FOUR

Crouching near the mouth of the cave, Parvana listened for the sounds of something that might have gone in there before her.

Hassan fussed and wriggled. Parvana put a finger over his lips, but he either didn’t understand or he didn’t care. He kept whining and kicking and making screechy little baby noises.

Carrying a baby on a journey was different from carrying a bundle. A bundle could be tossed over one shoulder or the other. A bundle could be dropped when her arms were tired, or even thrown to the ground when she was frustrated and didn’t know which way to go next.

But a baby had to be carried carefully and couldn’t be dropped, tossed or thrown. Hassan was cute, but he could also be heavy and cranky and smelly to carry.

Parvana’s back and shoulders ached. There was no comfortable way to carry everything she needed, and not even multiplication tables took away the pain.

The cave, by a small stream, would be a good place to rest for a few days, as long as there were no wolves inside.

Hassan let out a big squeal, and Parvana gave up any hope of trying to sneak in. She walked up to the entrance and peered in, then stepped inside.

The cave was more of a low-hanging rock than a real cave. As her eyes began to get used to the dimmer light, she could see bits of the back wall. The cave was tall enough for her to stand up in and wide enough for her to stretch out, with plenty of room left over for her bundles. The rocks rose up around it like a cocoon, creating a cozy shelter where she could sleep safely without the risk of anyone creeping up on her. She would stay here for a while and rest her arms.

“Get out of my cave!”

Parvana spun around and was running away before the voice stopped echoing off the cave walls. Fear kept her legs moving long after she was exhausted.

When she finally slowed down, her brain began to tell her something she had been too scared to hear moments earlier.

The voice that had yelled at her from the back of the cave was a child’s voice.

Parvana stopped running and caught her breath. She turned around and looked back at the cave. She wasn’t going to let some child keep her from getting a few days of rest!

“Let’s go and see who’s in there,” she said to Hassan.

She went back to the mouth of the cave.

“Hello,” she called in.

“I told you to get out of my cave!” the voice shouted. It was definitely a child’s voice.

“How do I know it’s your cave?” Parvana asked.

“I’ve got a gun. Go away or I’ll shoot you.”

Parvana hesitated. Lots of young boys in Afghanistan did have guns. But if he had a gun, why hadn’t he shot at her already?

“I don’t believe you,” Parvana said. “I don’t think you’re a killer. I think you’re a kid just like me.”

She took a few more steps forward, trying to see in the dark.

A stone hit her on the shoulder.

“Stop that!” she shouted. “I’m carrying a baby.”

“I warned you to stay away.”

“All right, you win,” Parvana said. “Hassan and I will leave you alone. We just thought you’d like to share our meal, but I guess you’d rather throw stones.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“Leave the food and go.”

“I have to cook it first,” Parvana said over her shoulder as she walked away. “If you want it, come out and get it.”

Parvana put down the baby where she could watch him and kept talking while she gathered dried grasses and stalks from dead weeds for a cook fire. The water in the stream was clear and moving swiftly, so she thought it would be safe to drink without boiling it first.

She dipped in her pan. “Here’s some lovely cool water to drink, Hassan,” she said. “Tastes good, doesn’t it? Drink it all down, and we’ll have a hot tasty supper.” She gave him a piece of stale nan to keep him quiet until the meal was ready.

Parvana heard a little shuffling noise. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a small boy peering out from the cave. He was sitting on the ground. She took him some water.

Dirt covered every inch of him, and he stank like the open sewers that ran through the camp where she had spent the winter. One of his pant legs lay flat against the ground, empty where his leg should have been. He was, Parvana thought, nine or ten years old.

She put the water down where he could reach it, then went back to her work. She heard him gulping the water.

“Bring me some food,” the boy ordered, tossing the pot at her.

“I don’t like having things thrown at me,” Parvana said. “If you want food, come and get it yourself.”

“I can’t walk!” he yelled. “How stupid you are, not to notice that. Now bring me some food!”

Parvana walked over with some stale nan. The boy glowered at her with hatred and rage. And fear, she thought. His hair was matted with dirt. His face was scratched and his clothes were torn. She kept the bread out of his reach.

“Have you really got a gun?” she asked.

“I’m not telling you.” He reached for the bread.

“You give me an answer and I’ll give you some food.”

The boy flew into a furious burst of temper. He cursed and yelled and threw fistfuls of rocks and dust at Parvana. The fit left him panting and coughing. His cough was deep and used up his whole chest, just like her father’s cough had done. Parvana wondered how someone so scrawny found the strength to be so unpleasant.

I could blow on him and he’d fall over, she thought.

“No, I don’t have a gun,” the boy finally admitted, “but I can get one any time I want, so just watch what you do!”

Parvana gave him the bread. It disappeared in a flash. She fetched more water and put it to boil over the little fire. When the rice was cooked, she put some on a flat rock and took it to the boy.

“What’s your name?”

The boy frowned and stared at the rice. “Asif.” Parvana gave him the rice. Then she fed Hassan.

“My name is Parvana,” she said, putting fingerfuls of rice into Hassan’s mouth. “I’m looking for my family. I found this baby in a village that had been bombed. I call him Hassan.” She ate some rice herself.

“Why do you have a girl’s name?” Asif asked.

Parvana turned suddenly cold. How could she have made such a mistake? Quickly she tried to think of something to say to cover up, but she was suddenly too tired to lie.

“I am a girl,” she said. “I pretended to be a boy in Kabul so I could work. When my father and I started out on this journey, it was easier to keep pretending to be a boy.”

“Why didn’t your father work? Was he lazy?”

“No, my father was not lazy, and don’t you dare say another word about him!” Parvana slammed the ground with a rock. The noise startled Hassan and made him cry.

“I’ll say what I please. I don’t take orders from a girl,” Asif taunted.

“You’ll take orders from me if you want to eat any more of my food,” Parvana yelled. “Oh, be quiet, Hassan!”

Yelling at the baby to stop crying only made him cry louder and longer.

Parvana turned her back on both of them. She tried to ignore them as she watched the flames of her smoky little fire dwindle into embers.

Finally she was calm. Hassan’s cry had faded to a thin whimper. Parvana picked him up and held him in her lap until he fell asleep. Then she spread out a blanket and wrapped him up against the night chill.

She had almost forgotten about the cave boy, when he asked her another question.

“So where is your father now?”

Parvana put a few stray strands of camel-grass on the coals and watched as they burst into quick flames.

“He’s dead,” she answered quietly.

Asif was silent again for a while. Then he said, “I knew you were a girl. You’re far too ugly to be a boy.” His voice was weaker than before, as though all the fight had been drained out of him. Parvana saw that he was lying down. She took him a blanket.

“What were you doing in that cave?”

“I’m not answering any more of your stupid questions.”

“Tell me, and I’ll let you use this blanket.”

“I don’t want your stinking blanket,” he replied, mumbling into the dirt. Parvana wasn’t sure whether to kick him or cover him.

Then Asif spoke again, so quietly that she had to lean down to hear him.

“I was chased into the cave by a monster,” he said. “I mean, I was chasing a monster. It disappeared into a hole in the cave, and it will probably come out tonight and gobble you up, which will make me very happy.”

Parvana walked away without kicking him or covering him. She left the blanket on the ground just out of his reach.

She sat down beside Hassan. There was a tiny bit of light left in the sky. She took out her notebook and pen.

Dear Shauzia:

I met a strange creature today. He’s part boy and part wild animal. One of his legs is missing, and he’s been hiding in a cave.

You’d think he’d be grateful to me for taking care of him, but he just gets ruder and ruder. How can someone that small be so awful?

Doesn’t matter. He’s not my problem. In the morning I’ll leave him behind. I’ve got to find my family, and he will just slow me down.

Maybe I should leave the baby behind, too. These boys are not my brothers. They are not my problem.

The evening was too dark to write any more. Parvana put her writing things away. She looked up at the sky for a while, remembering her father’s astronomy lessons.

She got to her feet again and walked back to Asif. He was sleeping flat against the earth, almost hugging the hard ground. She picked up the nearby blanket. She covered him up, then went to sleep beside Hassan.