My Name Is Not Easy (48 page)

e editor was

Junior’s uncle. Junior had been saving it for just the right moment, the moment when he would have enough nerve to tell Father about the stories he wanted to write, now that they had started a school newspaper.

“Th

at’s very interesting, Junior,” Father said.

Father obviously didn’t know much about Project Chariot. Project Chariot was
interesting
the way a bear about to tear into somebody’s gut is
a concern
.

“Th

ey were going to do a nuclear blast up north,” Junior off ered.

“Ummm?” said Father, erasing a mark in his grade book.

Junior’s words did not carry the kind of force he wanted them to carry. Th

ey never did. Junior picked up the paper

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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y

and shuffl

ed to his desk in the back of the class, where

he sat between Sonny and Amiq, an easy place for a person like Junior to disappear. He imagined a tape recorder rolling, the words he wanted to say, loud and clear and inescapable.

“Th

ey were going to blow it up,” Amiq said.

Junior frowned.

“Blow up what?” Sonny said.

“Cape Th

ompson, right south of Point Hope,” Amiq

said.

“What?”

Amiq leaned over next to them like he was sharing a state secret. “Blow it right off the globe,” he whispered. “With a bunch of A-bombs. Bigger than Hiroshima.”

Luke turned around to look. Some of the other kids turned around, too, wide eyed.

Bombs?

“Right where we always hunt,” Junior added, wishing he’d been the one to make them look.

“
Operation Plowshare
,” Amiq said, leaning back onto his chair with a smug smile. “Th

at’s what they call it.”

Junior looked at Amiq, annoyed. How come Amiq always had to know everything about everything? And how come everybody always heard what Amiq said but barely even noticed when Junior said the same thing? And to make matters worse, Amiq was right, too. Project Chariot had been part of a government program called Operation Plowshare.

“You know,
plow-
share,” Amiq said, emphasizing the
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O U R S T O R Y

word. “Th

ey drop some bombs to plow out a harbor, nice and

peaceful.” His voice was neither nice nor peaceful.

“Plowshare?” Sonny said.

“It’s in the Bible,” Luke said quietly. “In Isaiah.”

Amiq reached over and grabbed Junior’s newspaper right off his desk without even asking. Junior frowned and adjusted his glasses.

“Th

ey said they were gonna use Operation Plowshare

to demonstrate the peaceful use of nuclear weapons,” Amiq hissed, grabbing Junior by the shoulders so violently that he nearly fell off his chair. “Right here.” He stabbed at the paper with his fi nger, right where it said “Nuclear Blast” in large letters.

Junior wanted to punch him.

Amiq shoved the paper back onto Junior’s desk and slapped Junior on the back. Father turned sideways, eyeing the two of them and noticing, for the fi rst time, Junior’s newspaper
.

Amiq smiled smoothly and lifted it up for Father to see.

“Th

e editor is Junior’s uncle,” he told Father. He nudged Junior.

“Can I do a story, Father?” Junior croaked. “For the school paper? About this one?” He looked down as he said it, his face growing warm, waiting for Father to dismiss the idea. Father probably wouldn’t think a person like Junior could write about something as important as a nuclear blast.

“Yes, that would be good, Junior. A story about your uncle’s newspaper,” Father said.

Junior opened his mouth, then shut it again. A story about
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the newspaper—that’s not what he meant. But Father already had his back turned. Amiq leaned over and tapped the headline in Junior’s uncle’s paper: “Project Chariot Still On.”

“You ought to do a story on
that,
” Amiq said.

Luke sat in the library with Sonny, Michael O’Shay, and Amiq, staring at Amiq’s collection of
Anchorage Times
news clippings, each one cut out neatly to the exact shape of its story. Amiq had laid them out like puzzle pieces.

“Eskimos in Game Law Revolt,” cried one headline. “Offi

-

cials Say Eskimos Warned on Duck Killing,” another scolded.

Luke’s Uncle Joe was right up front in one of the pictures, smiling the same way he smiled when he told Luke that Catholics ate horse meat.

Duck killing.
Luke remembered the three dozen ducks he and Uncle Joe had caught one spring. Th

ey had not called it

duck killing.

Giving away all those ducks had been just like Christmas; they gave ducks to everyone. Some of the people they gave ducks to hadn’t had any fresh meat all winter. When Luke thought about rich people, he always remembered handing out all those ducks, the smell of duck soup everywhere.

Th

e
Anchorage Times
story said 138 Eskimo hunters had turned themselves in to the game warden in Barrow, waiting to be arrested for catching ducks out of season. Th ey did it

because they were protesting a law that made it illegal to hunt ducks in the spring and fall, the only times the ducks were in Alaska. One of the newspaper stories called it the Duck-In.

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Luke studied the picture. Th

e hunters were waiting in line

in front of the game warden. Th

e one at the head of the line

was signing a piece of paper. Every single hunter held a dead duck. Uncle Joe was standing in the front of that picture, off to one side, holding his duck up high, like it was some kind of victory symbol. Grinning straight into the camera with a look that made Luke smile.

It made Amiq smile, too. “I like this guy,” he said. “Fearless.”