Gives Light(Gives Light Series) Read Free Page B

distinction more pronounced than when gaggles of kids or whole families stopped what they were doing--churning butter, whittling hunting knives, hanging clothes out to dry--and stared at the pair of us.  The sun was beating heavy patterns on the crown of my head, the only blond head on the reserve.  I imagined how weird it had to look amid a sea of burning brown and raven black.
     
    Annie led me down a country lane to pick up eggs and a pail of milk from a farm.  No money passed between hands--my first hint that there wasn't a real economy here--but I noticed that the boy at the weather-worn gates, a weedy beansprout of a guy wearing glasses as thick as the bottoms of Coke bottles, gawked at Annie like she was a miracle.  She said "Hello" and "Goodbye" politely, oblivious to the effect she had on him.  I helped her carry the load back down the lane to her house, a thick cabin with a raised porch.
     
    "We do a lot of cooking," she said, elbowing her way inside the house.  I followed her.  "For the night, of course.  Do you know how to cook?"
     
    I shook my head sheepishly.
     
    Lying on the sitting room floor was a pigtailed little girl, her belly to the wood, her legs kicking over her head.  She rolled onto her back and batted her eyelashes at us in a cute but bratty way.  I knew at once that she must have been Annie's little sister, eleven, maybe twelve years old; the only way they could have looked more alike was if they'd been born twins.
     
    "Chronic loser syndrome," Annie's sister sighed.  I liked her immediately.
     
    "Lila," Annie scolded.  We put the produce on a table opposite the hearth.  A complicated-looking tapestry was hanging above the mantelpiece; when I looked at it, I couldn't make up my mind whether it was a depiction of the flaring sun amid an endless sea or dawn encroaching on the end of nightfall.  "You can help us cook, Skylar.  I'll guide you through it.  Everyone on the reserve helps out, in his or her way."
     
    "I'm too hot to cook," Lila said.  I didn't know whether she meant that figuratively or literally, but she was fanning herself.
     
    "Honestly!" Annie said.
     
    Annie and Lila and I spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon baking cornbread.  I didn't know what Annie needed so much cornbread for, and when I asked, Annie would reply, "For the night, of course!"  It sounded like something I was supposed to know already, and I didn't want to embarrass myself by admitting I didn't.  By the time we had finished, Annie and I were filthy--not Lila, suspiciously--and Annie giggled and flicked my curls with her fingers, showering the floor with flour.  We hastily cleaned up around the kitchen and went outside the house to wash at the water pump.  I dunked my head under the pipe and shook my hair at Annie; she squealed with laughter and gave me an indignant shove.
     
    Lila was leaping across the grass, chasing after an errant dragonfly, when Annie smiled at me inquisitively.
     
    "How long do you think you'll be staying on the reservation?  Maybe you'll start school with us in September.  That would be nice, wouldn't it?"
     
    I had never been able to talk and laugh freely like this.  Not with a kid my age, I mean.  I wondered if this was what it felt like to have a friend.  A part of me was giddy beyond belief at the prospect that someone on the reservation might actually want me to be here.  And yet I hoped--I sincerely hoped--that I wouldn't be here come September.  For me to be here would mean that my father hadn't been found yet.  Or worse--that he had, and he was in bad shape.
     
    I asked, Where are your parents?
     
    "Daddy's gone fishing.  He took Joseph with him.  Joseph's our little brother," Annie said.  "As for Mom--deployed.  She's a soldier."
     
    Oh , I signed.  I couldn't imagine how nerve-wracking that had to be, not knowing whether her mom was alive from one day to the next.  You must miss her a lot.
     
    It had taken me a minute to