Jakarta Missing (26 page)
Authors: Jane Kurtz
Dakar unzipped the top of her jacket and let the freezing air shock her lips. Everything else felt numb.
“Last time I went off,” Jakarta said, “you came to boarding school after me. You know, Mom has Aunt Lily.”
It was probably true. Mom didn't need her. But there was so much she needed to learn about Mom. And about Cottonwood.
“I'll miss you,” Jakarta added. “It'll be harder when we don't have each other.”
Dakar nodded. They wouldn't have each other, and they'd still have the arrows that flew by day and the pestilence that stalked in darkness and, underneath it all, the Allalonestone. “I wish you'd stay,” she whispered.
“I guess we'll have to be water babies,” Jakarta said softly. “Find boats and hang on.”
“Jakarta,” Dakar said, “do you know where the water babies go?” Her teeth were chattering, but she told Jakarta everything. About the pool. Jakarta knew that part. About how the current pulled the boats out of the pool. About the waterfall. “It's no good being water babies,” she said. “Once you go over the waterfall, there's no way back home.”
Jakarta sighed. Then she stood up and pulled Dakar to her feet. “You're cold.”
“Freezing.”
“Let's go. Pharo is probably freezing, too.”
Dakar took a step. It felt strange to step on a numb foot.
“Just a second,” Jakarta said, hanging on to Dakar's hand. “I remembered something. When the water babies fall into the water, they're all right. They can always go to Mother Carey. Mother Carey sits in her pool and makes old beasts into new ones.”
Oh! That was what was so important about Mother Carey. The three brave things she and Jakarta had done that day in Maji were, first, to make princesses from the petunias in the enchanted, forbidden garden and, second, to go by themselves on the path to the waterfall and gather water babies. The third thing was to take everythingâthe princesses, the water babies, and their paper dollsâto the rain barrel they weren't allowed near because Dad said it was dangerous.
“Just this once we can,” Jakarta had said. “Because it's Mother Carey's peace pool, and we need to tell Mother Carey that we trust her and we need her help.”
They had solemnly put the princesses and water babies and paper dolls in the rain barrel, one at a time, saying the incantation. When they looked up, there was Mom, watching them, holding out her arms.
Dakar could feel the strength in Jakarta's hand, even though they both were wearing mittens. No matter where they decided to live, she and Jakarta would always be the red rose and the briar.
“Promise me that you'll do one thing before you leave, okay?” she said. “Promise that just once you'll come in my room and sing âBarbry Allen.'”
“T
ut, tut,” Pharo said, tapping her lightly on the head. “Didn't I warn you about winter? Don't be scaring us like that.”
On the way home Jakarta and Pharo walked on each side of Dakar and took her hands. Dakar tried to fight them off, but they wouldn't let her. Pharo held one hand, and Jakarta held the other. They swung her arms, laughing.
“Got to warm you up,” Pharo said.
Dakar scowled. “Better warm Jakarta up. She's the one everyone is going to be mad at.”
“They'll be mad for a couple of hours because she wasn't what they wanted her to be,” Pharo said. “By tomorrow they'll be over it, hey.”
Dakar stared up at the moon. It was astonishing that the whole world could turn white, like the inside of sugarcane. Everywhere she looked were different shades of white: ivory and parchment, oatmeal and bamboo. Beyond this world were the hearts of stars and the whole hundred-million-year-old universe. She shivered.
“You okay?” Jakarta asked.
Dakar nodded. It was all hard to figure out. Between the Allalonestone and the waterfalls, life was a scary place. Lots of times you didn't know the way to Mother Carey, and you couldn't always even hang on to the people in the boat with you, no matter how much you wanted to.
But the cook and Aunt Lily were right. It wasn't all bitter and terrifying, either. Sometimes it was unbelievably beautiful. She squeezed Jakarta's and Pharo's hands with her numb fingers.
She had learned one thing in Cottonwood so far, she thought. No, two. One, you couldn't get so caught up in
safe
that you forgot to be fully alive. Two, courage and kindness and friendship and truth sent magic splinters into the universe, but you had to practice them, which meant sometimes having to go on quests and sometimes even giving up and letting go. Wait. Was that two things or three?
When they got close to the house, she saw that its windows were breathing light out into the street. Mom and Dad and Aunt Lily all were looking out the front window. Mother Carey, she thought in surprise. Of course. That was the house's name.
Mom opened the door. “Thank goodness you're all okay,” she called. “Come get warm.”
“Thanks,” Dakar said to Jakarta and Pharo, shaking off their hands. “I can go the rest of the way by myself.”
Her feet were numb so that she could hardly feel the steps as she ran up them, but she knew Dad would have a fire going, and she couldn't wait to let Mom pull her inside.
I would like to thank my parents for the Maji memories, most of which are very real and cherished, and my sisters and brother who played all the inventive games with me, including the water babies. Special thanks to my youngest sister, Jan, who gave me comfort and joy on recent trips to Ethiopia and Kenya and whose family interviews about our Maji years helped fill in some blanks. I deeply appreciate my older sister, Caroline, and her family for sharing their Kenya home and lives so warmly. I'm also grateful for schoolsâmy own Good Shepherd School, the other three I visited in Addis Ababa in 1997, and two schools in Nairobi, Rosslyn Academy and the International School of Kenya, that made my Kenya trips possible and drew me gloriously in.
The town of Cottonwood, North Dakota, is fictitious. I am, however, grateful to my children and their friends for glimpses into adolescent life in the upper Midwest, since I went to high school in Ethiopia and, as my son David once told me, didn't really “get it” about junior high and high school life in the United States. Jonathan and Rebekah will especially see themselves reflected in these pages; a big thanks to both of you. Thanks, also, to so many basketball teams in eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota for hours of gleeful watching, especially to the teams my sons, David and Jonathan, played on. And this book couldn't have been written without my husband, Leonard Goering, who sat beside me through so many games and who has supported countless hours of writing and speaking.
Dr. Kevin Young used his knowledge of microbiology to help me understand what I needed to know about parasitology. I owe him thanks and take responsibility for any mistakes. Another thank-you goes to Sam Keen, whose book
Learning to Fly
(Broadway Books, 1999) made me intrigued with trapeze artistry and taught me almost everything I know about it.
Finally, I owe a huge debt to my astute early readers, who loved the story and told me the places where they didn't love it. Special thanks to Franny Billingsley and Deborah Marie Wiles, who held my hand through a dark writing night.
Jane Kurtz
was born in Portland, Oregon, but moved to Ethiopia when she was two years old and lived there for most of her childhood. She visited Boise, Idaho, for one year when she was seven, and she spent one year in Pasadena, California, when she was thirteen.
As an adult, she has spent time in several African countries but lives in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where she teaches part time in the English department at the University of North Dakota. She says, “My whole life has been shaped by that feeling of never being able to go home again. Luckily for me, my writing can transport me anyplace in the world.”
Jane Kurtz is the author of both picture books and novels, and her titles include
The Storyteller's Beads
and
Faraway Home
.
www.janekurtz.com
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Cover art © 2001 by Melissa Sweet
Cover © 2001 by HarperCollins Publishers
Jakarta Missing
Copyright © 2001 by Jane Kurtz
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kurtz, Jane.
Jakarta missing / by Jane Kurtz.
p.   cm.
“Greenwillow Books.”
Summary: When her sister, star-athlete Jakarta, finally joins them, Dakar feels much safer and happier in Cottonwood, North Dakota, where she and their parents are living for a year, but she still longs for their home in Africa.
ISBN 0-06-029401-9 (trade). ISBN 0-06-029402-7 (lib. bdg.)
EPub Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780062239266
[1. SistersâFiction. 2. Family lifeâNorth DakotaâFiction. 3. HomesicknessâFiction. 4. CourageâFiction. 5. Women athletesâFiction. 6. Moving, HouseholdâFiction. 7. North DakotaâFiction. 8. SchoolsâFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.K9626 Jak 2001 [Fic]âdc21 00-056195
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