My Name Is Not Easy Edwardson, Dahl (ebook reader web TXT) 📖

realized that he’d been sitting there with his fi sts clenched, holding his breath. He was suddenly grateful that he was the kind of kid people never seemed to notice.

But with his fi sts unclenched, he felt strangely fl at and defl ated. And then, just as suddenly, he was mad. Amiq had done it again! Even though he’d been trying to protect Junior, he’d done it again. Made Junior invisible. Made Junior’s writing invisible.

Junior raised his hand. It seemed at fi rst that no one even noticed him, way in the back, his skinny arm poised like a question mark.

Father Mullen looked at him with curiosity. “Junior?”

“Actually, sir,” Junior said, shoving at his glasses. He saw Donna’s face, closed as a book, and looked at Leo Pete, scared as a rabbit, and at Amiq, who frowned at him and said no with his eyes.

Yes?” Father said.

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O U R S T O R Y

“I wrote it,” Junior said. Th

e words seemed to fl y out of

his mouth. He looked straight at Father, thinking about his story, which was now a newspaper story no matter what anyone said. Th

e tape was rolling in his head again, and he could

hear it loud and clear: the word family. Suddenly his story seemed to belong to everyone, even Amiq. “In a way, sir . . . in a way, we all wrote it.”

He hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud.

Leo Pete shuffl

ed awkwardly, and the girls looked at Junior

with betrayed eyes, then they looked at Father with looks that said, “We never!” Amiq grinned at Luke.

Luke stared back. “It’s true,” he said.

Father Mullen looked at Junior and smiled. “Th

at’s very

noble of you, son,” he said. Th

en he told Amiq to follow

him.

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Civil Disobedience

SPRING 1964

Amiq was piling stuff together on his bed, acting like he was all alone in the room—all alone in the world, maybe. Acting like Luke and Sonny and the Pete boys didn’t even exist. He was staring at the bed as he worked with a look that said he didn’t see or hear any of them.

“What did you have to do that for?” Sonny said, fi nally.

It wasn’t a question; it was an accusation. Amiq fl ashed a look at Sonny.

“Because,” Amiq said. His jaw snapped shut on the word with a force that made Leo Pete think of his uncle’s steel traps.

“Pe-cuz,” Sonny mimicked.

Amiq scowled. For a second it looked like he was going to punch Sonny. Th

en his eyes got dark and his face went hard,

and you got the feeling they could do just about anything and it wouldn’t touch him. Wouldn’t even register.

Amiq’s duffl

e sat gape-mouthed on the fl oor, and he

started to cram it full of stuff : wrinkled clothes, broken pen-cils, a hunting knife and, unaccountably, a beat-up old copy 216

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C I V I L D I S O B E D I E N C E

of Th

e History of Alaska left over from Father Flanagan’s sev-enth-grade history class. He looked briefl y at the book and grinned. It was not an amiable grin.

“President Seward paid the Russians $7,200,000 for something they didn’t even own. A royal rip-off ,” he said, shoving the book underneath a wad of underwear. “Seward’s Folly.”

Th

e Pete boys eyed each other uncomfortably.

“Folly?” Leo said.

“Means ‘I jokes,’” Amiq said, no humor whatsoever in his voice. He eyed Sonny sidewise. “Least we never let them set foot on our land. Our grandfathers killed trespassers. All of them.”

Sonny leaned forward, tense. It wasn’t entirely clear exactly who Amiq was including in the word all. But Amiq had already turned away from them like he never said it, punching dirty socks into the edges of his duffl

e.

“Somebody oughta beat the crap out of that guy,” Sonny muttered, looking at the Pete boys as if daring one of them to do it.

“Don’t bother,” Amiq said, his back to Sonny. “I’m already gone.”

His voice was fl at, like he didn’t even care. Which didn’t sound at all like Amiq. Not at all, Luke thought. Watching his face, Luke felt a sudden feeling of helplessness reaching its icy fi ngers deep into his chest. No matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t fi gure it out: Amiq had been willing to take all the responsibility—he had wanted to take it. But why? He’d written the missing-person ad, all right—the ad that said Isaac 217

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M Y N A M E I S N O T E A S Y

had been kidnapped—but Isaac was Luke’s responsibility, and the story itself was Junior’s. And the newspaper—well, that had nothing at all to do with Amiq. Luke had sent those stories in to the Dallas newspaper. So why did Amiq want to take the whole rap himself ?

Father Mullen had said that people like Amiq didn’t belong at Sacred Heart, and right now, watching the way Amiq stood there, his back to the world, zipping up his duffl

e, ready to

run off into the dark of the night for who knows what, Luke thought maybe Father was right. Amiq was a lone ranger, and lone rangers belonged alone.

But what would happen to Amiq if he left them? Luke didn’t know. All he knew for sure was that if Amiq were to leave right now, leave before they even had a chance to get him on a plane, he wouldn’t go home. Not