STORY SO FAR: Threatened by Milosevic and his Serbian army, Meli and her family leave the only home they have ever known and flee to her uncle’s home in the Kosovo countryside. But when they arrive, they find that they aren’t safe even there.

CHAPTER SIX
Flight to the Hills

“What did Aunt Burbuqe say?” I asked Mehmet as he settled himself next to Isuf against the back of the cab. The little boys stirred in their sleep.


“Shh,” Mehmet said,. “Don’t wake them up. It may be a long trip. The longer they can sleep, the better.”


“But why can’t we stay here?”


“It’s not safe,” Mehmet said again. Sometimes he could be so maddening.


“Why not?”


“There are paramilitary all around. They’ve been threatening everyonetelling them to leave Kosovo.”


“But what about Aunt Burbuqe and Granny?”


“I don’t know. Maybe he’ll come back for them later. It may be they’ll be safe if I’m not around.” He said the last bitterly.


“You don’t know that!” I said.


“Uncle Fadil said as much. I think he knows someone who knows someone–you know how that goes.”


“No, I don’t. What are you talking about?”


“Forget I said anything. Information is dangerous. People are killed for it.”


I shut up then. But who got word to Uncle Fadil or Aunt Burbuqe? How did they know things that we didn’t? I tried not to think about it. I tried to be glad that I was with my family. Whatever the danger, it felt safer if Papa and Mama, and yes, Mehmet, were here.


It was too dark to see where we were going. Uncle Fadil traveled without headlights for the first part of the trip, but even without seeing it, I knew the bumpy road was winding up and up. “Where are we going, Mehmet?”


“Into the hills,” Mehmet answered. In the strange night even his voice sounded dark.


“But there’s nothing up there.”


“There’s KLA.”


“But we’re not KLA.” I was shivering. We were going into danger.


“They will protect us.”


But how could he be sure? If the KLA suspected you were a spy, or even a Serb sympathizer, they would kill you as fast as the Serbs would. At least, that is what they said at school. The KLA were patriots and heroes, of course, but fighters I’d rather meet in the war play of Isuf and Adil than in the dark hills they patrolled.


“You mustn’t be afraid, Meli,” Mehmet said, reading my mind. “Besides, we don’t have any choice.”


The truck spiraled higher and higher into the darkness. Uncle Fadil was still driving with only the parking lights and, riding backward as we were, nothing was really visible. I was afraid I might vomit, either from car sickness or fear. I can’t throw up, I told myself over and over again. I have to be strong. Besides, how could I move myself over to the side of the truck without waking up Isuf and Adil? They were sleeping so peacefully.


“When will we get there?” I whispered.


I sensed, rather than saw, Mehmet shrug.


I was being foolish again. My face was hot and feverish, but my arms, sticking out of my light summer dress, were covered with goose bumps. It was getting cooler as we climbed. I wished I could get one of the blankets we were sitting on to put around my shoulders, but knew that would only wake the boys. Questions tumbled all over themselves in my fretful mind: Where would we finally sleep tonight? On the ground? How would we cook, or bathe, or go to the toilet? The only houses in these hills were goat and sheep herders’ shacks. I began to long for my own comfortable bed and my warm house. Stop it! I ordered myself.


Once more Mehmet seemed to read my mind. “There are camps up here. It won’t be like home, but we’ll have shelter. Promise.”


How could Mehmet promise anything? How could he know how the KLA lived? But I didn’t dare ask. I didn’t want information that could be dangerousespecially from my brother.


The truck stopped so suddenly that we four were thrown hard against the cab. Adil gave a little cry in his sleep.


“Hush,” Mehmet said. He was trying to listen, to find out what was happening. He craned around the canned goods and squinted toward the light. “I think we’re almost there,” he said.


Before long, the beams of two powerful flashlights shone in our eyes. “Who are they?” Isuf whispered.


“Shush,” I said. One of the men went to the driver’s side; the other climbed up on the back bumper and peered at us. We sat still, hardly breathing.


“It’s only children back here. Let them pass,” he called down to the man below, and then jumped to the ground. For once Mehmet didn’t protest being called a child.


Uncle Fadil ground the gears and gunned the accelerator. Mehmet had shoved aside the canned goods and was leaning over the side of the truck, staring ahead as we wound farther up into the hills. “I can see campfires,” he said. “We’re nearly there.”


(To be continued.)


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Text copyright 2005 by Katherine Paterson


Illustrations copyright 2005 by Emily Arnold McCully


Reprinted by permission of Breakfast Serials, Inc.


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Pronunciation of Albanian proper nouns:


Meli (Ml-lee)


Burbuqe Br-boo-ch)


Fadil (F?-d?ll)


Mehmet (Mm-m?t)


Adil (?- d?ll)


Isuf (?-soof)


Milosevic (Me-LOW-sheh-vih-ch)


Kosovo (KOH-so-vohSerbian pronunciation; Koh-SOH-vahAlbanian pronunciation)


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