Read Online Mud City by Deborah Ellis - Free Book Online Page B

boy.
    “But she got to!”
    “Never mind. You know better.”
    Shauzia felt her cheeks burn. She had made a mistake. Would they throw her
     out?
    “I’ve made up a bed for you in the spare room,” Barbara
     said. “Do you want to see it now? Then you can go to sleep any time you want
     to.”
    Shauzia nodded and got up from the table, holding her napkin full of food
     down by her side.
    “Jasper’s sleeping with me tonight,” Jake announced.
    “No, he’s not. He’s sleeping with
     me,” insisted Paul.
    Shauzia left them to their argument. Jasper trotted along beside her as
     they went upstairs.
    After brushing her teeth with a new red toothbrush, she saw her bedroom.
     It had a real bed in it, with sheets and blankets and a pillow. Barbara handed her a
     nightgown to put on. She was suddenly very tired.
    Barbara gave her a hug. “Sleep well. We’re very glad to have
     you here.”
    Shauzia’s arms remained at her side. She wasn’t sure if she
     should return the hug. She wasn’t sure if she could remember how.
    Barbara showed her where to turn off the light, then left her alone.
    Shauzia hid the food under the bed. She changed into the nightgown and
     slid into bed between clean sheets. Her belly was so full it hurt, and her skin still
     smelled of the soap from the shower.
    Jasper hopped up on the bed and stretched out beside her.
    “I think they’re going to ask us to stay here with
     them,” she whispered. “I could clean for them, and at night, when everyone
     is asleep, Icould play with some of those toys. I could go back to
     school, and learn to be... anything!”
    She leaned on her elbows and looked into Jasper’s face.
     “We’ll still go to the sea. We’ll still go to France But would it be
     all right with you if we stayed here for a little while?”
    Jasper thumped his tail and licked her hand.
    Shauzia put her head back on the very soft pillow. “I wish Mrs.
     Weera could see me now,” she whispered. Then she smiled and fell asleep.
    She woke up a few hours later. After listening carefully to make sure
     everyone was sleeping, she tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen. The garbage was full of
     perfectly good food. She rescued it, took it upstairs and hid it under her bed.
    She could never tell when she would be hungry again.

Nine
    The next few days passed by in a haze of eating and sleeping.
    Shauzia hadn’t realized how tired she was. Inside this walled-in
     paradise there were birds and flowers and no piles of garbage to search through.
    She ate three meals a day at the big table, plus the snacks that Barbara
     handed out between meals.
    “Make yourself at home,” she told Shauzia. “We want you
     to be comfortable.”
    “Why are you doing this?” Shauzia asked.
    “Tom’s salary goes a long way over here,” Barbara told
     her. “We like to share what we have. Besides, us girls have to stick
     together!” She gave Shauzia another hug, and this time, Shauzia hugged her
     back.
    Sometimes beggars would ring the bell outside in the street, and Tom or
     Barbara would open the door in the gate and hand out orangesor
     coins. The gate was high and made of thick steel, so Shauzia never saw the people who
     came to the door, but she was glad they were getting some help.
    She kept intending to help out around the house, but she kept dozing off
     instead. She would sit down for a moment after breakfast or lunch, in the living room or
     on the porch, and wake up several hours later.
    “I’m sorry,” she said to Barbara, after sleeping away
     the afternoon and not helping with dinner.
    “You’ve been tired for a long time,” Barbara said,
     putting her arm around Shauzia’s shoulders. “You’ll get caught up on
     your rest soon, and then you’ll feel better.”
    Shauzia liked it when Barbara smiled at her. She liked to watch her and
     Tom wrestling with their boys, or playing trucks with them, or reading to them at
     bedtime.
    Tom and Barbara spoke Dari to her, but the boys knew