Mud City by Deborah Ellis

Author:Deborah Ellis
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: JUV030110
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd.
Published: 2003-09-01T05:00:00+00:00

Eight

Breakfast in prison was more bread and tea. Shauzia grabbed her share of bread and drank her cup of tea before the boy who had punched her could take it. But the tea made just a small dent in her thirst.

“That was mine!” the boy growled.

“Wait awhile and I’ll piss it back to you,” she said.

The others laughed, and this time they were not laughing at Shauzia.

The boy would have come at her, but just then a guard came to the cell door.

“Get ready for the showers,” he said.

The other boys leapt to their feet.

“The water is cold, and it will cool us off,” a boy beside Shauzia said. “While we’re out, they’ll hose down the cell and the toilet. Everything will be better. You’ll see.”

Shauzia was horrified. There would not be private showers. She could not expose herself as a girl to all these boys.

She was so scared that she could barely think.

The other boys pressed against the bars at the front of the cell, eager to be first into the showers. It was a chance to stretch their legs, and they yelled and pushed and hit out at each other in their excitement. Shauzia let them push her out of the way, until she was alone at the back of the cell. She pressed herself against the cement.

Maybe if she pressed hard enough, she could push herself right through the wall.

There was a bang on the bars as the guard used his stick to make the boys back up.

“Boy who was brought in yesterday, step forward,” the guard called out.

“It was me!” the other boys shouted. “I was brought in yesterday!”

Through all of this, Shauzia heard another voice speaking in English, then switching to Dari.

“No, it’s not any of these,” the voice said. “Is there another boy in there? The one who was arrested at the Chief Burger?

Shauzia leapt forward, shoving her way to the cell door. On the other side of the bars was one of the after-church-pizza Westerners, the father of the two little boys who liked Jasper so much.

The man smiled down at her. “You have a very smart dog.”

Shauzia leaned into the bars and motioned for him to crouch down so she could tell him something.

“You have to get me out of here,” she pleaded. “It’s shower day.”

The man looked perplexed, so she pressed her face against the bars.

“I’m a girl!” she whispered.

He looked at her closely, blinked once, then started talking to the guards. They moved away from the cell door. Shauzia couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could see the Western man take out his wallet and exchange arm-waving gestures with the guards while they talked. Her heart sank when she saw him put his wallet back in his pocket, then leapt when he took it out again. They argued some more. Then the man nodded, took some bills out of his wallet and handed them to the guards.

The guards unlocked the cell door, reached in through the throng of boys and pulled Shauzia out.

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