The Realm of Imagination Page 3

  I climbed the ladder again, but not until I had done something in the sink that I don’t want to talk about. Let’s just say there would be one more bad smell coming out of that drain from now on.

  The attic was darkening as night fell, and I switched on every light. The hanging bulbs lit small spaces, leaving huge areas of blackness in between. I wondered if frustrated teachers or crazed bullies returned to haunt a school when they died.

  I hurried to the clock tower, lowering its trapdoor behind me. I figured if I sat on top of it, there was no way anyone or anything could get in. The little room that had seemed so welcoming by day felt tiny and cramped in the dark. The whirs and clicks of the clockworks gave me the uneasy feeling of sitting next to a time bomb.

  A breeze added weird, creaking noises to the mechanical sounds. The night grew colder. I opened my backpack, stripped to my underwear, and quickly pulled on the clean shirt and pants my mother had packed, then put my dirty clothes on top, hoping to keep warm. My swollen eye throbbed in time with the ticking clock as I hugged my knees, shivering.

  A sunbeam tickled my eyelids until I blinked awake. What a relief! Once Mr. Ames unlocked the closet, I’d sneak out and mix with the other kids as they arrived. I shed my dirty clothes and rammed them into the backpack. Then I went around the attic, shutting off the lights. In the custodian’s closet, I splashed water on my face. My throat was dry, but I was afraid to drink from the corroded faucets.

  Keys jangled. I climbed into an empty trash barrel, and pulled a lid over the top.

  The door swung open. I peered through a space where the lid bent away from the can and watched Mr. Ames draw hot water for his mop bucket, drumming a tune on the edge of the sink as it filled.

  His mop clanked against the barrel that hid me as he lowered it into the hot water, then pushed the whole unit into the hallway. I jumped up and grabbed for the door knob, hoping to keep the latch from catching. He yanked it from my fingers, and the door snicked closed.

  I climbed out of the barrel and tried it. Locked. I was about to start yelling and give myself up, when I had an idea. If I searched, I might find another way down from the attic.

  An hour later, I was as low as a guy could get. If there was an escape, I hadn’t found it. I lay on the plank walkway, resigned to surrender. I wondered what my teachers and classmates would say about the weird new kid who got locked all night in the janitor’s closet.

  Voices, grownup voices, made me sit up. I crawled over the planking toward the sound. I stopped where the voices seemed loudest and lifted a sheet of insulation. Instantly, the words were clear.

  “How is that new boy in your class doing?” It sounded like Ms. Domiani.

  “Billy? He’s quiet, but he’s starting to make friends.” There was no mistaking the voice of Ms. Aguilera, my teacher.

  “How did he get that black eye?” the nurse asked.

  “What black eye?”

  “He came to me at the end of the day. I didn’t have time to ask what happened. He’s supposed to drop in on me early this morning.”

  “My sixth graders had gym last period. He probably got hit with a ball.”

  “I understand he moved here with his mother,” Ms. Domiani said. “Does he see his father at all?”

  “Actually, he’s picking Billy up today. There was a message …”

  Ms. Aguilera’s voice faded as she walked away. I stretched out above the insulation, my toes on the planking, my right hand sliding along a beam. A sliver of wood buried itself in my palm. I jerked at the pain without thinking, lost my balance, and flopped onto the bed of insulation.

  There was a sharp crack. Then, I was falling. The ladies shrieked as I slammed onto a hard surface. The room filled with dust. I wish it had stayed that way. When the air cleared, I was lying on the table where the teachers ate lunch. Ms. Domiani’s and Ms. Aguilera’s faces were covered with dust. Streams of coffee trickled down their chins onto their blouses. Not hurt, I moaned anyway. Sympathy was my last hope.

  The principal sentenced me to after-school cleanup duty for a month. I got to know Mr. Ames real well. A baseball fanatic, he taught me about the old-time players. I think he liked it that someone had shown interest in his closet.

  Mom was great. When the doctor at the emergency room said I was fine, she hugged me so hard it hurt worse than when I landed on the table.

  I didn’t go to Dad’s, but he stayed in a motel and we spent the weekend sprucing up the yard at the new house. He told me some of the dumb things he did when he was a kid, which made me feel better.

  Ms. Aguilera didn’t hold a grudge. She treats me the same as the other kids, except that she never sends me on errands. I guess she feels better when she knows where l am.

  Jamie has invited me to sleep over, and I’m working on Mom. I hope that someday he’ll stop asking me what it’s like to spend a night in the clock tower. I tell him it was cold, lonely, and boring, but he doesn’t believe me.

  Old Cricket Says

  In 1991 the well-known Mongolian writer Jambyn Dashdondog established the Mongolian Children’s Library Project to take books to children in the rural areas of Mongolia. He wrote me recently about his experience as a mobile librarian.

  “In a country as vast as Mongolia, a nation containing more horses than people, it is not always easy to go to your local library for books. Miles and miles of open prairie stretch out between gers (the round tents Mongolian people use for housing), and a person could literally walk for days without seeing another face. This is why I journey across the icy steppes on horseback with my load of books, looking for children in need of a story.

  Photographs by Jambyn Dashdondog of the Mongolian Children’s Library Project

  “I’ve had many adventures carrying my library across the country. I’ve battled wolves in the freezing cold and fought the racing winds gusting through the hills. Along the way, I’ve met many children whose eyes come to life when they discover my cargo. There was one such time, when I noticed two white gers perched between hills in the distance. There, I thought, might be children wholly in love with books, children dreaming of a library like mine to appear, very suddenly, on their doorstep.

  “I got down off my horse and settled with them in the warm comfort of the ger. We sat in one big circle with a fire blazing in the center. After seeing so much snowy white, my eyes were relieved to gaze through the orange flames.

  “When the story was over — I had read the tale of the Snowflake Queen who lives in a frosted castle — the children were enraptured. I had to leave. But as I did I recited a poem I wrote sixteen years ago, when I first took my mobile library out to the children of Mongolia:

  Candy will melt in your mouth.

  But books will stay forever in your mind.”

  The Herdboys of Lesotho

  by Sue Drake

  The teacher scanned her class of fifty-five first grade students, noting the very tall, thin boy in the back row. Neo wore a ragged, colorful blanket over his faded sweater and patched, cotton shorts. The tiny desk of a first grader was much too small for his long legs, and Neo sat hunched over, nervously kicking his bare feet on the hard-packed dirt floor. His dark eyes stared straight ahead, filled with anticipation.

  “Where is your school uniform?” the teacher asked.

  Neo, whose name means “gift” in the African language of Sesotho, stood respectfully to answer. Nearly fourteen years old and just under six feet tall, he towered over his younger classmates.

  “I am without money,” he said softly in his native tongue.

  The teacher understood. Neo was a herdboy. She had accepted these older boys into her classroom before.

  In tiny, mountainous Lesotho, an independent country located wholly within the borders of South Africa, livestock is the family wealth. Sheep furnish wool to sell. Goats provide mohair for weaving cloth. Cattle pull plows and give milk, while horses and donkeys are the means of transportation. In rural areas, poor families live on small plots of land g
iven to them by their village chief. Beyond these plots lie open grasslands for grazing animals. This land is not fenced. Herdboys are the fences!

  At age seven, when most children are learning to read and write, about 20 percent of the boys in Lesotho are instead herding animals for their families or neighbors. High in the mountain pastures, the boys endure hunger, fend off cattle thieves, and brave all kinds of weather. Their pay is a few goats, or maybe a cow, at the end of each year. Any money a herdboy receives must be shared with his family.

  It is a hard and lonely life. Herders might begin their week with 7:00 a.m. Sunday Mass at a local church. The boys receive a blessing from the priest to keep them and their animals safe. After the service, each boy gathers his herd. Whistling and throwing pebbles to get the dawdling animals moving, he slowly follows them up the mountain. Knee-high rubber boots keep his feet dry and protected as he fords streams and climbs rocky trails. Clanking bells on the lead animals help him stay in touch with his wandering herd.

  Young herders are sent out into the rocky, barren countryside with only a stout stick and a dog for company. The tough, lanky dogs are not just companions but also help guard against thieves. Stealing livestock is common. Older boys sometimes gang up on a younger herder. That’s when a stick and a snarling dog become useful. Many a herdboy carries scars from protecting his flock.

  Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first black president, grew up in a village just south of Lesotho, where he herded cattle as a boy. “I was no more than five when I became a herdboy, looking after sheep and calves in the fields,” he recalls. “I learned to stick fight — essential knowledge to any rural African boy — and became adept at its various techniques, parrying blows, feinting in one direction and striking in another, and breaking away from an opponent with quick footwork.”

  In the high mountains, herdboys have little to occupy their time or minds. Food is always scarce. The boys survive on papa, a type of porridge made from ground maize and water, and on whatever they can find to eat in nature. “I learned how to knock birds out of the sky with a slingshot,” says Mandela, “to gather wild honey and fruits and edible roots, to drink warm, sweet milk straight from the udder of a cow … and to catch fish with twine and sharpened bits of wire.”

  Using their imaginations, herders make toys and musical instruments from the natural materials surrounding them. They might use a feather and a long stick to make a flute-like instrument called a lesiba. Its music calms grazing animals. A toy called a galamoto can be made by twisting wire into the shape of a car, with filed-down pop cans for wheels. Mixing soil with water makes a sticky clay that a boy can mold into a toy horse or cow.

  Playing homemade instruments: a lesiba and a mamahorong

  A game of morabaraba

  With a companion, a herdboy might play a game of morabaraba. Using a stone, he scratches a grid on a large, flat rock. Each player lays down twelve pebbles, representing cows. The object of the game is to reduce the number of your opponent’s cows to two or until he cannot make a new move. Morabaraba has been played in Africa longer than memory.

  A boy can spend seven years or more watching the herds. At night, only a shabby wool blanket and cap keep a herder warm under a cold, starry sky. He can sleep, knowing that his animals are safely penned in an area called a kraal. As he grows older, he may live away from home in the mountains by himself for weeks at a time.

  Because of the number of herdboys, Lesotho is one of the few countries in the world where more girls than boys attend school. Some herdboys are eventually able to go to school once their herding days are over. The Lesotho government recently joined with the United States Agency for International Development to provide free basic education for these boys. Herdboys can now attend schools called Learning Posts in the remote mountains, where they are able to catch up in reading and math.

  Former herdboys who learn to read and write are able to find jobs in Maseru, the capital. Some even go on to Lesotho’s National Teachers Training College and become teachers themselves in the primary schools.

  The teacher returned Neo’s steady gaze. “Neo, school fees are no longer required. If you don’t have money for a uniform, we will find you a used one. Welcome to St. John’s Primary! Maybe you will be a quick learner. Then you can help me with these young ones.”

  As he squeezed back into his desk, a grin spread across Neo’s face. The hard, lonely life of a herdboy was behind him. With an education, Neo would soon follow his dreams.

  Tara

  by Sujata Shekar

  Illustrated by Adam Gustavson

  The narrow lane wound past me and turned the corner. Old one- and two-storied houses crouched on either side, their faded shutters opened wide. Crimson vines of bougainvillea clung to the walls, shivering in the early morning breeze. I heard snatches of song from a radio and the hiss of a pressure cooker ready to come off the stove.

  The house in front of me was the best one in this pleasant Kolkata neighborhood, with whitewashed walls and leaf green shutters. I climbed shallow steps to the porch and circled the sacred tulsi plant in its center, touching my fingers to my lips and eyes in a silent prayer. The plant looked more alive than it had in weeks; someone had remembered to water it. I grabbed the brass ring that was nailed to the front door and swung it down twice. Khat khat!

  Didi opened the door and stared at me. “Tara! Not you. Not today!”

  I ducked under her arm and sprinted into the house.

  “Where is your mother?” asked Didi, following me in. “She knows it’s Pujo tomorrow and there’s a mound of work, doesn’t she?”

  Answering that would be like lighting the fuse on a bomb. My mother was doing the dishes at Shubra’s house at double the going rate. Shubra and Didi were friends, at least until today. Everybody knew that filching one’s servant was the worst form of treason.

  “My hands are magic, Didi. I will make your floors sparkle,” I said, shaking my wrists so she’d notice the new glass bangles I wore. Six on each arm, green for luck.

  Didi frowned so hard the bindi on her forehead came unglued. She slapped it back on and said, “Ma is visiting.”

  Now, I may be only twelve years old and I stopped going to school at ten, but I am clever. I notice things and I hear stuff I shouldn’t, because when you are sweeping around people’s feet, they tend to think that you are dust, too. I had never met Ma, but that told me something. How many Indian homes do you know where the mother-in-law never visits?

  And it wasn’t as if there was no room. We stood in the central hall, paved with black-and-white tiles. Four rooms led off the hall, two on each side. There was a kitchen at the far end and a yard out back. Only Didi and her husband lived there, with their nine-year-old son, Biren.

  I skipped toward the kitchen but Didi got there first. It was her day for blocking doorways. “You can’t go in there, Tara. Or the prayer room. Ma does not allow it.” Didi’s voice sounded angry and scared at the same time, but I could have been wrong because it had dropped to a whisper.

  “But the dishes?”

  “You can do them in the yard. I’ll bring them out.”

  “Why does she not allow it?”

  I was disappointed, I admit. I had wanted to meet Ma. See if she had a big belly and nose hair, like her son. Find out what she thought of Biren, who liked to track mud in the wake of my mop.

  “Because you’re untouchable,” shouted Biren, who had run into the hall chasing his top. “I cannot even look at you because that would be touching you with my eyes.” He covered his face, but it wasn’t enough to hide his smirk. “That means you’re dirty,” he finished, in case I hadn’t understood.

  But I hadn’t. I cleaned the floors and washed the dishes and wrung out the laundry. I made everything around me clean; how could I be dirty?

  My face felt warm. The bangles clinked on my shaking hands. I had heard ugly words before, but never spoken to my face. I wasn’t stupid. I knew I wasn’t upper caste, a Brahmin, born to lead the chan
ts and light the lamps at the temple every evening. So what!

  My feet wheeled around and ran out of the house.

  “Tara! Wait, please,” wailed Didi, but I was gone, to a dark and lonely place in my head.

  That afternoon I arrived an hour early at my grandfather’s house. He is a genius — not because he knows a lot, but because he explains things in such a simple way that even Biren would understand. He also makes pots. He sits at his wheel after breakfast and spins until lunchtime, shaping the clay with fingers that remind me of Didi’s silver butter knives — flat and strong, but not sharp at all. I call him Dadu.

  I like to help him every afternoon once my work is done. I load the kiln with the damp pots — placing the large round ones at the bottom, the flat bowls and plates on the narrow middle rack, and the delicate pieces, with spouts and handles and skinny necks, at the top. Dadu never asks my brothers to join us. “You are too strong,” he says, slapping them on their scrawny backs. “You would dent my pots just by breathing on them.” My brothers strut away, satisfied. What he means, of course, is that I am the only one with the steady hand and keen eye required for the job.

  The steady hand was missing today. I nudged a half-dry bowl into its neighbor and ruined its rim. Worse, I squeezed one of the pots so hard it developed a dimple on its cheek.

  Dadu said nothing. He walked over to the wheel and handed me a stick. Then he picked up a lump of clay and began to massage it.

  “Should I get the wheel going? Are you going to make another pot, Dadu?” I asked.

  “You are, Tara,” said Dadu. “Let’s see you spin.”