Parvana's Journey by Deborah Ellis Page B

Valley house, or even two rooms. Her mother, Grandmother and Nooria could sleep in one room. Hassan would make a great little brother for her brother, Ali, and Asif could share a room with them and watch out for them. She could sleep in the third room with her little sister Maryam and Leila. It would be so wonderful to have everyone together.
    A pang of missing her family shot through her.
    She dropped the cloth back in the bucket and dashed up the hill to the look-out point. Leila was already up there.
    “See anything today?”
    “I saw some tanks drive by,” Leila said, “but I don’t think they saw me, because they didn’t shoot me.”
    “The war won’t find us here,” Parvana said, stroking Leila’s hair. “The road is far away. See any mothers yet?”
    Leila peered out at the landscape again.
    “No, no mothers today.”
    “Maybe tomorrow,” Parvana said.
    “Maybe tomorrow.”
    Parvana squatted down beside her new sister. “If they don’t show up soon, I’ll have to go looking for them again.”
    “We could take turns sitting up here,” Leila said. “If one of us was always here, they wouldn’t be able to slip by without us spotting them.”
    I have to continue my journey, Parvana thought. She remembered the long months of being hungry and tired, walking through the countryside. She would be alone this time, too. She couldn’t ask Asif to go with her. He was making this place his home. And it would be wrong to take Hassan away from where he was fed and happy.
    “You’re going to stay here forever, aren’t you?” Leila asked, entwining her fingers with Parvana’s. “We’re sisters. You have to stay.”
    “I’ll stay,” Parvana said, but she did not say forever. She gave Leila’s hand a squeeze, then went back to her house cleaning.
    “I will continue my search,” she vowed out loud as she finished scrubbing the shelves. “I will. Just…not quite yet.”
    That decided, she felt much better, and she took a deep, satisfied breath. Then she looked around the tiny one-room house for something else to do.
    She had already swept the floor mat with a leafy branch, but she wasn’t pleased with the result. It really ought to be taken outside to have the dust beaten out of it. The toshaks should all be aired out, too. Maybe the warm sun would drive the bed bugs and lice out of them.
    “Mother wouldn’t recognize me,” Parvana laughed, “doing housework without being told.” She was even wearing girl-clothes all the time again, except when she did nasty cleaning jobs. Her hair was growing back, too. Soon she would be able to tuck bits of it behind her ears.
    She pulled two of the three toshaks out of the house and into the yard. Then she bent down, grabbed a corner of the mat and tugged. But the mat wouldn’t move.
    Grandmother — that was the reason! The mat ran under the toshak where Grandmother crouched.
    “You need to be aired out just like the furniture,” Parvana said. She laughed at herself. She sounded just like her mother’s bossy friend, Mrs. Weera.
    Parvana went out into the yard. Leila had come down from the look-out and was hitting one of the toshaks with a stick to beat out the dust and bugs. Asif was keeping Hassan entertained with a piece of wood he moved in the dirt like a toy car. He made car noises that Hassan tried to mimic.
    “Can your grandmother walk?” Parvana asked Leila.
    “She could before Mother left.”
    “Let’s bring her outside,” Parvana said. “It will be good for her, and it will give us a chance to give the inside of the house a good cleaning.”
    Asif couldn’t help much, but he went into the house with them with Hassan crawling along behind. He liked to try to grab at Asif’s crutches as he walked.
    Parvana and Leila crouched down in front of the old woman.
    “We’re going to take you outside now, Grandmother,” Leila said.
    The woman didn’t respond.
    “How will we do this?” Leila asked. “We can’t carry her.”
    “Pull her out