Read Online The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - Free Book Online Page A

wasn’t
     a rule. That was custom.
    For kite runners, the most coveted prize was the last fallen kite of a winter tournament. It was a trophy of honor, something
     to be displayed on a mantle for guests to admire. When the sky cleared of kites and only the final two remained, every kite
     runner readied himself for the chance to land this prize. He positioned himself at a spot that he thought would give him a
     head start. Tense muscles readied themselves to uncoil. Necks craned. Eyes crinkled. Fights broke out. And when the last kite
     was cut, all hell broke loose.
    Over the years, I had seen a lot of guys run kites. But Hassan was by far the greatest kite runner I’d ever seen. It was downright
     eerie the way he always got to the spot the kite would land before the kite did, as if he had some sort of inner compass.
    I remember one overcast winter day, Hassan and I were running a kite. I was chasing him through neighborhoods, hopping gutters,
     weaving through narrow streets. I was a year older than him, but Hassan ran faster than I did, and I was falling behind.
    “Hassan! Wait!” I yelled, my breathing hot and ragged.
    He whirled around, motioned with his hand. “This way!” he called before dashing around another corner. I looked up, saw that
     the direction we were running was opposite to the one the kite was drifting.
    “We’re losing it! We’re going the wrong way!” I cried out.
    “Trust me!” I heard him call up ahead. I reached the corner and saw Hassan bolting along, his head down, not even looking
     at the sky, sweat soaking through the back of his shirt. I tripped over a rock and fell—I wasn’t just slower than Hassan but
     clumsier too; I’d always envied his natural athleticism. When I staggered to my feet, I caught a glimpse of Hassan disappearing
     around another street corner. I hobbled after him, spikes of pain battering my scraped knees.
    I saw we had ended up on a rutted dirt road near Isteqlal Middle School. There was a field on one side where lettuce grew
     in the summer, and a row of sour cherry trees on the other. I found Hassan sitting cross-legged at the foot of one of the
     trees, eating from a fistful of dried mulberries.
    “What are we doing here?” I panted, my stomach roiling with nausea.
    He smiled. “Sit with me, Amir agha.”
    I dropped next to him, lay on a thin patch of snow, wheezing. “You’re wasting our time. It was going the other way, didn’t
     you see?”
    Hassan popped a mulberry in his mouth. “It’s coming,” he said. I could hardly breathe and he didn’t even sound tired.
    “How do you know?” I said.
    “I know.”
    “How can you know ?”
    He turned to me. A few sweat beads rolled from his bald scalp. “Would I ever lie to you, Amir agha?”
    Suddenly I decided to toy with him a little. “I don’t know. Would you?”
    “I’d sooner eat dirt,” he said with a look of indignation.
    “Really? You’d do that?”
    He threw me a puzzled look. “Do what?”
    “Eat dirt if I told you to,” I said. I knew I was being cruel, like when I’d taunt him if he didn’t know some big word. But
     there was something fascinating—albeit in a sick way—about teasing Hassan. Kind of like when we used to play insect torture.
     Except now, he was the ant and I was holding the magnifying glass.
    His eyes searched my face for a long time. We sat there, two boys under a sour cherry tree, suddenly looking, really looking, at each other. That’s when it happened again: Hassan’s face changed. Maybe not changed, not really, but suddenly I had the feeling I was looking at two faces, the one I knew, the one that was my first memory, and
     another, a second face, this one lurking just beneath the surface. I’d seen it happen before—it always shook me up a little.
     It just appeared, this other face, for a fraction of a moment, long enough to leave me with the unsettling feeling that maybe
     I’d seen it someplace before. Then Hassan blinked and it was just