A Little Piece of Ground Read Free

is permitted.”
    Lamia let out a sob of relief.
    â€œIf they’d kept us penned up in here one more day,” she said, wringing out a cool cloth to lay on Sireen’s head, “this child’s ear infection would have gone into her brain. Her temperature’s been way up for three days now. And anyway, we’ve almost run out of food.”
    Her husband was already on the telephone. He replaced the receiver and turned to her.
    â€œDr. Selim’s given me the name of the right antibiotic. I’ll take her down to the pharmacy as soon as we can get out. He says to start her with a double dose tonight.”
    He went off to his bedroom, shaking his head.
    â€œPunishing children,” Karim heard him mutter. “Let God punish them.”
    It wasn’t only Sireen’s ear that was likely to be saved by the break in the curfew, thought Karim. Just one more day of imprisonment and there would have been a massacre of the entire Aboudi family. He himself would have personally murdered both Farah and Jamal, his parents would have murdered each other, and the whole family would have ganged up to murder him.
    He fished his cell phone out from the mess of stuff on the shelf above his bed and punched in the number of Joni, his best friend.
    â€œI’ve got to take my homework into school and get a whole lot more,” he told him. “Have you?”
    â€œNo. My teacher called. He’s coming by my father’s shop. He says he’ll pick it up there.”
    â€œYou are lucky,” Karim said enviously. “I wish I went to your school. They’re much stricter at mine. There’s only two hours. We won’t have time to meet.”
    â€œYes, we will. I’ll come down to your school. I’ll meet you at the gate.”
    The last few minutes before six o’clock came seemed to Karim like the longest since the curfew had begun. He felt like a can of Pepsi that had been shaken up and was full of fizz, just bursting to shoot out in a wild, frothing spray.
    By 5:55 the whole family was poised to rush out. Lamia waited, impatiently smoothing down the blue material of her skirt, her purse in her hand. Hassan was holding Sireen, ready to run with her down to the pharmacy. Farah was frantically searching her bedroom for the pink top she was determined to put on before she skipped out to play in the apartment courtyard with the other children of the building. Karim, in clean jeans and a fresh sweatshirt, was reluctantly putting together his homework. It was only now that he came to look at the scrappy bits of paper and the half-finished exercises in his books that he realized how little he’d managed to do.
    The hands on the fancy pendulum clock that hung on the living room wall moved around to six at last, and with it came the longed-for revving of the tanks’ engines. With the front door ajar, everyone listened eagerly as the huge machines clanked away from the street corner and retreated to the bottom of the hill.
    Jamal, his thick hair freshly gelled, was the first out. He jumped down the stairs six at a time, with Karim right after him.
    â€œKarim! Meet me at the supermarket at seven thirty!” his mother screeched after him. “I can’t carry all the shopping back on my own. And Jamal, if you’re not back before eight, I’ll... ”
    But neither boy heard what she planned to do. They were out on the street already.
    The fresh air on his face, the wind in his hair and the wonderful liberty to run and jump intoxicated Karim. He had taken the bottom flight of steps in one wild leap and now he was jumping up and down and running around the parking lot in a wide joyful circle.
    Jamal had taken off at the speed of a bullet, but instead of going up the hill, towards the school, he was racing down it. Karim stopped running and watched him, eyes narrowed. He guessed what Jamal had in mind. He would be meeting up with Basim and his other friends and