STORY SO FAR: Having been expelled from their home by Serbian soldiers, the Lleshi family is walking toward Macedonia, as are many other Albanians. Suddenly Serb policemen begin yelling at them and herding them toward a railroad station.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Terror and Tragedy

We seemed to be waiting for a train that was never going to come. Eventually we sat down on the platform. I tried not to remember stories I’d read in school about trains that took people to concentration camps and death. Policemen were patrolling the edges of the crowd, waving their guns in the air and threatening to shoot troublemakers. There was nowhere to get food or even water, and I needed desperately to relieve myself.

Finally Papa spoke to one of the policemen. The man nodded angrily, and Papa called softly to Mama. He had gotten permission for us to use the washroom in the station. I was afraid to leave the men behind, but I really couldn’t wait anymore. Mama and I helped Granny to her feet. I held onto Vlora, Mama half carried Granny, and Aunt Burbuqe and Nexima brought the little ones. Shoving through the crowd, we made our way to the restroom. Afterward Nexima and Aunt Burbuqe and Mama cleaned the little ones as best they could. I washed Granny’s face with the end of her apron and splashed wonderful, cool water all over my face and filthy hands and arms.

It was well after midnight when we heard the long whistle of the incoming train. As I’d feared, it was a freight train. The boxcar doors rattled open. “Hold on to each other,” Papa said. “Tight! Tight!”

“Move! You lazy pigs!” shouted the policemen as they used the sides of their rifle barrels to push and shove us onto a crowded boxcar. With babies crying and old people whimpering, we held to one another as though our very lives depended on it. Then, when the long door slammed shut, Papa and Uncle Fadil called each of our names softly in the darkness. No one was missing. We might die, but at least we would die together.

I’ll never know how long we were on that train. It simply sat there for hours before it began to move; then it would go a few feet and jerk to a stop that would throw us hard against each other. There wasn’t enough room to fall down, but once I heard Adil cry out in alarm. I was terrified one of the little ones would be crushed.

And then, with the train seeming hardly to move all night long, the doors flew open and we could see it was morning. Unaccustomed to the light, we blinked. “Stay together. Hold onto each other,” Papa said, though of course we were already all holding on as tightly as we could.

“Out! Out!” someone was shouting.

Still staying as close together as possible, we helped one another down from the boxcar. I could feel the point of a gun in my back as I held out my arms for Adil to get down. There was so much noise and confusion that I just focused on grabbing him when he jumped. Papa was carrying Granny. I hoped we didn’t have far to go without our wheelbarrow.

The whole crowd of Albanians being unloaded from the freight train were being herded in the same direction. “Go on! Hurry! Get out!” the soldiers were shouting.

Get out of where? It was a while before I realized that they meant Get out of Kosovo! It didn’t matter that two nights ago when we’d loaded the truck that was what we intended to doleave Kosovo and head for Madedonia. Now it was no longer our choice. We were being thrown out, like garbage. “We are people!” I wanted to yell. “Not pigs or trash. I used to have good clothes and live in a nice apartment. I used to read books and watch TV and go to films. I used to have friends. I used to comb my hair and brush my teeth and misbehave in school.” But of course, I said nothing. None of us did. We didn’t want to tempt some angry soldier to use his gun.

It was then that I heard a man yell, “Nexima!”

I looked up. From a railcar far up the line, pushing his way past the guards, was Hamza, my cousin’s husband. “Here,” Nexima said, handing me the twin she was carrying.

“No,” I said, “no.” We had to stay together, that was all I could think of. I grabbed her arm and held tight. And then the crowd closed around us. We heard a shot. I’ll never know if it was that shot that took Nexima’s husband from his family forever. Should I feel guilty for keeping her from him? I’ll never know if I did the right thing. Papa said we must all stay together. That was all I could think of.

It had been almost a year since we had left our comfortable life behindand two days since we’d left Uncle Fadil’s happy, crowded farmhouse that was no more. We would never see Hamza again, but the rest of us were still together. Mehmet had not disappeared into the KLAor worse. Papa and Uncle Fadil were still with us. Granny had survived our terrible journey, and even though her mind was more like a child’s than was Adil’s, who was it who had smuggled bread right past those hoodlums?

Suddenly the surging crowd stopped so suddenly that I fell against the woman just in front of me. What was going on?

Mehmet, as usual, was the one who seemed to know. “They say the Macedonian border guards won’t let anyone cross. There are too many of us.” My heart sank. We couldn’t go backward. We would be shot. And now, we couldn’t go forward.

(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.

www.breakfastserials.com

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Pronunciation of Albanian proper nouns:

Lleshi (L?y-sh?)

Nexima (N-gee-m?)

Vlora (Va-lra)

Burbuqe (Br-boo-ch)

Fadil (F?-d?ll)

Adil (?- d?ll)

Mehmet (Mm-m?t)

Macedonia (Mas-?-d?-n?-?)

Hamza (H?mm-z?)

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