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wind would be, on a freezing cold day, with nothing but dirt to blow around?
    But he went on: “It comes and it can stay for days, and get stronger. Let's move on.”
    Mum pulled her shawl right up over her head and kept her back to the wind. She put out her hand and pulled me closer to her as we walked, and we kept infront of Dad so we could use him as a kind of buffer for the wind.
    Now my feet were beginning to get sore. They had been sore for a while, but I didn't want to complain. Dad's worry about crossing mountains with “a child and a woman” had made me determined to show him I was tougher than he thought, like the Guide said.
    With the cold off my back, it was as if my body had suddenly remembered about my feet, and started to concentrate on making them hurt as much as possible. But the Guide had said we must move on, so now I couldn't say anything.
    After what seemed like forever, we heard a muffled shout from the Guide, and lifted our heads, which had been ducked down under the wind. It was a change to look somewhere else than straight down at the earth road with the dust swirling round your ankles and feet, trying not to step in a pothole or trip over a rock.
    Through the sandy air, we could just make out the shapes of men, some kind of bar across the roadpropped on old metal barrels, and a jeep. At the same moment, Mum noticed I was limping.
    “What's the matter? Do your feet hurt?” she asked.
    “Yes,” I said, too tired to lie.
    Dad nearly cannoned into the back of us when we stopped, because he hadn't heard the Guide and still had his head down. He asked what was the matter. The Guide, realizing we had stopped, sensibly backed up to us instead of turning around into the wind.
    The grown-ups looked down worriedly at me and my feet, which looked fine. I looked at the ground, sorry to be a nuisance, cross at my feet for letting me down.
    “We're here now, at the border,” said Dad through the wind, crouching down next to my ear so that I could hear him. “Just hobble the last yards up to the soldiers. We might even get a ride from the other side of the border in a car or something. The agency knows we're coming and are going to meet us and pick us up when we tell them where we've crossed.”
    The Guide said nothing.
    I nodded and we walked the last few yards, this timein a line straight across instead of one behind the other.
    When we reached the men, they moved across the barrier with their guns slung across their shoulders, but in a friendly way, with one walking out to meet us. Me and Mum hung back while Dad and the Guide talked to him. I noticed that the donkey, for once, didn't follow the men but stayed with us. It hung its head and looked tired.
    Now the man with the gun was holding the papers that Dad had fished out of his pocket and explaining something. The other guards moved in closer to listen. Dad talked and waved his hands about.
    The Guide, who had been watching but saying nothing, then had his turn. He talked and pointed back toward me and Mum several times. The first man shook his head and shrugged and talked more.
    “Oh dear,” said Mum, squeezing my hand.
    Suddenly, the conversation seemed to be over. Dad and the Guide turned back toward us, the sand-wind hitting them in the face, but they didn't seem to care.
    When they reached us, Mum set about Dad's face with a rag from up her sleeve. She looked like she was about to do the same for the Guide, but then remembered herself and offered him the rag instead. He flapped his hand as if to say thanks, but pulled out his own rag.
    When they could speak again, the Guide said, “No go. Not their fault. They are soldiers. They would be in terrible trouble if they let anyone through.”
    “You told me,” said Dad glumly.
    “It was worth a try,” said the Guide. “This way would have been much quicker and easier, if it had worked. They might have had orders to let aid workers through. You weren't to know. …”
    “But now we've walked