Jakarta Missing (13 page)

“Wow,” Melanie whispered as they left the kitchen. “
Très
intimidating.”

Dakar nodded. Behind them, Mom and Jakarta were talking in Amharic and laughing. She thought about taking Melanie up to her room, but there were too many private things like the gourd Wondemu gave her the day she left Maji and—even worse—the clock that blinked constantly because Dakar didn't know how to set the time. She took her downstairs, instead, and showed her the room in the basement. “Just like a horsetail,” Melanie said, picking up a fly whisk and whisking herself with it.

“That's the point.”

When they came back up, Dad was laughing uproariously as Jakarta tried to show him how to do the
eskista
dance, shaking her shoulders skillfully, one at a time and then together. “Your dad's a riot,” Melanie whispered.

Dad and Jakarta were still in a boisterous mood at supper, scooping up big mouthfuls of wat with the injera and feeding each other the way people did at feasts. Dakar watched them contentedly, her mouth exploding with the peppery and sour tastes she loved. Why couldn't things always be festive like this?

“How's the girls' soccer team here?” Jakarta asked between bites.

Melanie swished a piece of injera around her plate and nibbled the edge of it. “Uh …” she said.

“I don't think there's a girls' soccer team,” Dakar said quickly.

“Nope,” Melanie said. “No boys' soccer team even.”

Jakarta raised one eyebrow. “Whose idea was it to live here?”

Mom looked a bit defensive. “When I saw the pictures of this house, it seemed just right for what I had in mind. We could also afford it, and it's a manageable distance from the other things we need.”

Jakarta frowned.

“Come on,” Mom said. “There must be something you like about being in the United States. We can drive at night and not be afraid.”

Dad smiled his most bedazzling smile—as if he were sun, Dakar thought, and they were planets orbiting around him. “I never worried about driving at night,” he said.

“Living here has to be better than some things we've tried,” Mom told Jakarta. “Boarding school, for example.”

“You know,” Dad said, “I never realized that Dakar had trouble sleeping in school. I wonder why no one ever told us.”

Dakar kicked at the table leg. Did Dad have to talk about something embarrassing like that in front of Melanie? She concentrated on making her eyes cool and smooth as eggshells. She was Donbirra. Nobody needed to know what she was thinking.

“It's all fine to say now why didn't anybody tell us,” Jakarta said, suddenly fierce. “You didn't know because you didn't want to know. Because if you knew, how could you have chosen your precious work over us?”

Dakar was shocked. She didn't know where to look. Not at Mom's stunned face. Not at Dad, either. A Sahara of silence stretched out until she thought she would have to say something.

But Jakarta was the one who broke the silence. “I'm leaving.” She got up from the table and ran for the front door.

“Wait.” Dakar pushed her chair away.

Behind her, she heard Melanie say, “Wait, wait.”

They must look funny, she thought. Jakarta running down the sidewalk, Dakar running after. And she could hear Melanie's footsteps behind her. Luckily, Jakarta slowed up and let them catch up.

“Shall we show you around?” Dakar asked. “There's this great place.”

“Sure.” Jakarta stared into the distance, her voice trembling. “Show me around, okay?”

“Jakarta isn't anything like what you said,” Melanie whispered as they walked. “Not anything at all.”

Dakar signaled for her to be quiet. “Thanks for helping with supper.”

“How do you get the onion into such little pieces?” Melanie asked Jakarta. “You know, I never actually touched an onion before.”

Jakarta whirled around. “How did you become friends with this nimrod?” she asked Dakar. She marched ahead of them a few steps.

“What's a nimrod?” Melanie whispered.

“Nimrod was a mighty hunter in the Bible,” Dakar whispered back. Calling someone a nimrod made a good boarding school insult. It sounded bad, but you could always say, innocently, “I was comparing you to a mighty hunter.” She shook her head. How could anyone possibly be in sixth grade and not have touched an onion?

“Let's take Jakarta to the magic place,” Melanie said cheerfully.

Dakar hesitated. But why not? Usually it was Jakarta who discovered all the cool places—the bat cave behind the waterfall, with its musty smell. The maze of paths wild pigs had trampled out.

Jakarta turned around to look at them and waved her arm in a big arc. “I guess some of the leaves are pretty, but why would anyone live here when you could have fuchsia and orange bougainvillea and roses and lilies and carnations and pink pyrethrum?”

“Wait until you see the best place,” Melanie said. “Dakar said it's the kind of place where you could fight the Allalonestone.”

Dakar tried to swallow, but a lump of ice was caught in her throat.

Jakarta turned and looked at Dakar. “You told her about the Allalonestone?”

If she weren't already turning to ice, Dakar thought, Jakarta's voice would do it. Liver. Stomach. She couldn't even feel her fingers anymore. She opened her mouth. Shut it. Fish mouth. She wanted to say no, but that would be pretty pointless.

“It's okay,” Melanie said cheerfully. “I know the incantation.”

Jakarta looked at Dakar. “Don't … say … a … word,” she said. “I'm going for a walk. A long, long walk.” She started to run.

“You don't know your way around this town,” Dakar yelled after her. Jakarta didn't even hesitate. “She doesn't know where she's going,” Dakar said to Melanie when even the sound of Jakarta's footsteps had died away. “She'll get lost and never come home, and it will be all your fault.” She knew she was being irrational.

Melanie looked stricken. “Someone will show her the way home.”

“I said not to tell
anyone
,” Dakar said.

“But I just said it to Jakarta,” Melanie said. “She helped make the incantation up.” Her eyes were like a scared ferret's eyes, Dakar thought. For some reason those small, scared eyes just made Dakar all the angrier.

“You promised,” Dakar said. “You gave me your total, solemn oath. You're not a true friend. You're not my friend at all. Stay completely
away
from me from now on.”

She ran all the way home, hoping Mom or Dad would know what to do. When she opened the door, the smell of bere bere was the only thing left of the supper. She couldn't even hear any voices. “Dakar, relax,” she told herself. People didn't vanish. “Mom?” she called. “Dad?”

The note was on the table. “Gone to take your mom to rent a car,” it said in Dad's handwriting. “I love you both.” That was Mom's writing. “Be good. I'll be back soon.” After that. Mom had scribbled in little, shaky letters, “Jakarta, don't you dare think for a minute that I didn't agonize even more than you did over boarding school.”

Dakar grabbed the note and tore it into bits. “I hate Jakarta,” she said out loud in the empty room. “I wish she had never come home.” Now she was truly and totally ice.

W
hen you were ice, Dakar discovered, you didn't have to think. Or maybe that wasn't right. You still had think so you could figure out things like integers, but you didn't have to feel anything. And you didn't have to think about feelings.

When she saw Jakarta getting ready to go off to her first morning of school, she knew instantly that it wasn't very smart for Jakarta to wear a
khanga
or carry a
kiondo
slung over her shoulder, but she didn't have to care—and she didn't care.

Jakarta argued in the kitchen with Dad about it. “Why not?” Dakar heard Jakarta shout. “I don't mind what wildebeests think. Why should you mind?” But Dakar didn't care that they were arguing again. She was ice.

When you were ice, you didn't have to worry about walking with Jakarta to school but could watch her stride off, watch her leg muscles ripple under her skirt. You could drag your own slow way and walk by the high school door as if Jakarta were someone else's sister. Jakarta was standing off a little to the side. Kids were eyeing her, but no one had gotten very close, and Dakar didn't blame them. Jakarta had a murderous look in her eyes, and Dakar half expected her to start swinging her
kiondo
. Pow. Pow. Dakar imagined kids falling right and left, holding their heads. But Jakarta didn't start swinging. She just looked around and said loudly, “Yes, I grew up in Africa, and no, I never saw Tarzan. So don't anyone bother to ask.”

When you were ice, you didn't have to shiver inside, praying that a savior would show up for Jakarta. Actually, though, a savior did arrive. He was taller than she was, and he walked right through the crowd of kids and looked at Jakarta. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said back in a fierce voice.

“My mom told me to look for you. I'm Pharo.” Jakarta looked at him for a minute. Then the two of them went off.

“Whoa,” Dakar heard someone say. “That girl is Tarzan all right.” But that was okay. She was ice. She didn't have to feel anything.

When you were ice, you could sit in math class and watch Melanie giggling with another girl and you didn't even have to wonder what they were writing about in that note they were tossing back and forth when Mr. Johnson's back was turned. You didn't even make the effort to see the cook. You found a corner of the cafeteria and ate as fast as you could.

You didn't have to feel anything after school, either, when the telephone rang and it was Mom saying, “I'm sorry I had to leave so suddenly. Dakar? Dakar, are you there? I tried to tell you when we were chopping the onions that I talked to Aunt Lily's doctor, and he said I should get here as quickly as possible.” You didn't have to feel. You could just say, “Uh-huh,” and get off the phone.

That night, when Jakarta and Dad sat at the table having a hot political argument, you could tell yourself it was nothing; you were used to political discussions. You could pretend you didn't notice that Jakarta and Dad seemed to have grown rough edges and rubbed against each other like a cheese grater rubbing against a cheese grater.

The next night, when Jakarta and Dad sat in stone silence, you could be a stone, too. It was safe being a stony lump of ice. You didn't even have to ache with longing to hear Mom's voice.

Jakarta must have been aching, too. “I want to call Mom,” she told Dad late that week. “Please show me how to make a long-distance call.”

“You can't,” he said gently. “Aunt Lily doesn't have a phone on the farm. Apparently she likes life reeeeal simple. But Mom said she would call us from a neighbor's house every week.”

“Why did you make her go?” Jakarta asked ferociously. When Dad started to answer, she put her hands over her ears and ran out the door.

After Dakar helped Dad do the dishes, she went out and found Jakarta sitting on the porch. Jakarta had slipped her arms out of her sweater, wrapping the knitted arms around herself in a kind of hug. She'd been crying again, and the tears left shiny streaks on her face.