Escape Under the Forever Sky (3 page)

I thought about my promise to Iskinder.
Technically
, I wasn't breaking it, since I didn't believe that going to hear some music with my friend was something I shouldn't do.

I grinned back. “Fantastic!” Then I noticed the new driver watching us. Tana and I walked into the house together, and I asked, “What's with Mr. Happy out there?”

“Who, Dawit?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Nothing. He is our new driver. My dad loves him—he never speaks, and he is never late.”

“He gives me the creeps,” I said.

“Don't worry. We will not be here to see him, right?”

Before I could answer, Tana's mother came bustling into the front hall. “Lucy! I thought I heard your voice.”

I put my hands together and bowed slightly. “Salaam, Weizero Nadia.”
Weizero
means “Mrs.,” and Nadia is Mrs. Kassai's first name.

We kissed each other four times, left cheek—right cheek, left cheek—right cheek. “Very good, Lucy,” she said. “You sound just like a proper Ethiopian girl.”

“Amasegenallo.”
That means “thank you” in Amharic, the language most people speak in this part of the country.

“And how is your mother? Is she well?”

“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Kassai. She's very well.”

“I am happy to hear it. And your father?”

“He's very well too, thank you.”

“And what about your animals? Have you been out in the bush recently?”

Ouch
. “No, not recently. But very soon, I hope.”

Mrs. Kassai beamed at me and then leaned forward for another hug and two kisses. Ethiopian greetings can go on for half an hour. If we didn't do something soon, Mrs. Kassai would start asking after my goldfish
back home in Bethesda. I gave Tana a pleading look, and she came to the rescue.

“Emama, Mrs. Beshir will be here soon, yes?”

Mrs. Kassai looked at her watch. “
Ow
, Tana. Yes, any minute. Okay, my girls, have fun today. Makda is here if you need anything.” A car honked outside.
“Ishi, ishi!”
she called—okay, okay. “Ciao,” she said to us, with two more kisses each.
Ciao
is a leftover from when the Italians occupied Ethiopia during World War II.

“Ciao, Mrs. Kassai.”

“Ciao, Emama.”

We waved at Mrs. Kassai from the doorway.

“Ten, nine, eight,” Tana counted down out of the side of her mouth until the coast was clear.

“Makda's upstairs?” I whispered.

Tana nodded and kept counting. “Seven, six, five—”

I couldn't wait any more. “One!”

T
ANA AND
I held hands as we walked toward the restaurant. Friends do that here—boys and boys, girls and girls, even men and other men. What you never see is men and women holding hands. That would be considered way too risqué.

Zewditu Street was quiet in the early afternoon. Jacaranda trees lined the center island of the road, their flowers bursting from the branches like clusters of lavender grapes. I inhaled, but I couldn't tell if they had any fragrance because the air smelled like fire, like it always does in Africa. I used to love the tangy, smoky scent, but then I found out it comes from the firewood that everyone burns for fuel, which is part
of the reason why there are practically no trees left in the country—a total ecological nightmare.

Half a block away from the restaurant we could already hear the music. It sounded like Western pop mixed with some Middle Eastern twang. Tana and I started singing along and shimmying our shoulders Ethiopian-style. We were so caught up in our own little world that we didn't notice the three boys following us until it was too late. They clustered around us in height order, Small, Medium, and Large.

“Hallo!” said Large.

“Hi!” said Small.

Medium just smiled, showing us teeth that were already looking brown with decay. In Ethiopia only the very rich can afford dentists.

“Hi,” I answered, feeling the way I always do in this situation: kind of excited about meeting Ethiopian street kids, kind of nervous about being hit up for something.

Everywhere I go in Ethiopia—well, at least when I'm allowed out of the car—kids pop out of nowhere to bombard me with the same three questions: “You are from America?” “You want a . . . [
fill in blank:
necklace,
fake antique coin, toothbrush stick, religious icon, etc.]?” and—my personal favorite—“Gimme pen?” There must be a line in all the tourist guidebooks under the heading “Social Graces” or maybe “Guilt” that says, “Travelers to Ethiopia should bring about five hundred ballpoint pens to give to local children, thereby encouraging them to beg without actually giving them any kind of meaningful help.”

Luckily, I was with Tana, who got rid of them in about ten seconds.

“What did you say?” I asked.

She gave me one of her demure smile-behind-her-hand looks. “I told the big one I recognized him from his school and asked if he would like me to call his mother and tell her that he has been begging in the streets.”

“You know his mother?”

“Of course not!”

This is why I love Tana.

The band was playing in the outdoor garden behind the restaurant. It wasn't too crowded, and the host gave us a table right in front of the platform that they were using as a stage. We had just gotten our
Pepsis and I was humming along in my tuneless way when Tana kicked my shin under the table.

“Ow!”

“Over there,” she whispered. “Dawit!”

He was standing in the doorway, scanning the garden while the host pointed in our direction.

“Let's get out of here,” I said, pushing back my chair to get up.

But it was too late. Dawit had already spotted us and was on his way over. Tana and I locked eyes.
We're in so much trouble
.

“Tana,” Dawit said.

Tana stood up and put her hands on her hips. “What are you doing here, Dawit?” I could tell she was trying to sound authoritative.

“Your mother forgot her wallet. She came back for it, and when she saw you were gone, she asked me to bring you home.”

We were doomed, and we knew it. Resigned to our fate, we followed Dawit to the car.

“Mrs. Kassai asked me to bring you home also, Lucy. I will drop off Tana first.”

No way. My only hope was that I could go back to
Tana's house, wait for Iskinder to come for me at five o'clock, and pray Mrs. Kassai wouldn't tell my mother.

“Thanks, Dawit, but you don't have to take me home. Our driver is already coming for me.”

“Mrs. Kassai said bring you home now.”

Something in his voice told me the situation was hopeless.

Tana grabbed my hand and squeezed it. She knew that between this and what had happened at the market, my mother would probably send me to my room for the rest of my life and post a marine guard outside my door. Everyone's parents make these kinds of threats. The difference is my mother can actually follow through on them.

As we pulled into Tana's driveway, a thought occurred to me: How had Dawit known where to find us? But before I had a chance to ask Tana, she climbed out with one last sympathetic look.

“I will e-mail you,” she said.

“Me too,” I promised. I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. My pathetic life was about to get even worse.

After a couple of minutes I opened my eyes again
and looked out the window. The neighborhood didn't look familiar.

“Um, Dawit?” I said. “This isn't the way to my house. I live in the American embassy compound.”

“It is a shorter way,” he said. I could see the scars over his eye in the rearview mirror. “There is too much traffic in the middle of the city at this time of the day.”

I pressed my eyelids down with my fingers, trying to stop the tears of self-pity that were threatening to spill out.
She's going to ground me until I go to college
.

I looked out the window again. We were definitely in a part of the city I had never seen before. My heart started pounding, and I sat up straighter, trying to get a better view out the front.

“Dawit?”

He didn't answer. My whole body went numb.

“Stop the car
now
, Dawit.”

Nothing. We sped past a cluster of shanty houses and a few random shopping stalls, clearly not headed anywhere near the American embassy. I looked frantically for a traffic light where he would have to stop, but there weren't any.

“Look, Dawit, you don't know who you're dealing with! My mother is the United States ambassador, and you're going to be in big trouble. Stop the car
now
!”

Suddenly Dawit swerved to the side of the road and braked so fast the tires squealed. I flung open the car door, but I couldn't get out. A man I had never seen before was blocking my way. He shoved me back inside and started to climb in after me.

“Get away from me!” I screamed.

I lunged for the other door, but the man grabbed my leg and yanked me back. Clutching a fistful of my hair with one hand, he stuffed a dirty rag into my face with the other. I couldn't scream anymore, but I kicked and twisted as hard as I could until he jammed his knee into my hip. All I could see of him were his crooked brown teeth. Gasping for breath, I kept struggling even as I felt myself slipping away, out of my body, out of the car, into the air.

I
T HURTS
. E
VERYTHING
hurts so bad. It's so hot I can't breathe. There's a stink like sour milk. And I can't . . . I can't see. . . . Why can't I see?Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. I have to SEE!

It's a blindfold
.

No! Get it off! Get it off!! GET. IT. OFF!!!

But I can't move my arms. WHERE ARE MY HANDS???

My hands were tied behind my back, so numb I could hardly feel them. Furiously, I rubbed my face against the scratchy pad I was lying on, trying to inch off the blindfold. My right cheek was scraped raw before I finally worked it off.

What I saw in the dim light was petrifying:
I am nowhere
.

Nowhere was a small room. A dirt floor, tin roof, scrap-wood shack with a mat, a crate, a kerosene lamp. And me.

Lying awkwardly on my side with my arms pinned behind my back, I gazed up at the ceiling, tears streaming from the corners of my eyes. The salt water stung my cheek, but I couldn't wipe it away. I lay like that for a really long time.
Where am I? What's happening? Mom, Mom, Mom
. . .

I saw that one of the wallboards was too short, leaving a small opening near the ceiling. There was no screen over it, which meant that a lot of nasty beasts could get in: mosquitoes carrying malaria, rabid bats, giant stinging beetles that could fly into my hair and pierce my scalp with their huge, snapping pincers, venomous snakes, poisonous lizards.

That's why all the windows at the residence have screens. Oh God, I want to go home
.

What am I going to do? How am I supposed to know what to do?

Maybe . . . maybe I could start by sitting up
.

No. No way. Not yet
.

I lay very still and quiet, trying to calm down so I could think clearly. I took big, deep breaths until finally
my chest didn't shudder anymore when I exhaled.

Okay. Now
.

First I had to get my hands in front of my body. I rolled onto my back and, grateful for my six years of gymnastics, folded myself into an upside-down pike position, with my legs and feet pointed straight back behind my head so my knees touched my nose. Then I wiggled my bound hands out from under my back, bent my knees to my chin and pushed my feet through the circle of my arms. My shoulders burned with that excruciating prickly ache you get from being stuck in a bad position for too long. I stared at the rope that bound my wrists. It was thick and a little frayed, and the knot looked complicated. I tried to pull my wrists apart, but there was no give at all. This thing wasn't coming off without a knife. My stomach lurched.