The Sky at Our Feet: Chapters 22–34

Friday is tethered to a signpost and looks at me as soon as my foot hits the sidewalk.

Shopkeepers and pedestrians are going about their regular business.

I sigh and walk up to the sidelines, slipping between people whose voices have started to go hoarse from cheering.

While I'm contemplating this new problem, I feel something vibrating against me. I look around, confused, until I realize it's coming from the backpack I'm wearing.
Max's phone!

"So inspiring!" I say.

I'm not sure my maneuver was really a success.

I let my fingers graze a lamp post as I walk—the metal feels cool against my fingertips.

It is empty of knights, empty of dragons, empty of swords and gauntlets.

The nurse with the red hair calls you sweetie because she can't remember your name. It's not because she likes you that much. Please don't wake up that naive.

I freeze when I see AFGHANISTAN in big bold letters splayed across the front page.

I skim the columns for words I recognize, for any clue about where my mother might be.

Kabul was battered by yet another brutal attack...
...warlords refuse to participate in peace talks...
...at least forty casualties...
...civilians rush to local hospitals to donate blood...

There's a rasp to his voice that makes him sound tired but smart.

What if he figures out I'm alone? What if he reports me to the police? The man doesn't seem fazed, though.

I surely won't answer it in the middle of the street with two women gawking at me.

"Don't be so obvious about it, Dad."
"Yeah, can you not look so paparazzi?"
"You guys are the ones who told me to get a picture! I don't even like his movies that much!"

"Amber Alert child spotted on Seventy-Fourth speaking to homeless man by someone living in the neighborhood. Any units in the vicinity, let's get out there and ask some questions."

I try to look away so she won't think I'm spying on her, but as I do that, the walkie-talkie crackles with static.

I manage to catch her just as she's teetering toward me.

"Ha, ha, ha," she says sarcastically, and I feel the truck shift gears and lurch forward.

From there, I poke my head up like a periscope coming out of the water, to see if Liz or her mother are anywhere in sight.

I climb up the ladder to the next landing, as stealthy and nimble as Max was when she picked up the nurse's badge and freed us from the locked unit.

I climb up the ladder to the next landing, as stealthy and nimble as Max was when she picked up the nurse's badge and freed us from the locked unit.

They disappear into the entrance with the sofa, their voices muffled by the walls.

The other is the same shade of gray but with darker, mottled feathers in the middle of his back and a shimmery purple area right around his neck.

"I am asking for permission to stay. When I told them how I came here and all about your father and why I was too afraid to go back, they told me I should apply for asylum. There are many papers to fill out and I will have to tell my story, but I have faith and hope. I think we will be okay, Shah-jan-em."

You were supposed to be recovering, taking it easy. I don't think that's what you've been doing today. I'm still pretty baffled.

"Shah. Really," Auntie Seema says, her voice chiding me gently.

She didn't say it with a smile on her face or any mushy hugs.

Maybe I should start with telling the story of an Afghan-American boy who traveled to the end of the earth for his family, riding a stallion and relying on the friendship and hospitality of people who were fellow countrymen but also strangers.