grabbing the front legs and twisting them to the sky. Swinging the corpse between them, they groan as they drop it on the creaking wheelbarrow. Most of the pony is over the sides: legs stretched out at an angle, jaw on the ground. Only by carrying the back legs in his arms, with Abe holding the head up by its ears, is Lijah able to manuever the wheelbarrow and drag the pony all the way to the yard at the edge of the village.
By the time the evening light fades and the sun goes down in Mokattam, the pony has been delivered to the butcher, the bags have been wheeled home, and the rubbish has been separated into recyclable piles. The necessary work has been completed, but one awful meeting remains. Hosi was out this afternoon at the bone-fixer’s house, having two teeth pulled because he can’t afford a trip to the dentist. Only when his anger’s been faced will Aaron and Lijah get a morsel to eat and a few hours’ peace. Hopefully, Aaron will get the chance later to run and tell Rachel why the pony hasn’t returned to the yard. She’s on his mind, and the thought that someone else might tell her what’s happened makes him feel so desperate his pulse starts racing.
While checking for the now-familiar bumps of the perfume bottles hidden in his pockets, Aaron gazes down the lane. Shareen and her father are nowhere to be seen. Abe and a few of the kids kick a ball at a concrete wall while Lijah sits, half asleep, picking his nails and breathing in the smells of other people’s dinners. Abe lets the ball bounce from the wall and roll away at the sight of the thin, stooped figure coming toward him.
A shiver of expectation suddenly brings everyone alive. The gossiping stops as they watch Hosi getting closer. Mouth open, hands clasped in agony to the side of his jaw, he’s on fire, and by the look on his face, he already knows what’s happened to the pony.
“How are we going to live? How? How?” Dribbles of blood leak from Hosi’s stained teeth and gums.
Although the past hour has been spent in peace, with hardly a word between Aaron and Lijah, a return to their usual hostility breaks out the moment Hosi arrives.
“Ask Shareen if you don’t believe me. I tried to get water for the pony. Lijah should have got it, but he went off and left the pony to die of thirst,” Aaron says.
Hosi’s expression changes from fury at both of them to narrow-eyed hatred for his son. Lijah squirms at the force of his gaze. But learning the truth of the matter doesn’t mean Aaron’s off the hook and Hosi slowly turns to face him with the same venomous expression.
For the first time in Aaron’s experience, Hosi believes him and not Lijah, but it doesn’t make any difference. He clips Aaron on the side of the head. Cowering, rubbing his ear, Aaron ducks and gazes up at Hosi, shocked. His stepfather’s lips are quivering and he looks like a baby about to burst into tears. With red eyes and a puffy, swollen face, he’s shaking so hard Aaron wonders if he might collapse. If Aaron didn’t feel the same horror and fear as Hosi, he might for once have hit him back.
Aaron shoots down the stairs and runs off down the lane. There’s a lack of restraint in the way he runs; in the way his feet slap the ground before he fists the air to work off some of the fury eating away at his insides. As he races around each corner in the growing darkness, past every pile of rubbish and stinking slum, he searches for Rachel. She’s the only person in Mokattam who can ease the horror of the pony’s death. And Aaron has a present for her—an expensive present.
When Aaron reaches the yard, he’s out of breath and the smell of dung mixed with hay brings on a sneezing fit.
A storm of sneezes that threatens to drown out the growing commotion approaching from nearby. It’s a group of girls, bunched up, crowded around one another, laughing and joking. The girl in the middle is Shareen.
Oh no. Not now. With two girls hanging on her shoulders and
By the time the evening light fades and the sun goes down in Mokattam, the pony has been delivered to the butcher, the bags have been wheeled home, and the rubbish has been separated into recyclable piles. The necessary work has been completed, but one awful meeting remains. Hosi was out this afternoon at the bone-fixer’s house, having two teeth pulled because he can’t afford a trip to the dentist. Only when his anger’s been faced will Aaron and Lijah get a morsel to eat and a few hours’ peace. Hopefully, Aaron will get the chance later to run and tell Rachel why the pony hasn’t returned to the yard. She’s on his mind, and the thought that someone else might tell her what’s happened makes him feel so desperate his pulse starts racing.
While checking for the now-familiar bumps of the perfume bottles hidden in his pockets, Aaron gazes down the lane. Shareen and her father are nowhere to be seen. Abe and a few of the kids kick a ball at a concrete wall while Lijah sits, half asleep, picking his nails and breathing in the smells of other people’s dinners. Abe lets the ball bounce from the wall and roll away at the sight of the thin, stooped figure coming toward him.
A shiver of expectation suddenly brings everyone alive. The gossiping stops as they watch Hosi getting closer. Mouth open, hands clasped in agony to the side of his jaw, he’s on fire, and by the look on his face, he already knows what’s happened to the pony.
“How are we going to live? How? How?” Dribbles of blood leak from Hosi’s stained teeth and gums.
Although the past hour has been spent in peace, with hardly a word between Aaron and Lijah, a return to their usual hostility breaks out the moment Hosi arrives.
“Ask Shareen if you don’t believe me. I tried to get water for the pony. Lijah should have got it, but he went off and left the pony to die of thirst,” Aaron says.
Hosi’s expression changes from fury at both of them to narrow-eyed hatred for his son. Lijah squirms at the force of his gaze. But learning the truth of the matter doesn’t mean Aaron’s off the hook and Hosi slowly turns to face him with the same venomous expression.
For the first time in Aaron’s experience, Hosi believes him and not Lijah, but it doesn’t make any difference. He clips Aaron on the side of the head. Cowering, rubbing his ear, Aaron ducks and gazes up at Hosi, shocked. His stepfather’s lips are quivering and he looks like a baby about to burst into tears. With red eyes and a puffy, swollen face, he’s shaking so hard Aaron wonders if he might collapse. If Aaron didn’t feel the same horror and fear as Hosi, he might for once have hit him back.
Aaron shoots down the stairs and runs off down the lane. There’s a lack of restraint in the way he runs; in the way his feet slap the ground before he fists the air to work off some of the fury eating away at his insides. As he races around each corner in the growing darkness, past every pile of rubbish and stinking slum, he searches for Rachel. She’s the only person in Mokattam who can ease the horror of the pony’s death. And Aaron has a present for her—an expensive present.
When Aaron reaches the yard, he’s out of breath and the smell of dung mixed with hay brings on a sneezing fit.
A storm of sneezes that threatens to drown out the growing commotion approaching from nearby. It’s a group of girls, bunched up, crowded around one another, laughing and joking. The girl in the middle is Shareen.
Oh no. Not now. With two girls hanging on her shoulders and
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