Wild Poppies by Haya Saleh

Author:Haya Saleh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Levine Querido

PART THREE

OMAR

Chapter Fourteen

We searched everywhere for Sufyan and Rayan, but we couldn’t find any trace of them. It seemed like Sufyan had planned to run away, since he’d taken his clothes and other things with him. But even though there was no sign that Sufyan had been kidnapped or harmed in any way, I still felt sure that he had been.

The sounds of explosions and shelling boomed out near our village, rattling the windows. Even so, people went on searching with us all through the night. Some waited inside the narrow alleyways of the camp, while others went out to the nearby orchards to search among the trees and in the forest. Still others searched down the main roads. I ran from one place to the next. Sometimes, I’d be out on the streets looking for Sufyan. Other times, I’d race out past the village. But each time, I’d come back disappointed.

Everyone was tired and overwhelmed. A dark cloud hung over the village, like the cloud that comes after a funeral, when you’re mourning someone. We stopped hearing the sounds of bullets and explosions and the roaring of planes. I sat down near the door to our aunt’s house, not knowing what to do. I heard soft footsteps coming closer, and when I looked up, I saw Salma. As she walked toward me, she said, “Omar, I don’t want you to think that I helped Sufyan this time. My heart aches just like yours that he’s gone. But he’ll come back.”

“He didn’t tell you where he was going? And he didn’t ask you for any money?”

“No,” she said. “But once I heard him talking with his friends about a job that would earn them money. And I saw Rayan with a new phone that he tried to hide from me.”

“That’s what I thought,” I mumbled to myself, before I started to cry. “I’m scared that one of the gangs recruited him and then took him away.”

Still, after hearing what Salma knew, I felt a little hope—like I might be able to catch the start of a thread that would lead me to Sufyan. I decided to look for the Jeep that I’d seen him riding in once with his friends. If that car came back to our village, then I could follow it, and it would take me to him. Or, if it didn’t come back, then I would go out and search for him everywhere.

I came home with the first streaks of dawn light. Everyone was in the big living room except for my mother. I found her sitting on a prayer rug, loudly praying and sobbing. I told her I would go to Raqqun, since Sufyan might have gone back to our house, just like last time. She asked me to wait until later in the day, when there would be more people around, because if I left early in the morning, I might run into armed gangs in the streets. People had started to worry about the

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