Reunion by Jacqueline Pearce

Author:Jacqueline Pearce
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV039120, JUV016160, JUV039060
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2013-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

In Trouble

The next day was Saturday. I woke up and saw that Pritam was still asleep in the bed beside me. The house was quiet. My dad would have been up and gone to work hours ago, but where were Mata and Nanjo? I dressed quietly and went out to the kitchen. From the porch at the back of the house came the churning sound of the wringer washing machine and the voices of my mother and little brother. His babyish voice was high and demanding, while my mom’s answer was as deep and rhythmic as the washer.

On the kitchen table was a plate of leftover rotis and a loaf of store bread. I cut myself a slice of bread and spread on a thick layer of blackberry jam, remembering the day at the end of the summer when Mitsu and I and some of the other girls had gone berry picking. We’d hitched a ride on the locomotive engine that took the loggers into the forest each day. The locie, as we called it, dropped us off up in the forest outside of camp. We’d picked berries all day, laughing and talking so that the time sped by. That evening, we’d returned home tired, juice-stained and with lard pails full of the small wild blackberries and even some blueberries.

“Oh, good. You’re up,” my mom said, coming into the kitchen. Nanjo was wiggling in her arms.

“Down, down, down,” he cried, reaching for the floor.

“You can watch Nanjo while I hang the clothes on the line,” my mom told me as she set Nanjo on the floor.

When she went back out to the porch, Nanjo began to cry, reaching his chubby arms after her.

Sticking the last piece of bread in my mouth, I went to the cupboard, pulled out a big steel pot and a wooden spoon and placed the pot upside down on the floor between Nanjo’s legs.

“Watch this, Nanjo,” I said, smiling at him and banging the spoon on the pot a few times. He stopped crying at once, grabbed hold of the spoon and began to beat the pot himself.

I sliced myself another piece of bread and spread it with jam, thinking about when Mitsu had found the first blueberry bush. She’d smiled her mischievous smile and thrown the berries up, one at a time, catching them in her mouth as they fell.

I held up my arm and admired the bracelet Mitsu had given me. When I twisted my hand, the beads plunked against each other like berries falling into a pail. What could I give to Mitsu in return? Perhaps my yellow silk chewnee that Mitsu had admired. No, the scarf was new, and my mom would be angry if I gave it away. Maybe I could pick some spring wildflowers. The trilliums and tiger lilies would be out now. I could walk out along the railroad tracks.

“Jasminder!”

I looked up. My mother stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, her face dark.

“Where is Nanjo?” she demanded.

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