Jakarta Missing by Jane Kurtz Page B

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    â€œHurry,” Dad suddenly called. “People are starting to come off. Hey, there she is!”
    Dakar raced back. She stared at the people who were trickling down the stairs. “Nah. That’s not her.”
    â€œIt’s not,” Mom agreed, poking Dad’s arm teasingly. “You’re so excited you’re seeing things.”
    â€œDon’t be afraid to run up there, just push people out of the way,” Dakar told herself, bouncing with excitement. “Run up and fling your arms around her.”
    More people came out the door. Then there was a gap when nobody came out. Dakar had been waiting so long she felt paralyzed. Suddenly there Jakarta was. Taller. A little thinner. But most-definitely Jakarta. Her eyes flicked over the faces and met Dakar’s as Dakar started to run. But Jakarta wasn’t leaping down the stairs toward them. She wasn’t even walking down. As Dakar pushed her way up the stairs, she saw Jakarta’s face crumple like a piece of paper being scrunched up to be thrown away. Then Jakarta burst into tears.

NINE

    D akar was sure she had never been so miserable. She was scrunched in the backseat with one of Jakarta’s suitcases digging into her thigh. She wished Jakarta would look at her, but Jakarta was staring out the window.
    â€œWhy did you bring me here?” Jakarta sounded as if someone were strangling her.
    At least she was finally talking. The whole time they waited for the luggage, all she did was point at her suitcases when they came around on the conveyor belt. “We were worried … It isn’t safe in Nairobi right now … Jakarta, be reasonable.” Mom and Dad’s words tumbled over one another.
    â€œThen it isn’t safe for all my friends who are still there. What about Malika and her family? What about the soccer team? They’re all still there.”
    â€œI’m sure their parents are there, too,” Mom said sharply.
    â€œThe bombing didn’t have anything to do with us,” Jakarta argued. “It’s just ethnic tension. Like the fires in the Karura Forest behind our house.”
    Dakar remembered driving home at dusk and seeing billows of red smoke, streaked with sparks, over the forest. When they got home, she and Jakarta had raced to the balcony off Mom and Dad’s bedroom and watched pitchy trees go up with a whoomp sound and flashes of flame.
    â€œSome people say the developers started the fire,” Jakarta said. “It has something to do with plots that were given away in the forest. I have a Luo friend at school who says, ‘When liberation came to Kenya, the Kikuyu did the land grabbing. Now it’s our turn.’”
    Dad laughed. “Sounds like Kenya politics.”
    â€œI want to go back,” Jakarta wailed. “And why are there about ten Gummi worms in this big cardboard box? What a waste! It’s just like on the airplane when we threw away all those little plastic dishes.”
    â€œYou can give me the Gummi worms,” Dakar muttered, “since they’re so wasteful and all.”
    If Jakarta heard her, she didn’t give any sign. “Malika and I made friends with one of the little kids in the Kikuyu village. When he heard I was leaving, he came to the house and gave me a present wrapped in a big leaf. It was one of those plastic dishes from the airplane. That was the most precious thing he could think of to give me. And yesterday we all threw those plastic things in the trash.”
    â€œDoesn’t she remind you of me?” Dad asked Mom proudly.
    Dakar frowned. “Just give her a little room to come back to us,” Mom had murmured on the way out to the car. But Dakar didn’t want to have to give Jakarta room. She knew she was feeling childish, but there it was.
    â€œI remember perfectly when I was a teenager and we visited the States,” Dad said. “The Beatles were just getting popular. We got to my