War Kids (7 page)

JADA

Akar walks into the town, looking for food, alcohol and a new bride. He pauses at the sight in front of him and selfishly laughs at the dead bodies.
This is going to be an easy village to take over,
he thinks to himself.
They already killed everyone for me.

He strolls over to the local shop and, without blinking, steps over the corpse in the store with no pity or remorse in his beady eyes. “Hello… hello…? There is a customer here. I would like some help.” Akar knows no one will come out. This is a game he likes to play each time he enters the store. “Okay, so I will help myself,” he laughs. He plunges his oversized sweaty hands into the jar on the counter.

Pulling out a handful candy, he shovels it into his mouth. Then he walks behind the counter. “Where’s the alcohol? What kind of store is this?!” he shouts with candy and saliva dripping from his mouth.

He angrily stomps up the street, sweat rolling down his face.

Too tired to continue walking, he decides to go into a home and find a drink.

He swings open the rusty metal gate. The front door is open, and another body is in the doorway. Akar pokes his head in. “Hello, is there anyone there?” He wheezes for breath. “Thank God, no one is here.” He steps over the corpse and shuts the door behind him, but it won’t close. Akar kicks the body out of the way and onto the front path, and then slams the door behind him.

He walks into the kitchen to find the alcohol. “Finally,” he yells, taking a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard. He lifts the bottle and takes a big gulp as he walks into the living room.

“That’s better,” Akar says to himself. He goes to turn on the TV, but nothing happens. “No bloody power! Now what am I going to do?” He paces up and down in the living room, and something catches his eye. He looks out of the window carefully so as not to be spotted.
What is
it?
It’s a girl and a black dog.

The girl looks like Farah, but it cannot be; she’s dead. Died in childbirth. This is another girl and she looks older than Farah. She can be his new wife. He licks his lips with greed and downs another gulp of whiskey.

I will not make the same mistakes with this one.

He pulls a chair closer to the window and flops his obese body down. “What is the girl doing?” he asks himself.

She’s on the ground, bent over the body. “I guess it’s her mother. She’s come home to find her mother dead. I guess her father was taken or killed just as the other men.” Akar’s face fills with an evil smile.

“She will be all mine, just as Farah was.”

ZAK

“Zak, where’s Mother?” my sister Tilly asks me as we walk up a slope away from her school. After I found out my father was taken, I ran to get Tilly; she’s all I have left. God, what can I say?

“She’s with the angels, in clouds.” A lump fills my throat as I try to explain to my little sister that our mother is gone forever.

“What do you mean?”

Dear Lord, help me, help me explain why these monsters burnt our home down.

Sahar, Haytham’s mother, places her arm around Tilly. God, I’m glad Sahar and her family followed me out of the school.

“Tilly, your mother has gone to live with the angels, but she’ll always be watching over you,” Sahar says.

“Is my mother dead?” My little sister’s face turns white, as the words pour from her tiny mouth.

“Yes, dear child, your mother is dead,” Sahar replies. Tilly wiggles out from under Sahar arms and into mine.

“Tell me it’s not true, Zak. Tell me!” Tilly demands.

I wish I could lie and tell her Mother is not dead, that we are all going back home to be with our family, and that everything is just like a normal day. But it’s not, and I cannot lie.

“Tilly, it is true. Mother is not alive anymore.” Before I finishing speaking, tears roll down her face, followed by a high-pitched scream.

“Noooo!!”

She buries her head in my shoulder and sobs. A striking pain fills my heart as it breaks in half.

“We’ll give you a moment together,” Sahar says, as she and the others continue up the slope.

As we lower our bodies to the ground, I cradle Tilly like a baby in my arms, slowly rocking back and forth like my mother did when Tilly was little.

Silently I sit there, watching the smoke from our villages bellow into the sky, and listening to the sound of a child realizing she’ll never see her mother again. How am I going to tell her about Ali or Father? I don’t think she can take it.

“Did it hurt, was she in pain?” Tilly’s question breaks the silence. I’m going to lie; there is no way I’m telling her the truth… she should never know the truth.

“She wasn’t in pain. There was a fire.”

“Was she burned?” Panic fills Tilly’s voice.

Even a child can understand the pain of being burned.

“No, no. She was sleeping in her bed, and the smoke filled her lungs.”

“So she went to live with the angels in her sleep?”

I can feel my eyes fill up, but I must keep it together for my sister’s sake. I nod.

“She’s with Grandma now. You know how much she missed Grandma, and Zak, I’m going to miss her,” Tilly says.

“I know that you’ll miss her. I will as well.” I miss her already; I just wish my last memory of her wasn’t her charred body. At least Tilly will never see that image in her mind.

“What about Father and Ali, where are they? Are they dead as well?”

I cannot tell Tilly about the school and what the soldiers did to Ali. He was like a superhero to her; they were always playing around together, and he’d carry her on his shoulders. She was too heavy for me to do that. I have to admit I was always a bit jealous of their relationship.

“Ali was at home with Mother. He was asleep on the sofa.”
Lie after lie after lie…

“What?! Ali is dead as well? This doesn’t make sense!” Tilly yells. “Why was he at home? He was meant to be at school!”

Shit, she knows I’m lying
–
think Zak, think!

“I guess he forgot his gym stuff. You know he always forgets his bag.”
Please buy it, Tilly. I cannot tell you the truth, I just can't.

“He does forget a lot of stuff,” she admits. “But why were you home?”

I pause and think quickly. “I had a bad stomach.”

“What about Father?” Her tone indicates she’s braced herself for bad news. Thank God at least I can tell her the truth about him… give her something to fight for.

“Father is alive –”

Tilly jumps to her feet, with a smile across her face.

“– But the soldiers took him,” I finish.

Sadness washes back over her as she slumps her shoulders.

“Where did they take him?” she asks.

Jesus, how do I know?
I wish I had the answers; I really do. I’m as lost as well.

“I don’t know where they took him, but I am going to find him!”

Tilly looks down at me proudly, reaching out her hand to help me. Rising up from the ground, I can see the unthinkable sight unfolding in front of me – the soldiers are entering Tilly’s school. I got her out just in time.

But the other children won’t be as lucky.

JADA

I have become conscious of the fact that someone is in my room. There is a dark shadow at the foot of my bed looking down on me.

I lie still and pretend I’m still asleep, or better, dead. My body is ice cold… he has removed my blanket, and he’s looking at me. I feel so vulnerable right now. How he dare make me feel this way in my own room!

His breath reeks of alcohol, and his body stinks of repulsive sweat as if he hasn’t washed for days. I have to force myself not to vomit. Who is he? What does he want? My mother warned me about men like these once the war broke out, and my father taught me what to do with them. I am not weak. I will defend myself to the death if I have to.

At the start of the war, my parents tried to pretend everything would be fine, and that it was the grownups’ problems, not children’s.

But after a few months, things changed.

Planes flew over our house at night. Lucas and I would watch from the window. It was fun at first to see them, and then it just became normal.

As the months went by, we had less and less food. When I asked my father why, he told me the food prices had increased by four times the amount they were paying before the war, and instead of helping others, people were getting greedy. My parents really cut back on their food; Mother was already slim, but she was shrinking right before my eyes. It disgusted me that people were making a profit from this war, but Father told me not to worry. “We’re a smart family, and we’ll be fine.”

I didn’t know what he meant by that. It became clear the next morning when he was in the back garden with a large bundle of wire.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

A big smile crossed his face. He was so handsome when he smiled, and it was nice to see him happy for a change.

“You and I are going to get chickens today,” he said excitedly.

“What? Chickens!”

Father laughed. “Yes, chickens.”

“Okay, you have finally lost it. Does Mother know?”

“Yes, and she thinks it’s a good idea,” my father said proudly. He was as excited as a schoolboy, and I shook my head. But maybe it was a good idea… If the prices of food were going up, then we had to control them. But what’s next, a cow? The thought made me giggle.

“What you laughing at?” Father asked.

“Nothing,” I replied, forcing myself to keep a straight face.

Then a thought struck… “You know, there are lots of rabbits and birds in the fields out back. We, umm,” I hesitated a moment. “We could get a gun, and you know, find them…”

Father gave me a surprised glance. “We don’t need to get a gun. I’ll need to check with your mother, but I think it’s time for me to teach you how to shoot. And who knows, maybe we could get some lunch out of it as well,” he said with a smile. He patted me on my head and walked into the house.

As I sat down on the grass and smelled the flowers in the garden, I could not believe how he had responded; he hadn't seemed shocked at all, but was excited about my idea. I pulled at the grass nervously while I waited for him to return.

I bet Mother will say no. There is no way she’ll let me fire a gun.
I began to weave long green pieces of grass through the chicken fence as I waited.

I lay back and closed my eyes, feeling the sun beaming down on my face. I put my hand under my head.
Nice… tan time
.

A few minutes later a shadow crossed me, and I opened my eyes. Father was standing there with a huge grin, holding what appeared to be a mini leather briefcase.

“She said yes?”

Father nodded and looked over to the side on the house. Mother was standing there wearing her blue dress, looking beautiful as always, but she had a concerned look on her face. She smiled at me and nodded her approval.

“Thanks, Mother!” I shouted. She smiled and walked back into the house. Father reached out his hand for me, helping me up.

“Why did Mother look sad?”

“Because you’re growing up,” Father replied. “She would like a chat with you later about safety stuff.”

Of course she would. I nodded and smiled. Nothing could dampen my excitement! This was the best thing to happen to me in months. The war really had changed everything. I hadn’t been to school for weeks and weeks after they started to bomb places. Friends moved away, many saying they were never coming back. Some people stayed because they didn’t have the money to leave, which was our problem too, although my parents would never admit it.

Father and I were out in the garden, and the birds were singing all around us. It was a beautiful summer day, and I loved days like that when it was just the two of us. I chuckled to myself at the irony of appreciating how beautiful nature was while I was heading off to the woods to catch something for lunch. But it seemed right. We were hungry, and God put food on the earth for us.

Checking that no one was around, Father placed the handgun into the palm of my hand. It was heavier than I thought it would be, but I could carry it just fine. It fit my hand like a well-tailored glove. Carefully, I wrapped my fingers around it. “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded yet,” Father told me.

But I wasn’t worried, not one little bit. I felt alive.

I gripped the textured handle in my right hand, pointing the barrel down to the dancing green grass. My thumb rested on one side, with my pinky finger on the handle. My hand began to tremble because I was holding it too tightly. I relaxed my shoulders a little, and the shaking stopped. It was a bit weird, but I felt like I’d held a gun before, like I knew what to do with it.

My father watched me closely. “You’re a natural. I guess you take after me. Let’s see if your target skills are natural as well.” He looked proud of me, but also uncomfortable.

I wondered why… I knew he was in the army for a long time, but he never talked about it.

“Watch me… this is how you should stand,” he said.

I watched him intensely as he stood with his feet about shoulder-width apart, his arms extended.

I copied my father as he went through the motions and got into the same stance as him. Father reached out his hand. “Pass me the gun, time to add the bullets and practice.”

Whoa, bullets! Best day ever.

Father loaded the ammunition in the chamber by pulling back the slide. I watched him and tried to memorize each step.

He passed me the gun, pointing it down to the ground. “Be careful, it’s loaded.”

I took the gun from him; it felt a little bit heavier now. As instructed, I kept it pointed it down toward the ground.

Father said, “Raise the gun into position.”

I pointed it at eye level, with the tree as my target.

“Now get a good focus. Take a deep breath, half exhale, and slowly squeeze the trigger.”

I did as he said. The bullet flew out with lighting speed.

A loud bang followed, and all the birds in the tree flew away. The force of the shot made me step back. Lowering my hand to the side, I looked over to my father. He was smiling proudly, and I passed the gun back to him.

“Let’s see where it landed.” We walked over to the tree, looking straight at the point where I was aiming.

“I did it! I did it!” I jumped for joy.

“Jada, you’re a natural! Let’s practice every day. This can be your new schooling,” Father laughed.

Sounds perfect to me!

Before falling asleep, I carefully place a gun under my pillow. My parents had taught me to be prepared for everything.

The day my father first taught me to use a gun, my mother followed through on that conversation with me. When I came back to the house after training, Mother was sitting in the front room. I went and sat next to her. Father nodded and placed the leather briefcase with the gun on the top shelf of the cupboard under the stairs.

Father quickly called Lucas to help him with the chicken wire fence, and they disappeared outside.

I hoped this was not going to be one of those awkward mother-daughter chats; that would put a damper on my day. We sat on the brown sofa in the front room; our house was one of the smallest in the village, but suddenly it felt even smaller. I sensed that this was going to be an important conversation, maybe not to me, but to her.

She patted the space beside her, indicating I should move closer. I shuffled over. She brushed my bangs to the side and tucked the lone piece of hair behind my ear. She smiled at me for a second, making me feel a little uncomfortable. I could tell something was wrong.

Then with her soft, loving voice she began to speak. “Jada, my darling, you are getting older. You’re such a strong and beautiful girl. I’m very proud to be your mother. Always remember that I love you.” She paused for a moment and then continued. “I wish you were older, able to live your childhood as innocently as I did. All the other children around the world are, but unfortunately that is not the case here. And as your parents, we have to prepare you.”

Prepare me for what?

Tears slowly filled her eyes, and then she took a deep breath to compose herself.

“We are in the middle of a war. The most horrific war a person could imagine. A war in which soldiers and rebels are killing everyone, including children. I know you heard your father and me speaking about the bombings at the schools and churches…”

I looked up at her and nodded silently.

“No one is safe, and you can’t trust anyone. If you are scared, run and hide. If you cannot run, protect yourself any way that you possibly can. Even if it means their life for yours. Father will teach you everything he knows to prepare you for the worst. God will always be on your side. Remember that.”

My gaze dropped to the ground. I knew what Mother was saying: always protect yourself, no matter what. Could I do that? Could I kill someone? That’s basically what my mother was telling me to do, and my father was teaching me to do it.

Mother placed her hand under my chin, lifting it up and looking into my eyes. Hers were filled with love and pain. “Jada, I know I’m asking a lot of you. But I know you are stronger than you think, and with Father’s teaching, you will always be safe, which is all I want – for you to live the life you deserve and not one of fear.”

She placed her arms around me, hugging me close to her body. I rested my head on her shoulder, feeling old and young at the same time. So many emotions ran through me. “Jada, train with your father every day. He will give you the tools to protect yourself.”

I’d placed my father’s backpack by the front door in case I needed to make a quick exit, with my jacket on top of it. I can smell the rancid, intoxicated breath getting closer. I have to move now. There’s no time left.

I leap down to the side of my bed, stuffing my hand under the pillow and grabbing the gun. Knocking the pillow off the gun, I raise it straight to the man in front of me. It’s like something out of the movies… everything is happening in slow motion.

The repulsive, vile man stumbles back in surprise. He’s wearing brown worn shoes, black office pants around his oversized stomach, and a buttoned-up, white, sleeved shirt.

His neck is too fat for a collar size to fit him. He has a very round, tiny head, out of place with the rest of his body. It’s as if his head stopped growing, and the rest of his body could not stop.

His face is covered in greed, from the smug grin on his face, to the sweat dripping down his face. His greasy hair is swept across his head, trying to hide the baldness beneath it.

His evil pointed nose and the devil in his soulless eyes repulse me. He dares to stand there laughing at me, thinking I will not use a gun.

He’s right. I’m not going to use a gun, not here in my bedroom. I am going to make the fat bastard run to his death! Time to put my training into practice. Time to see if I can do what I need to do – kill a man if necessary. But do I even have a choice?

Running to the door, I swing it open.
Shit!
He tries to grab me, but I make it through to the hall. He is right behind me. I didn’t expect someone of his size to be able to move so fast, but he really wants me. “Get back here, little girl. I just want to be friends,” he says, and laughs.

Friends? God, who wants friends like him? A devil of a man!

I make it to the stairs, leaping down two at a time; I can smell his revolting breath like he’s right behind me. Landing at the doorway, I reach out to take my backpack and jacket.
Ouch!
He’s grabbing hold of my hair and, with one yank, is crashing me backwards onto the ground. My head slams on the hallway floor.

“Get off me!” I yell out.

But he continues to laugh. “I just want to be friends, little girl,” he says again.

I lie on the floor. This is it – the moment I’ve been preparing for. I am not scared, I am ready!

He stands with his legs at each side of my head, arching his body over his enormous stomach and eyeing his prey. He laughs, pleased with himself. He thinks he’s caught me.