Leaving Glorytown Read Online Free PDF Page B

rage, so rarely glimpsed, was infectious. “I hate them!” I screamed. “I’ll kill them all! I’ll wring their necks and cut their heads off like a bunch of chickens!”
    â€œHush! You’ll do no such thing,” Papa said. “You’re still just a boy. You have to learn to think, not just to act. They
want
us to fight back. That way they can arrest us.”
    â€œArrest us for what? They started it!”
    â€œThere is no right and wrong here, niño,” said Papa. “You have to understand that they don’t care about that. All they care about is control. Our beautiful island of Cuba is being run by people who are too stupid to understand anything except brute force. That’s what they use to make their point, and then people like us end up getting hurt.”
    â€œIt’s not fair,” I said.
    â€œNo, it’s not. But don’t worry, Eduar. Someday these people will get what’s coming to them. In the meantime, we have to be smarter than they are, and stay out of trouble.”
    Papa looked at me for a long and serious moment. It seemed as if he wanted to say something else, but I didn’t know what. Later I guessed that he wanted to acknowledge the craziness of the times—to apologize, perhaps, for having brought me into this kind of world, but also to assure me that if I stuck it out long enough, I would see better days. Instead, he just gave me a hug and a slap on the back, and sent me on my way.

More Changes
    A s the days turned into years, our day-to-day lives became more and more oppressive and difficult. Abuela Ana was spending a lot of time waiting in lines for food, and in March 1962, we were given a
libreta,
a ration book, to use to buy food. The first time I went with Abuela and noticed her holding her libreta, I asked her to read me what was in the book to help pass the time. But she replied that it wasn’t a story; the libreta merely told her how much food she was allowed to buy.
    â€œThat’s silly!” I said. “Why carry around a book if it’s no fun to read?”
    Abuela gave me a wry glance. “Silly is right,” she whispered, but that was all she would say.
    We waited in line for hours. I thought that whatever was at the end of it must be something really great. When we finally got to the head of the line, we were handed a chunk of hard bread, some sugar, and a bunch of cans with funny writing on them.
    â€œAll this time we wait, and this is what they give us?” I said.
    â€œHa ha! He’s only joking,” Abuela said quickly to the person behind the counter. Then she rushed me out of there.
    When we were on the sidewalk, she grabbed me by the shoulders and brought her eyes to my level—which for her, since she was so short, merely meant bending over. “Niño,” she said, “never, ever,
ever
let them hear you complain.”
    â€œWho? Never let
who
hear me complain?”
    She looked over her shoulder. There was an armed soldier on the corner, and nearby, on a wall, was a poster of Castro with his big, fluffy beard, a smile plastered across his face. By now I knew the man with the beard was the Voice we heard constantly on the radio and loudspeakers. He was the one in charge now, even of those who had once seemed like gods to me—my parents and grandparents.
    â€œThem,” she whispered. “The Communists.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause they could take you away—or, more likely, they would take
me
away. You have to stay quiet, Eduar. Never let them know what you are thinking.
M’entiendes?
Do you understand me?”
    I nodded, though I didn’t understand at all. But I knew Abuela Ana wasn’t playing a game. She seemed scared of something. That frightened me. I’d never seen Abuela afraid. She could wring the neck of a chicken without even flinching, and then cut its head off—
smack!
    â€œNow let’s go home,” she