Read Online Plenty by Ananda Braxton-Smith - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ananda Braxton-Smith
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mountains, they heard the planes buzzing like wasps.
Soon after they heard the planes, people from the mountain villages started coming to Kakopetria. They came silent or weeping: arriving on foot or by bus, by donkey or three-to-a-scooter. They came in clouds of dust: the children dragging suitcases with both hands and wearing everything they owned at once. Every day these dust clouds came and people stepped out with ashen faces. The children looked at Eleni with the eyes of stray cats.
They were the refugees.
Soldiers were fighting in the northern towns of the beautiful island in the turquoise Mediterranean. They were sending the children home from school. They were threatening the parents and closing the shops, and sending everybody away. The soldiers didn’t care where people went when they left, only that they did.
At first Kakopetria pitied the refugees. They gave them water and shelter, and whatever food they could manage. But some people asked what the refugees had done to draw the evil eye? Others said they weren’t real refugees, but spies for the soldiers. Or thieves. When she heard this talk Eleni grew scared – and she wasn’t the only one.
The refugees trailed bad luck like veils. Their misery lay over the village and nobody knew what to do with them. Many people just wanted them to go away.
But then the soldiers came to Kakopetria. They crashed into the cool sleeping houses during the quiet afternoon, when people had lain down to nap as they always did after lunch. The soldiers shouted terrible words and pushed the adults around with guns. They came like that into Eleni’s house.
Mr Spyrou emerged from his room and the soldiers pointed their guns at the middle of his chest. He stood very still in his crumpled white shirt and fixed his eyes on Eleni and her mother. His eyes said
Do as they say
.
They packed one suitcase each. Her mother hung her good pots around her neck with string, and tried to stuff her wedding quilt in her suitcase but was stopped by her husband. Then the soldiers took the big brass key from the hook and locked them out of their own house. Before they left Kakopetria, Eleni went to find Stonewall.
But Stonewall was gone. There were only a few ribbons left, blowing about in her field. A boy said some soldiers had loaded her up with weapons and headed west. So Eleni went back to the square and found her parents.
And then eight-year-old Eleni Spyrou was one of them.
A refugee.
A bad-luck stranger.
In her bedroom that night, Maddy took the photo of the Karatgurk from under her pillow. It was smeared and crushed from the nights she had slept gripping it. The stars were faded now. There was only the blur left. Sophie-Rose’s finger blur.
Maddy thought about the Weks and Nana Mad, and the little girl Eleni, who grew up to be her own mother. All of them forced to leave home. To leave friends like Sophie-Rose. And streets like Jermyn Street. She wondered what happened to everything they left behind – the good pots, the wedding quilts, the little black horses. All the smooth white pebbles arranged in spirals and circles.
And then she thought about the people left behind. People still waiting in the queues. Their sad and their angry sorts of homesickness.
Mum came in with a pile of folded washing. She put it on the bedside table while she closed the windows. That washing smelled good – homey.
“But what did you do?” Maddy asked suddenly. “Where did you go?”
“We walked south,” Mum said, sitting on the bed. “I remember we slept on the ground. It wasn’t so bad until we got to the port.”
In the port town they waited to be told where to go. They spent their days going from queue to queue, and they spent their nights where they could. Sometimes that was in big strange-smelling sheds, a small part of a big strange-smelling crowd. It was never the three of them any more. Their family became a public thing, with people watching all the time.
Little Eleni grew thin
Soon after they heard the planes, people from the mountain villages started coming to Kakopetria. They came silent or weeping: arriving on foot or by bus, by donkey or three-to-a-scooter. They came in clouds of dust: the children dragging suitcases with both hands and wearing everything they owned at once. Every day these dust clouds came and people stepped out with ashen faces. The children looked at Eleni with the eyes of stray cats.
They were the refugees.
Soldiers were fighting in the northern towns of the beautiful island in the turquoise Mediterranean. They were sending the children home from school. They were threatening the parents and closing the shops, and sending everybody away. The soldiers didn’t care where people went when they left, only that they did.
At first Kakopetria pitied the refugees. They gave them water and shelter, and whatever food they could manage. But some people asked what the refugees had done to draw the evil eye? Others said they weren’t real refugees, but spies for the soldiers. Or thieves. When she heard this talk Eleni grew scared – and she wasn’t the only one.
The refugees trailed bad luck like veils. Their misery lay over the village and nobody knew what to do with them. Many people just wanted them to go away.
But then the soldiers came to Kakopetria. They crashed into the cool sleeping houses during the quiet afternoon, when people had lain down to nap as they always did after lunch. The soldiers shouted terrible words and pushed the adults around with guns. They came like that into Eleni’s house.
Mr Spyrou emerged from his room and the soldiers pointed their guns at the middle of his chest. He stood very still in his crumpled white shirt and fixed his eyes on Eleni and her mother. His eyes said
Do as they say
.
They packed one suitcase each. Her mother hung her good pots around her neck with string, and tried to stuff her wedding quilt in her suitcase but was stopped by her husband. Then the soldiers took the big brass key from the hook and locked them out of their own house. Before they left Kakopetria, Eleni went to find Stonewall.
But Stonewall was gone. There were only a few ribbons left, blowing about in her field. A boy said some soldiers had loaded her up with weapons and headed west. So Eleni went back to the square and found her parents.
And then eight-year-old Eleni Spyrou was one of them.
A refugee.
A bad-luck stranger.
In her bedroom that night, Maddy took the photo of the Karatgurk from under her pillow. It was smeared and crushed from the nights she had slept gripping it. The stars were faded now. There was only the blur left. Sophie-Rose’s finger blur.
Maddy thought about the Weks and Nana Mad, and the little girl Eleni, who grew up to be her own mother. All of them forced to leave home. To leave friends like Sophie-Rose. And streets like Jermyn Street. She wondered what happened to everything they left behind – the good pots, the wedding quilts, the little black horses. All the smooth white pebbles arranged in spirals and circles.
And then she thought about the people left behind. People still waiting in the queues. Their sad and their angry sorts of homesickness.
Mum came in with a pile of folded washing. She put it on the bedside table while she closed the windows. That washing smelled good – homey.
“But what did you do?” Maddy asked suddenly. “Where did you go?”
“We walked south,” Mum said, sitting on the bed. “I remember we slept on the ground. It wasn’t so bad until we got to the port.”
In the port town they waited to be told where to go. They spent their days going from queue to queue, and they spent their nights where they could. Sometimes that was in big strange-smelling sheds, a small part of a big strange-smelling crowd. It was never the three of them any more. Their family became a public thing, with people watching all the time.
Little Eleni grew thin
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