My Own Revolution by Carolyn Marsden

Author:Carolyn Marsden [Marsden, Carolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6212-7
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2012-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

Bela and Mami sit at the kitchen table, a pile of paper flowers stacked in front of them. Bela wears one of the flowers behind her ear. All morning they’ve been cutting and twisting the paper, preparing the decorations. On the day before May Day, a person like Bozek will walk the streets with a clipboard, marking down which windows are bare.

Someone knocks on our front door, and I open up to see Bozek, a pile of flags draped over one arm, a bag slung over the other. Bozek of all people. He puts a foot in the doorway, as if I might close him out.

“Is your family ready?” he asks.

“We’re working on it.” I move closer, using my beanpole height against him. I reach down for a flag of each country, thinking that later Mami can clean the furniture with the Russian one.

“Make sure you hang the Russian flag,” Bozek says. “It doesn’t matter so much about the Czechoslovakian, but do hang the Russian flag.”

“I know.” He thinks I’m a moron.

Bozek lifts the paper bag, and I hear the clank of metal. “Do you have flag holders?”

“Of course we do. From last year and the year before and before . . .” He thinks we’re all morons.

He lingers. He’s no doubt looking for something suspicious. Like my photo of the painted-out letters. Maybe he suspects that Danika is here.

“Do you have something else to give us?” I ask.

He shrugs.

Thwack, I close the door on him. I open it again and look out. But he’s already at old Mr. and Mrs. Smutny’s door.

“I hate to think of who made these,” says Mami, stretching out the flags.

“Who?” Bela wants to know.

“Prisoners,” Mami answers. “And not even criminals. Ordinary people. Anyone who says boo to the state.”

“That’s sad,” Bela says, taking the flower out of her hair and adding it to the others.

“It is indeed,” Mami agrees. “Help me, Patrik. Let’s get these flags hung.”

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