but her grip is strong
and she meets my gaze
with eyes that say she is a friend.
We’ve been trying to get more information
on your mom, Kek, Diane says.
Here’s what we’ve got.
She hands many papers to Dave.
My hope flutters high
like a bird I cannot catch.
I ready my heart for the words I need to hear:
Found her. Good news. Coming here.
Those are the words Diane must say.
Those are the stars that will guide my path home.
This is a very difficult process,
I’m afraid, Diane says.
Refugees in that area move frequently,
and tracking someone down can be
almost impossible.
We’ve sent out an inquiry
about two camps on the border.
Diane pauses.
I wait to hear the words,
to see the stars.
After your camp was attacked,
some people made it to the places we’re contacting.
I don’t want you to get your hopes up, Kek.
We’ll know more in a while.
Diane looks at some papers.
Dave looks at his shoes.
I am still hoping, I say at last.
I want to sound fierce and certain
as a great lion.
But I sound like a lost cub,
even to my own ears.
Of course you are, Diane says.
We all are.
Thank you for your looking, I say.
Diane nods. You’re very welcome.
I’ll be in touch with Dave as soon as we hear anything.
We head outside.
The icy air kicks at my chest.
We walk to Dave’s car in silence.
Only the snow talks.
We climb in.
Seat belt, Dave says softly.
I am glad he doesn’t ask how I am feeling.
I don’t know whether to feel
hope or fear.
Dave pushes a knob
and the music box sings.
The song races ahead while I stumble behind,
just one more thing I cannot know.
SCHOOL CLOTHES
That night,
I try on the school clothes
in the box Dave has brought for me.
I pick a button shirt with flowers on it
and soft red pants,
but Ganwar rolls his eyes.
Those are pajamas, he says.
You wear them when you sleep.
I try again.
Ganwar shakes his head.
The kids will eat you alive, he says.
This is bad news,
since I didn’t know that America people
like to eat each other.
Ganwar must see the fear in my eyes
because he explains:
It means they’ll beat you up.
Oh, I say. I feel relieved.
You mean like at the camp?
I’m not much of a fighter,
not like my brother and my father
and my cousin.
I’m used to losing fights.
It isn’t so bad,
if you cover your face
and other important places.
Ganwar finds a pair of hard blue pants
and a shirt the color of sand.
Jeans, he says. T-shirt.
I put them on and parade
through the TV room
like a great ruler.
Ganwar groans.
It’s just school, Kek.
My aunt hushes him.
Let him have his fun, she scolds.
In the bathing room
I look hard in the shiny glass.
I wonder if I look
like an America boy.
I’m not sure if that would be
a good thing or a not-good thing.
ONCE THERE WAS …
The next morning,
I don’t know what I am feeling.
I’m excited, yes,
because to go to school and learn
is a fine honor.
But I’m worried also.
I don’t know so many things.
I don’t even know
what I don’t know!
My belly leaps
like a monkey on a tree.
In the camp we had a teacher
some days, yes,
some days, no.
Some days I was too ill
with the fever to go.
Some days the teacher couldn’t come
because of the men with guns.
But on the good days,
the teacher might arrive
with a piece of chalk
and maybe even a book.
Mostly he would help us
learn English words,
so we would be ready
to leave the camp someday.
But sometimes there would be
singing, or a story
or numbers on our fingers and toes to count.
I liked the stories the best.
Once there was
a lion who could not roar …
Once there was
a man who sailed the sea …
Once there was
a child who found a treasure …
The stories would lift me up,
the words like a breeze beneath
butterfly wings,
and take me far from the pain in my belly
and the tight knot of my heart.
I hope they will have stories
at my school.
If they don’t know how,
perhaps I can teach them.
It isn’t such a hard thing.
All you must do is say
Once there was …
and then let your hoping find the words.
NEW DESK
Dave takes me to school.
When I see it, I use the words
I learned from the TV machine:
No way!
It’s big enough to graze
a herd of cattle in,
made of fine, red square stones
and surrounded by many
tall not-dead trees.
It’s a place for
a leader of men to work in,
not a place for small children
to learn their numbers.
Dave sees my falling-open mouth.
Don’t be scared, Kek, he says.
But I’m not scared,
not like that.
Scared is for men with guns
and maybe just a little
for a flying boat
finding its way
back to earth.
Inside my school
the floor shines like ice.
I walk carefully.
Thin metal doors with silver handles
line the walls.
Those are called lockers, Dave says.
C’mon. We’re early,
but the teacher wants to meet you.
Waiting in a big-windowed room
is a woman with black hair that dances
and sturdy arms
and eyes that tell jokes.
You must be Kek, she says,
and then she uses my word
for hello.
I’m ready to begin
my learning, I say,
and she tosses out a loud laugh
like a ball into the air.
I can see you mean business, she says.
A man comes in,
young and short
with skin the color of rich earth,
just like mine.
He says he is Mr. Franklin
and he helps sometimes in class
when Ms. Hernandez needs
to do her deep breathing.
Everyone laughs,
so I laugh, too,
because it’s always
good to be polite.
This will be your desk, Ms. Hernandez says.
Have a seat.
She points to a shiny chair
and little table.
A chair of my own
and a table, too?
I smother the thought
like an ember near dry grass.
I’m very sorry, but I can’t,
I say softly. I don’t have the cattle
for such a fine desk as this.
Oh, she says,
you don’t have to pay for this desk, Kek.
School’s free here.
You just bring your mind
and your smile
every day, OK?
Carefully I sit.
I like very much this new desk
with its cool, smooth top.
My mouth will not stop smiling.
READY
You’re not going to understand
a lot of what we say at first, Ms. Hernandez says.
This is called an ESL class.
You and your classmates
will be learning English together.
It means they won’t always
understand you.
And you won’t always
understand them.
I’m used to not understanding, I say.
It’s like playing a game
with no rules.
She nods.
That’s exactly what it’s like.
I know, because when I came
to the U.S. from Mexico,
I couldn’t speak a word of English.
This is a surprise.
A teacher who did not know
all things?
Did you not know things also?
I ask Mr. Franklin.
Me? I’m from Baton Rouge, he says.
That’s kinda like another country.
I couldn’t understand
these crazy northern folks
for the longest time.
Some of his words get lost
on their way to my ears.
But I can see from his face
that his meaning is kind.
When you have a question,
Mr. Franklin and I will be
here to help, says Ms. Hernandez.
She points to the sky.
You just raise your hand
like this, OK?
I nod. I say, OK,
just like her.
I raise my hand.
Yes? she says, smiling big.
I ask,
When will the learning begin?
CATTLE
In my class,
my long-name class
called English-as-a-Second-Language,
we are sixteen.
Sixteen people
with twelve ways of talking.
When we talk at once
we sound like the music class
I can hear down the hall,
hoots and squeaks and thuds,
but no songs you can sing.
I look at our faces
and see all the colors of the earth—
brown and pink and yellow and white and black—
and yet we are all sitting at the same desks,
wanting to learn the same things.
Ms. Hernandez
tells everyone my name
and my old home.
Then she asks us
to draw a picture
on the black wall
to show where we come from.
One boy,
Jaime from Guatemala,
draws a mountain with a hole
called a volcano.
Sahar from Afghanistan
draws a camel,
though to be truthful
it looks like a lumpy dog.
I draw a bull with great curving horns,
like the finest in my father’s herd.
I even give him a smile.
But it takes me a while
to decide on his coat.
In my words
we have ten different names
for the color of cattle.
But the writing chalk is only white.
I am working on the tail
when someone in the back of the room says,
Moo.
Then more say it,
and more,
and soon we are
a class of cattle.
At last we can all
understand each other.
I think maybe some of the students
are laughing at me.
But I don’t mind so much.
To hear the cattle again
is good music.
LUNCH
After much schooling,
a sound comes
like a great bee buzzing.
The bell means lunch,
Mr. Franklin explains.
He gives me a small piece
of blue paper.
This is for your food.
Thank you very much,
I say in my most polite English words,
but I don’t understand how the
paper can help my noisy belly.
You give the paper
to the cooking people
and they will give you food, Mr. Franklin explains.
Tastes much better than paper.
He laughs. Well, usually, anyway.
The eating room is grand
with long tables
and strange and wonderful smells
and many students chattering.
I stand in a line
and soon kind, white-hatted people
fill my plate high with food.
Ahead of me
I see the snowball girl named Hannah
from my building.
She says, Don’t eat the mystery meat
if you value your life.
Then she points to a brown wet pile
on my plate and makes a face that says
bad taste.
When my tray is heavy
with the gifts of food,
I stand still in the
stream of students.
I don’t know where to go
to enjoy my feast.
Hannah waves.
Follow me, she says.
I’ll tell you what’s
safe to eat.
But it’s all so fine! I say.
She shakes her head.
Kid, you got a lot to learn.
FRIES
Nearby are two students
from my class:
Jaime, the boy from Guatemala
and Nishan, the girl from Ethiopia.
Hey, Jaime says.
Hey, I say back,
but I can’t talk anymore
because my mouth is already
full of new tastes.
Excuse me, I say when I have swallowed at last,
but what is this amazing food?
I hold up a brown stick.
Fry, Hannah says.
One of the five major food groups.
This fry,
it grows in your
America ground? I ask.
Hannah laughs,
a sound like bells
on a windy day.
I suppose you could say that.
You’re Kek, right?
I know because
I asked your cousin.
Hannah passes me a paper cup
filled with strange and beautiful red food.
Ketchup, she says.
You dip your fries in it.
I do what she says,
then eat.
You’re a fine cook, I say.
Hannah and Jaime and Nishan laugh.
I feel glad I found enough words
to make people happy.
When a friend laughs,
it’s always a good surprise.
NOT KNOWING
I see your cousin
at the apartments sometimes, Hannah says.
He’s a very quiet guy.
I have to think for a moment.
To eat such happy food
and think about words
at the same time
is much work.
Ganwar, I say, has many worries.
He seems kind of sad, Hannah says.
I look at the fry in my hand
with its shiny coat of red.
I want only to eat,
and not to remember.
But Hannah’s words
tug like tight rope
on a calf’s neck.
Ganwar lost his father and his sisters
when the fighting came, I tell her.
Hannah nods. Her eyes
are blue and gray,
or maybe green. I can’t be sure.
I remember a kind doctor at the camp
with such eyes.
How did he lose his hand? Hannah asks in a gentle voice.
I don’t know the words
for this.
Some English words I hope
I never learn.
Men came with guns and knives
to our village, I answer at last.
To be in such fighting,
says Nishan,
is very bad.
And what about your family?
Jaime asks me.
I stop eating.
I take a breath.
My father and my brother, Lual,
they were killed
by the government men.
I saw it.
I pause,
as a memory pokes at me
like a knife in my back.
I was lucky to see, I add.
Lucky? Hannah asks.
Her voice says
she doesn’t understand.
Nishan looks at me with
eyes that know of such things.
Maybe Kek means lucky
to know for sure, she explains.
Not knowing,
it’s the hardest.
Yes, I agree.
The hardest.
How about your mom? Hannah asks softly.
I …
Guilt grabs my throat.
I will not go to that
black place today.
I try again.
She’ll come, I say.
I’ll wait here for her.
Waiting is hard, too,
Hannah says,
and I can see that she
also knows sad places.
I push my tray away.
I’m not so hungry anymore.
HOME
I take the school bus home.
It’s a long yellow car
filled with screaming, laughing students
and many paper balls wet with spit.
I don’t think it would be easy
to drive such a car.
My aunt is sleeping when I get home.
Ganwar enters with a white basket
under his arm.
The washing machine’s in the basement, he says.
The what? I ask.