STORY SO FAR: With paramilitary Serbs all around and nowhere safe to go, Meli and her family drive up into the mountains of Kosovo to seek refuge in a Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)patrolled camp.

CHAPTER SEVEN – Camping with the KLA

I still couldn’t see much in the dark, but I figured we must be there, for Uncle Fadil had stopped the truck. Mehmet climbed over the side and dropped noiselessly to the ground.

“Wake up, boys, we’re there,” I said to Isuf and Adi, not having any idea where “there” might be.

The little boys shifted, but they didn’t open their eyes. It must be wonderful to sleep like that, I thought. Think of all the anxiety they had missed. At six and eight years old, they didn’t yet realize how dangerous their world had become.

Papa was calling to me from the rear of the truck.

“They won’t wake up,” I said.

“Let them sleep while we unload,” Papa said. “You can hand things down to Mehmet and me.”

Unloading the truck didn’t take long, and in a few minutes I was shaking the boys awake.

“Are we at Uncle Fadil’s house already?” Isuf asked, blinking his eyes.

“No,” I said. “Papa changed his mind. We’re not staying with Uncle Fadil. We’rewe’re camping out.”

“Oh, good!” said Adil. “Just like the KLA.”

“Yes,” I said. “Just like that.”

There was, as Mehmet had promised, a tent, but it was hardly big enough for three people, much less six with their belongings.

Uncle Fadil was anxious to start back while it was still dark.

“When will you bring Burbuqe and Granny?” Mama asked.

Uncle Fadil shook his head. “Granny’s so old,” he said. “It may be better to stay and take our chances. At least she has a bed to sleep in.”

Vlora and the boys were soon asleep in the tiny tent, but the rest of us hugged Uncle Fadil. “Thank you, brother,” Papa said. “God willing, we’ll be together soon.”

“God willing,” Uncle Fadil said, and climbed up into the cab. Then he was gone.

At first, living in the hills was very hard. So much was needed. Mehmet and I went each morning to the stream to fetch water for washing and cooking. Papa made the fire. Even the little ones helped gather sticks for fuel.

As the summer went on, more families came to join the makeshift camp. And every day I hoped a car or truck coming up the road would bring Zara, or someone from my old school. But no one came that I knew.

“How do you stand it here?” a new girl asked me. Looking at her clothes, I knew she was used to a much more comfortable life than even our family had once known. I felt a bit sorry for her. “I pretend I’m on vacation,” I told her. “If the family is on a camping trip, everyone thinks it’s fun to fetch water and cook over an open fire, right?”

The girl sneered at me. “I’m not on vacation, and it’s not fun.”

There were advantages to never having been rich, I decided. Though, just then, having a bed and a roof and warm water to bathe in seemed like the height of luxury to me.

The KLA didn’t look like much of an army. They wore ragged clothes and, like all of us in the hill camp, had trouble keeping clean. Most of the men grew beards; it was easier than trying to shave. Mehmet couldn’t grow a beard to save his life, but like most of the boys who could, he hung around with the soldiers as much as possible.

It may have been my imagination, but it seemed to me that the soldiers regarded Mehmet as a sort of pet. One day I discovered that one of them had loaned Mehmet his rifle and was teaching him how to shoot.

“Papa will be angry,” I said to Mehmet later. “You know how he feels about guns.”

Mehmet just shrugged. “I have to learn how to defend my family,” he said. “And my country.”

“You mustn’t think of trying to join,” I said. “You’re only a beardless boy.”

“Once you’ve been in jail, you’re no longer a kid,” he said. His words sent a chill down my spine. He was no longer the brother I thought I knew. He never spoke about what had happened during those terrible weeks he had been gone. But they had changed him. He was harder, and he rarely joked or played with the little ones. I knew, despite his high voice and smooth cheeks, that he was becoming a mannot the sort of kind, loving man that Papa was, but a quiet man with a look in his eyes that made one think of a blackbird, sharp and watchful.

I was relieved when most of the KLA left the camp and were gone for several weeks. “They’re fighting down below,” Mehmet said. “And winning.” For a while that seemed to be true, but by the end of August Milosevic had launched another offensive and the fighters began to come straggling back up the hill, many of them wounded. The KLA soldier who had loaned Mehmet his rifle was among those who never came back.

The days grew shorter and the nights colder. We had brought blankets, but still we shivered. In some ways we were lucky the tent was so small. We had to sleep close together, which kept us warmer. I liked the feeling of having my family huddled close to me. Not only were their bodies warm, but the little ones slept so peacefully that it helped me relax a little and fall to sleep myself. Mehmet always slept by the tent flap, a little apart from the rest of us. Sometimes I would wake in the night and see him sitting bolt upright, as though listening.

One night in early September, I woke up with the feeling that something was wrong. I sat up and looked around.

Mehmet was gone.

(To be continued.)

Newspaper shall publish the following credit line in each installment of the work:

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:

Mehmet (Mm-m?t)

Meli (Ml-lee)

Fadil (F?-d?ll)

Adil (?- d?ll)

Isuf (?-soof)

Vlora (Va-lra)

Zara (Zr-?)

Burbuqe (Br-boo-ch)

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

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