Parvana's Journey Read Online Free PDF

into quick flames.
    “He’s dead,” she answered quietly.
    Asif was silent again for a while. Then he said, “I knew you were a girl. You’re far too ugly to be a boy.” His voice was weaker than before, as though all the fight had been drained out of him. Parvana saw that he was lying down. She took him a blanket.
    “What were you doing in that cave?”
    “I’m not answering any more of your stupid questions.”
    “Tell me, and I’ll let you use this blanket.”
    “I don’t want your stinking blanket,” he replied, mumbling into the dirt. Parvana wasn’t sure whether to kick him or cover him.
    Then Asif spoke again, so quietly that she had to lean down to hear him.
    “I was chased into the cave by a monster,” he said. “I mean, I was chasing a monster. It disappeared into a hole in the cave, and it will probably come out tonight and gobble you up, which will make me very happy.”
    Parvana walked away without kicking him or covering him. She left the blanket on the ground just out of his reach.
    She sat down beside Hassan. There was a tiny bit of light left in the sky. She took out her notebook and pen.
    Dear Shauzia:
    I met a strange creature today. He’s part boy and part wild animal. One of his legs is missing, and he’s been hiding in a cave.
    You’d think he’d be grateful to me for taking care of him, but he just gets ruder and ruder. How can someone that small be so awful?
    Doesn’t matter. He’s not my problem. In the morning I’ll leave him behind. I’ve got to find my family, and he will just slow me down.
    Maybe I should leave the baby behind, too. These boys are not my brothers. They are not my problem.
    The evening was too dark to write any more. Parvana put her writing things away. She looked up at the sky for a while, remembering her father’s astronomy lessons.
    She got to her feet again and walked back to Asif. He was sleeping flat against the earth, almost hugging the hard ground. She picked up the nearby blanket. She covered him up, then went to sleep beside Hassan.

FIVE
    “You need a bath,” Parvana said to Asif. “Don’t tell me what to do,” Asif snapped.
    “You stink.”
    “So do you.”
    “No, I don’t,” Parvana said, although she probably did, at least a little. Not as bad as Asif, though.
    “If you don’t wash, you don’t eat,” she declared.
    “I don’t need your lousy food. I’ve got lots of food in the cave. Good food, too. Not the swill you cook.”
    “All right, rot away in your stink. I don’t care. We’re leaving you today anyway, although we’ll have to walk miles and miles to get away from your smell. We’ll probably have to walk all the way to France.”
    “France? There’s no such place as France.”
    “You’ve never heard of France? And you call me stupid?”
    Asif threw the blanket at her. It didn’t go very far, because in mid-throw he started coughing. His shirt was ripped in the middle, and Parvana could see his ribs straining with the effort of trying to breathe between coughs.
    She spun on her heels and snapped the blanket in the air to shake the dirt out of it. The dust made her sneeze, which only made her more angry.
    “You made my blanket stink,” she accused Asif, who was too busy coughing to take any notice of her. She spread the blanket out in the sun to make it smell better. It was something her father had taught her.
    “You stink, too,” she snarled at Hassan. At least there was someone who had to do what she said. She snatched him away from the stones he was happily bumping together and began undressing him roughly.
    Hassan screamed with rage.
    “You’re doing that all wrong.”
    Parvana jumped at the suddenness of Asif’s voice and turned to see that he had slithered over to the stream on his backside.
    “How dare you sneak up on me!”
    “You’re doing that all wrong,” he said again.
    “I know exactly what I’m doing. I have a younger brother and sister.”
    “They must hate you.”
    “They love me.