Parvana's Journey by Deborah Ellis

Author:Deborah Ellis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
Published: 2015-04-17T20:00:48+00:00

TWELVE

They spent the night in the little house. Leila shared her mattress with Parvana, and Asif slept next to Hassan. Parvana slept deeply and did not dream.

The flies woke her up.

We’ll have to do something about that, she thought as she scratched at the flea bites on her ankles. They would have to do something about the bugs in the beds, too.

She realized she had decided to stay for a while.

The others were still sleeping. Parvana gently lifted Leila’s arm from where it had fallen across her chest and went outside.

The clearing was a little world by itself. The way the hills surrounded it, it was hard to tell there was a world outside at all.

Parvana walked around the little house. In the back was a patch of dirt that looked as if it might have been a vegetable garden at one point. There were sticks in the ground that could have staked tomatoes, like the ones she had seen in gardens in the villages she had passed through with her father.

Near the garden was a rusty wire cage full of pigeons. The cage was taller than Parvana, but the perch had broken and was lying on the ground covered with droppings. Most of the pigeons hopped around in the muck on the bottom. One was trying to work its way through a hole in the wires. Parvana put her hand against the hole and felt the bird’s soft head butt against her palm.

“We ate one of those last night,” Leila said, coming up behind her. “We eat some, and they keep having babies, so we have more to eat.”

Leila took Parvana on a tour of the clearing. “These are apple trees,” she said, pointing to two scraggly trees with shiny green leaves and little green apples on the branches. “The apples will be ready in the fall. They’re good, but you have to eat around the worms.”

In another part of the yard were sacks of flour and rice. Parvana could see mouse holes in some of the bags.

“Come and see my treasure house,” Leila said.

The treasure house turned out to be some boards leaning up against a rock. Leila pulled one of the boards away. Parvana peered in and saw cans of cooking oil, several bolts of cloth, a box of light bulbs, cooking pots, sandals of many sizes, men’s caps, lengths of rope, several thermos flasks, and a box of bars of soap, some chewed by mice.

“Where did all this come from?” Parvana asked.

“A peddler got blown up in the mine field. That was a really good day. We got all these things. I made myself this dress from some of the cloth.”

Parvana struggled to understand. “You mean you go out into the mine field when you hear an explosion?”

“Of course. That’s how I found you.”

“What happened to the peddler?”

“Oh, he was blown up. His cart and clothes were all blown up, too. Nothing there we could use. I had to make a lot of trips to carry all these things back.

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