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Overview
Then she meets Lin, a mysterious young elephant keeper tormented by his hidden past, and an orphaned elephant calf, pursued by violent poachers. Together, the three flee deep into the jungle, looking for refuge and redemption.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781459822177 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Orca Book Publishers |
| Publication date: | 09/10/2019 |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.75(d) |
| Age Range: | 12 - 17 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
AIR.
I'm pondering it.
Just random thoughts, like how you're barely aware of it when it's flowing smoothly in and out of your lungs. Or how, if you fall into it, it can't catch you. How it only seems weightless. How you can't tie it into knots.
I stole the last one from Buddha, who made me think about air in the first place.
Or I should say Buddhas, because everywhere I look I see his round face. It's on the jewelry, pillows, tapestries, paper umbrellas and paintings in Chiang Mai's crowded night market, where I inch along with my invincible mother. Whenever we accidentally bump someone, we wai. That means we put our hands together, fingers pointing up, and bow our heads. Everyone here does it. It's a traditional Thai thing that means "hello," "goodbye," "I'm sorry," "nice to meet you" and probably a lot more.
We are here, in this ancient capital of an ancient empire, to meet our guide. Tomorrow morning he will lead us into the mountains, where we'll trek and live with hill tribes. That means sleeping bags, outhouses and cold showers. Walking uphill for hours. Skidding downhill. Shock-treatment tourism. This trip is for me — to get me out of bed, to get me happy again and, of course, to get me over Amir.
Weird thought. Air is Amir without the m.
CHAPTER 2I FINALLY WENT TO HIS GRAVE. Mom convinced me to. She wanted me to face my grief. She wanted me to find some closure. And she wanted me to leave my room. Maybe I really wanted to go all along. Maybe I felt I owed her for the pain I'd caused. Or maybe I thought I could knock the very, very heavy thing out of my chest. In any event, I walked the five blocks to the cemetery. I walked slowly. Lying around depressed for a long time can really affect your stamina.
The swinging gates were open, and as I entered them, I had a visceral reaction: sweating palms, pounding heart, swelling lump in my throat. I kept a nervous eye out for Mrs. Ayman, Amir's mother, who, according to Mom, visited his grave every day.
I didn't want to see her. I hadn't seen her since the funeral. I hadn't even gone over to his house to see how they were, and they live just next door. Dad and Mom begged me to, but I couldn't. I'd let him down. Maybe even failed him. And then later, when I wanted to see them, I was too ashamed for not going earlier. I'm sure they hate me by now, and I don't blame them. I hate me too.
It took me forever to find his grave. I wandered endlessly through the rows until I saw his name carved into a shining slab of speckled granite. There was something shocking — air-sucking, in fact — about the headstone, with the stark name and the dates underneath.
Amir Ayman 2000-2016
There were two inscriptions, one in Arabic and one in English:
The heart is the secret inside the secret. — Rumi
Rumi. The mystical Sufi poet born in thirteenth-century Afghanistan. His full name is Jal?l ad-D?n Muhammad R?m?, which I think explains why everyone just calls him Rumi. We studied him in Mr. Singh's class.
I read the inscription out loud. I didn't get it. Why the secret inside the secret?
Why did people even write epitaphs? Were they messages for the dead person? Some kind of superstition passed down from the ancient Egyptians? Advice to take to the afterlife? Or were they messages for the devastated people left behind, like me? Something inspirational to ease the pain? If so, this one was a bust.
I didn't cry. I couldn't. I've lost the gift. But the heavy thing inside my chest expanded until I could barely breathe. My legs buckled, and I sank to my knees in the snow-dappled March grass. I looked like I was praying, but I wasn't. I was railing.
Later, at home, I vowed I would never go back to the place where Amir — beautiful, strong, fast, funny, sweet, warm Amir — lies rotting under a layer of dirt. When I want to remember Amir, I'll lie on the grass and squint at the sun as it glints through the oak trees in my backyard.
Amir loved the sun. He loved all stars. After high school, he wanted to go to the University of Waterloo and study physics and astronomy. He was a geek and a jock, the only hybrid in our grade. He was full of fun facts about football and baseball, especially the Toronto Blue Jays, and the universe, especially stars.
There are ten thousand stars for every grain of sand on earth.Neutron stars are stars that tried to die but couldn't. If you could fold a piece of paper in half fifty times, it would reach the sun. As impossible as this seems, it's true. I've seen the math. We are fifty folds from the sun. Now, every time I fold paper I think about stars. And Amir.
* * *
One night last summer we lay on Cherry Beach, looking up at the sky, and Amir asked me if I knew we were made of stars.
"Is this some kind of metaphor?"
"No. It's a hard fact."
"Are there soft facts? Facts you can snuggle with?"
"Are you mocking me? You know English isn't my first language."
"Or are there firm facts? Like pasta? Facts that are al dente? Do you know how that translates? 'To the tooth.' So, facts you can bite into. Delicious facts."
He rolled on top of me, not touching, just holding himself up like he was doing a push-up. Then he kissed me. I tasted black licorice. "Uskut," he said before he rolled away.
"What?"
"That means shut up."
"That's harsh. Is it less offensive in Arabic?"
"Not really."
"It's a good thing you're a star."
"I'm not a star — I'm made of stars. We all are. Every atom in me and every atom in you and every atom in everything on earth, including the earth, is from a star that died."
"So we're all just recycled stars."
"You make it sound a little ..." He searched for the word.
"Prosaic?" I asked.
"Huh?"
"The opposite of poetic."
"Exactly."
"Not at all. You know I'm a recycling freak and that no one loves recycling more than I do. The act of recycling," I added, "is a poem."
"What kind of poem?"
He'd called my bluff, and I had to think fast. I am always saying things that I don't really mean, or, at least, I don't know that I mean. He ran his finger down my face, tracing my profile, over my chin, along my neck. He kissed the soft part of my throat, just above my collarbone.
"It's an ode."
He laughed. "To garbage?"
"To the earth. To life."
"I love you, Valentine," he said, nuzzling the skin between my breasts.
That was the first time he ever said it. It's one of those memories that stays sharp, a taste that's always on my tongue — the words, the heat in his skin, the glitter in the sky and the swishing sounds of luminous Lake Ontario against the shore.
CHAPTER 3EVEN HERE I can taste that memory. Here in the sprawling Chiang Mai night market, with its canopy of crimson umbrellas and garlands of miniature white lights. I drag my eyes from paper lanterns to golden Buddha statues to hand-painted parasols to shimmering bangles to silk-screen paintings and to cotton sarongs fluttering from hangers. So many colors and shapes, it's like being inside a giant kaleidoscope.
We move with the throng of tourists and the occasional group of monks, bald men in saffron robes. There are other Thais, but they are mostly working behind the booths, selling. All of them seem to be staring at me. Mom says I'm being paranoid until someone actually points. According to Lonely Planet, Mom's dog-eared guidebook, pointing is considered extremely rude in Thailand. And Thais hate to be rude. Mom tries to figure out what is so wrong with me that I would force Thais to go against their nature.
"It's your height," she says.
I'm five feet eight — not that tall in Canada.
"Or your hair. It stands out."
I have long dirty-blond hair, the color of wheat. So definitely not Thai-ish.
"Oh no! It's your cleavage. And your shoulders. And your thighs. For God's sake, cover up." She eyes my shorts and tank top and throws her shawl over my shoulders. "We need to dress modestly, remember?"
No. I don't remember anything about that. She could have mentioned it back at the hostel. I swaddle myself in her leopard-print shawl. We stop at a booth displaying silver and jade jewelry. She wants to buy me something and holds up dangling Buddha earrings. Disembodied heads carved from forest-green stone. Instead I choose an elephant pendant in white jade that the merchant — a young woman with an orchid in her hair — fastens around my neck. It feels cool and solid against my skin.
We head to the food market to find our guide. We pause near pails of fresh flowers — orchids, jasmine, lilies. I take a moment to breathe in their sweet perfume. Then we walk past the spice tables, where the combined aroma of nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves reminds me of Christmas. At last we reach the food stalls and inhale the smells of sizzling meat and curry sauces. My mouth starts to water — until we pass by baskets of deep-fried insects.
"Yuck," I say.
Mom wrinkles her nose, then smiles apologetically at the seller.
Our guide is a young guy with a shiny, clean face and shiny, clean hair. He holds a sign with our names — Dana and Valentine Joy — in black felt pen. He wears a golf shirt and shorts that look freshly ironed. I thought he would look more rugged. Disheveled, and maybe a bit dirty. He says to call him Cruise, a nickname he likes for the English-speaking tourists.
"When did you leave Canada?" he asks, offering me a stick of Juicy Fruit gum.
Something about it gives me a homesick pang. Not that I've ever chewed it, but I've seen it in variety stores my whole life. I did not expect to see it here.
"Last night," I say, reaching for the gum. "Or was it two nights ago?"
We left Toronto after dark and stopped in Anchorage to refuel, then changed planes in Hong Kong and Bangkok. We haven't slept or showered. I haven't had a moment to myself in all that time. My head pounds incessantly from being shoved out into the world so suddenly. So rudely.
Mom came up with this crazy trip on, appropriately, April Fools' Day. It had been six months since Amir died and one month since I'd visited his grave.
She sat on my bed, smoothed out my rumpled sheets and laid her hand on my forehead. I was burning up, and her hand was refreshingly cool. Another sleepless night had put my nervous system in a state.
"You've been trying to tie air into knots," she said.
I opened one eye. "Do I know what that means?"
"It means that you've been in search of something, and you've been doing it by hurting yourself. All of it — cutting classes, the drugs, the suici ..." Her lips were still moving, but the sound had vanished. A strange effect.
"I didn't try to commit suicide," I said for at least the thousandth time. I was barely a week out of the hospital after an accidental overdose — accidental being the keyword. I was just recovering from days of bone-crunching withdrawal, and my voice had no inflection. I didn't even sound convincing to myself, and I knew I was telling the truth. Didn't I?
There was a long silence.
"I talked to the school again, and I think it's official," Mom finally said. "You're going to fail eleventh grade." Her voice quivered, but at least she didn't cry. And, of course, neither did I. "If you just write the English exam, they'll give you the credit. Mr. Singh said so himself. He really wants to help."
I'd won the English award for tenth grade, and now I'd be lucky to get a fifty. I thought about how fast everything had fallen away. How meaningless it all was in the first place. If I had known Amir was going to be killed, I would never have studied so hard the previous year. Then I wondered what I would have done instead.
"When Buddha was searching for Nirvana, he did the same thing."
"He failed eleventh grade?"
"Very funny."
Mom recently discovered Buddhism. For the record, it's holy hell living with the newly enlightened.
"He spent six years practicing austerities."
"Which means?"
"Torturing himself, basically," she said.
"How did that work out for him?"
"You don't need to be flippant. He mortified himself by starving. You could see his spine through his stomach. Apparently."
"He seems to have had no trouble gaining the weight back, if the statue in our garden is any indication."
She ignored me. "In the end, he said it was like trying to tie air into knots, and he was no closer to happiness."
"Well, two things. I didn't do anything for six years. It's been more like six months." Six months and nine days, to be precise. I count the days. I don't know why, but I do. "And I think we all agree that I'm not searching for nirvana."
"What are you searching for?"
"Oblivion, I guess." Which actually might be closer to nirvana than I initially realized. And unfortunately it supported the whole suicide theory.
Her nose turned red, and I had only seconds before she cried. I pulled the blankets over my face so I wouldn't see and be reminded of things to cry about, but it didn't help. Amir's face shone there in the dark.
"I wish you wouldn't say things like that." Mom tugged the blanket away from my face. Then she took my hand. We laced our fingers together and stayed like that for a while, quietly holding hands. When I was little, I would jump in her lap, throw my arms around her neck and hug her. That was when I thought she could keep bad things away. That was forever ago.
It was turning into a moment. I had to end it. I was starting to feel things, and that made it hard to hang on. I know it's hard to believe, but you can always go lower.
"April Fools," I said.
"What?"
I nodded at the cat calendar tacked to my wall. It was April first.
"Oh." She stared at the picture of a white kitten peeking out of a paper bag. "I don't get it. Are you tricking me?"
"No. Just avoiding more conversation." I think I fell asleep for a few minutes, but I didn't dream. I need dreams. Without them, I'm never sure I've slept. When I opened my eyes, Mom was tapping her finger on her upper lip, so I knew she was thinking — which scared me a little.
"We're done with the psychiatrist and the group therapy and the whole fucking hospital scene," she said.
I winced. I hate it when she swears. She never used to.
"You're my daughter, and I'm not going to lose you. Do you hear me? I'm not losing you. I'm taking you away from here, from this bed and from the school you never go to and from all your memories. We'll go to Thailand, I think. It's full of orchids, elephants and Buddhists. Not to mention mountains to climb."
I stared at her in horror. The only place worse than my bedroom was anywhere else, with the worseness quotient directly related to how far it was from my bed. I couldn't have picked Thailand out on a map, but I knew it was far. Somehow Mom convinced Dad that it was a plan.
CHAPTER 4CRUISE USHERS US to a nearby table and introduces Lish and Pauline, another daughter-mother team, just arrived from England. Lish, the daughter, has a partially shaved head, black eyeliner and multiple eyebrow piercings. She barely looks up from her phone to give me a snarky finger wave.
Her mom, Pauline, lifts her big black sunglasses up to her forehead and holds out a manicured hand with long red nails.
"How old are you, love?"
"Sixteen," I say, sliding my palm into hers. She smiles. "Brilliant! See, Lish? Someone your age."
"She's not my age." Lish, as it turns out, is fourteen.
"What kind of name is Valentine?" she asks.
Mom glares at Lish. Pauline jumps in with a big fake smile and a nervous laugh. "Valentine Joy. That is an unusual name. And so pretty. What do people call you?"
"Valentine."
No one calls me Tina or Val or Valli or anything else you can think of. Well, that's not quite true. Mr. Singh, my favorite teacher, used to call me Miss Joy to the World. That was before Amir died. I'm not sure I was ever a joy, and I'm 100 percent sure I'm not one now.
Cruise offers to bring us the Chiang Mai specialty, khao soi — flat noodles in curry broth with crispy noodles on top. Mom has the vegetarian option, while I have beef with a side of pickled cabbage and curry paste. It's delicious, and I realize I was starving.
The dinner is awkward. Pauline talks too much, while Mom interjects occasionally. Lish and I concentrate on our food. Cruise mentions an "Australian contingent" — two guys who will be joining our trek.
"Are they brothers?" asks Pauline.
"I don't think so," says Cruise. "They are last-minute add-ons. Why?"
"Because this was advertised as a family trek."
"Well, a family-friendly trek anyway."
Cruise says we'll meet them tomorrow morning. He will pick us up at dawn, and we'll all drive to base camp together. We say goodbye and leave.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The World On Either Side"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Diane Terrana.
Excerpted by permission of ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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