One Half from the East Read Online Free PDF Page A

drumstick!”
    I do have more than my fair share. There’s nothing left in the pot but sauce and a few chunks of uninteresting vegetables.
    â€œI can give you some of my—”
    â€œNo, you will not.” My mother keeps her head down and tears off a piece of bread. She’s about to take a bite when she pauses and decides to set some ground rules.
    â€œObayd is a boy. He needs the meat if he’s going to get stronger. I don’t want to hear any more about it.”
    Her tone shuts down the conversation. We eat in silence, Neela’s jaw clamping down angrily on her dinner. I know she’s got no real reason to be angry with me, but I’m pretty sure she is.
    My mother calls me into the kitchen. She reaches into the pocket of her dress and slips me a few afghanis, moremoney than I’ve ever had in my hands.
    â€œTake this dough to the baker and come back with bread.”
    It sounds simple enough. I’ve been to the market plenty of times with my mother. I used to go to the market in Kabul with my father, too, but that was when he had two legs. I walk slowly, watching the people around me to see if anyone notices that I’m in pants for the first time ever. No one seems to realize.
    I’m carrying a metal tray with five mounds of dough. I know where the baker is. Stores run down the length of the dirt road that is our main market. The baker’s shop is the fifth one on the block of shops, which are really clay-walled cubbies, some bigger than others. Most have carpets covering an earth floor. One is full of beans, flour, spices, and oil. Another contains fabric and a few sets of children’s clothes. They don’t have doors, though two of them have curtains drawn to the side so the shopkeeper can watch the passersby in the street.
    The baker is the busiest of them all. His store is easy to spot even from a distance because it has a red awning over the entrance. The store is a square space big enough for only him and his helper. They have trays of dough on the floor between them, right next to the big open mouth of the oven, a deep clay pot buried in the ground. The baker stares at me with one eye narrowed.
    I don’t know what to say.
    â€œWhich is the dough and which is the boy?” he asks his friend, with a laugh. “Hard to tell when neither one is talking.”
    I clear my throat. He called me a boy.
    â€œCan you bake these for us?” I hold my arms out a few inches, but I’m still too far for the baker to reach.
    â€œAre your feet stuck? Bring the dough over to me!”
    I move because he’s loud and abrupt. My arms thrust the tray in front of his face. He shakes his head and takes it. His friend is chuckling when their eyes meet. My face is hotter than the oven. I turn to the side so they can see only a sliver of me. I can’t face them, and turning my back to them feels so much worse. I’m not used to being alone around men I don’t know.
    The roar of an engine makes me turn around. Two black jeeps with tinted windows drive by. I stare at them until I feel a whack on the back of my shoulder. I spin around, not sure what just happened.
    â€œDon’t stare,” says the baker’s helper.
    â€œI wasn’t staring,” I reply. He’s right, though. Cars like the ones that just passed by are not even common in Kabul, where there are way more vehicles than here. Naturally, they caught my attention.
    â€œYou’ll regret it. Those are Abdul Khaliq’s cars, and you don’t want to be caught gawking at them.”
    â€œAbdul Khaliq— isn’t he a warlord?” I remember Khala Aziza mentioning his name.
    The baker laughs.
    â€œWell, his twenty bodyguards seem to think so.” His voice grows a bit serious. “Just stay out of his way, kid. There’s nothing else to know.”
    He stretches the dough out and lowers it into the oven. Just a few minutes later, he brings it out on a