie. Thomas grins and reaches out to take Piper from me. I sag in relief.
“Astrid, this is my wife, Esi,” he says.
I use my T-shirt to wipe the sweat out of my eyes. Esi waves at me and keeps singing. I smile back.
“Where’s your mom?” asks Thomas.
“We lost her. She’ll go to the car. We should go too. That’s where we said we’d meet,” I say.
Thomas sits Piper on his stool and says, “You stay here and have a drink. I’ll go get your mom.”
Esi dances over to me. I join her, moving my feet in the space between the crate and the wall. “I’m gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha one way or another,” we shout into the crowded air. My breathlessness is gone now. Piper claps and we dance and sing until the song’s over.
“Phew, I’m thirsty,” I say. I’m sweating all over, and my shirt sticks to my back.
“I have some drinks back here,” says Esi, reaching under a crate at the back of the stall.
“Great,” I say, but then I remember. Mom will have a fit if we drink something that doesn’t come in a sealed bottle. It’s the only way to be safe, she always says. But I don’t want to be rude. It’s generous of Esi to offer me a drink—it’s not like she can turn on a tap and have drinking water come out.
I’m still thinking about how to say no when she stands up and hands me a Coke. “There’s a bottle opener here somewhere,” she says. The Coke’s warm, and its strong taste burns my mouth, but it feels good anyway. I give a sip to Piper, but she scrunches up her nose and coughs. Esi pats her on her back and says, “Water would be better, but we’ll get a coconut for you, baby.” I should have known Esi wouldn’t offer us unboiled water. Thomas has probably told her what Mom’s like.
I relax and look around. The stall is filled with wooden animals.
“These are Thomas’s?” I ask.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” says Esi.
“This is where you sell them?”
Esi nods. “When we’ve sold enough, we’ll use the money to get a house. That’s our plan.”
I can picture it. A little house with Esi singing inside and Thomas gardening outside.
The stall shelves are full. There’s a family of elephants—two big ones and five little ones, each holding onto the tail of the one in front of it. There are two giraffes, their necks entwined, and a growling hyena. There are birds too—something with long legs, and several egrets. Crocodiles open their mouths wide, and antelope bend to drink. Each animal is set in a scene, next to a pond made of blue cloth or under a tree made of a branch or soaring through the air on coat hangers. It’s like being in a tiny natural history museum.
“This is beautiful,” I say.
“Thomas lives for his animals,” says Esi.
Thomas arrives then and says, “Your mom’s not happy with you. We’d better get back to the car.”
My good mood evaporates, and I want to scream. Mom doesn’t trust me at all anymore. Not even to find my way through the market to the car.
I stand abruptly. “Bye, Esi, it was nice to meet you,” I say as we leave.
“You too, Astrid,” she says.
Thomas kisses Esi, and she takes a long time letting go of his hand, as if she doesn’t want him to leave, but he pulls away and says to me, “Let’s go before your mom gets more worried.” He throws Piper up onto his shoulders so she’s riding high and leads the way back toward the car. I trail behind a bit so that I can stop being upset before I see Mom.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Mom says when we reach the car. Her voice is breathless, and she drops the two bags she’s holding and grabs Piper from Thomas. Oranges and tomatoes roll on the dusty ground.
“I lost you,” she says.
“We were fine. I could have found my way,” I say.
She hugs Piper, who squirms in the heat of her arms. Thomas picks up Mom’s bags, and together we put the oranges and tomatoes back into the bags.
When I stand up, Mom’s crying and kissing Piper like she’s a long-lost baby she hasn’t seen in months. Piper looks as if she’s about to scream, so I say, “Mom, it’s okay. We were with Thomas.”
She doesn’t seem to hear me, and she clutches Piper closer to her chest.
“Mom.” I reach over and grab her arm so she has to pay attention. “Let’s get into the car. It’s too hot.”
Thomas has already opened the doors, and Mom lets me lead her to the front seat. As soon as she sits down, I take Piper from her and the two of us crawl into the back seat. Thomas noses the car away from the parking lot and turns on the air-conditioning. The cool air washes over us like relief, but there’s a knot inside my stomach that doesn’t go away, especially when Mom leans her head against the back of her seat and covers her face with her hands.