Read Online My Name Is Parvana by Deborah Ellis - Free Book Online

thought, as she nodded off to sleep again.
    As soon as her chin touched her chest, the baseball bat banged against the metal wall by her head. She jolted awake, wishing she could break that bat into a million pieces.
    They probably have more bats, she thought. They probably have a whole shed full of baseball bats that they use to keep people awake.
    To keep herself from slipping into sleep again, Parvana decided to think about Nooria, and the day the letters came.

TEN
    T he first letter came in the morning.
    The school was in the middle of Dust Duty.
    Dust Duty was the chore that involved getting the dust and sand out of the school. A never-ending chore, since the school was on the edge of a desert. Some girls were sweeping out classrooms and hallways. Others were sliding rags over windowsills and tables.
    Parvana had what she thought was the best chore — beating carpets. She would fling a rug over a clothesline and beat it with a stick. Clouds of dust and dirt filled the air. A fair bit of it landed on Parvana. She sneezed, laughed and shook it out of her hair.
    She spied Maryam off by herself, making up some kind of dance steps when she was supposed to be cleaning.
    “This is Dust Duty, not Dance Duty,” Parvana told her.
    “All the rags are taken,” Maryam said, doing some fancy little twists with her hands.
    “There’s also something called a broom.”
    “All the brooms are taken, too.”
    “All of them?” Parvana took hold of her sister’s dancing hand and led her around the corner of the school. “I am sure we can find at least one broom tucked away in the storage shed.”
    The shed was against the back wall of the school yard. It held everything from a box of donated sandals to garden tools.
    Parvana reached for the shed door. Then she noticed the padlock.
    “Since when is this shed locked?” she asked. “Who put this here?”
    “Mr. Fahir put it on,” Maryam said. “I told you there were no more brooms.”
    “Go and ask Mr. Fahir to come here and bring the key,” Parvana told her.
    “Ask him yourself,” Maryam replied. And she danced away.
    Parvana saw Mr. Fahir crossing the yard and ran over to him.
    “Mr. Fahir, do you have the key for the storage shed? My sister needs a broom.”
    “Broom?” Mr. Fahir asked. “I don’t think we have any more brooms in the shed.”
    “Well, she needs something to keep her busy. And why are we locking the shed?”
    “The shed should be locked,” he replied. “Children should not go in there.”
    “The students don’t go in,” Parvana said. “It’s always unlocked and there’s never been a problem — ”
    “A letter has come,” he said, interrupting her. “I was just taking it in.”
    He held up a large brown envelope.
    Mail service had finally returned to Afghanistan after years of war, but it wasn’t common for people to get letters. Certainly Parvana had never received one. She had written plenty of letters to Shauzia over the years, but she had never mailed them. She had no idea where Shauzia was, so the letters stayed in her father’s old shoulder bag.
    “It’s from America,” Mr. Fahir told her.
    “Who is it for?” she asked. “Is it for me?”
    She allowed herself one fleeting moment of fantasy about the letter being from Shauzia, saying she had left the lavender field in France and was now sitting in a corn field in America.
    Mr. Fahir handed her the envelope.
    It was for Nooria.
    “If you will take it inside, I will find something for your little sister to do,” he said.
    Parvana stared at the envelope as she walked.
    Why would Nooria get a letter from America? Parvana was tempted to rip it open. It took every ounce of self-control to keep the envelope sealed all the way to Nooria’s classroom.
    Nooria was supervising her students on Dust Duty there.
    Parvana tapped her on the arm. “This came for you.”
    “I’m in the middle of something.”
    “Never mind, then,” Parvana said. “I’ll toss your letter from America