Bamboo People Read Online Free

hunched over, one hand on his back where the rifle hit him.
    The tall soldier, Win Min, strides over. “Go!” he tells the girl.
    “No! My brother and I came together!” The girl’s voice is hard. “They’re supposed to be hiring street sweepers, the radio said.”
    Street sweepers? I
have
come to the wrong place. I’ll tell them there’s been a mistake.
    “Go home, girl. Tell your family your brother has a job. He’ll send money. Now leave.
Quickly!”
    “No!”
    Swearing, the soldier grabs the girl and tries to drag her to the door.
    She flails her fists in his face, twisting and squirming to loosen his grip. “I’m not leaving without him!” she screams. The soldier raises the stock of his rifle.
    The boy straightens up suddenly. “Go!”
    His sister stops fighting and is shoved outside, but I can still hear her wailing. The soldiers begin to steer the boys toward the door.
    I manage to catch the captain’s sleeve. “Sir,” I say. “I came to take a teaching exam. There’s been a mistake—”
    I catch his sideways glance as he yanks his sleeve out of my hand and steps back.
    And then I can hardly believe what happens next. The tall soldier is there before I know it. He sways back on one foot. He lifts his other high in the air and smashes his boot against my jaw. Hard.
    I fall on the tiled floor, gasping for air. The whole side of my head is on fire.
    “Get up,” the soldier tells me. “Our captain doesn’t make mistakes.”
    Most boys learn to take and give blows when they’re young, but this is the first time I’ve been struck, and I’m shaking with shock and pain. I manage to get up somehow and join the rest of the boys, clutching my jaw and straightening my glasses, which fell askew with the kick.
    A battered army bus waits in the street. Rickshaw drivers perch on their cycles, arms folded, pretending not to watch. It’s no use calling for help—people hurry past, eyes down, wanting to avoid trouble. Can I make a run for it, taking cover behind the rickshaws? At least get a message to one of the drivers for Daw Widow?
    But the soldiers flank our line. The street boy is behind me. His sister, hurling insults and threats, tries to fight her way to him, but she’s pushed back roughly. When it’s my turn, there’s nothing to do but climb aboard, my heart racing, my sweaty shirt clinging to my back.
    I find a seat by a window. My chin and cheek are starting to swell. The short, wiry boy in the torn shirt slides in beside me. His hair is spiky and sticks up like a bush. With the
tanaka
paste smeared on his cheeks, he reminds me of an act in the circus that used to come to Yangon.
    Taking the front rows and lighting cigarettes, the young soldiers boast loudly about how easy it was to gather us up. The captain chooses a seat in the middle of the bus, just behind the tall soldier, two rows ahead of me. The bus starts moving. Pushing me back, the street boy leans across my chest and thrusts his head though the open window. His sister is sprinting beside the bus.
    “Let him go!” she shouts. The bus picks up speed, and the girl can no longer keep up. “Ko!” I can hear the desperation in her last cry.
    “Stay near the tea shop!” the boy shouts. “I’ll come back for you!”
    At least he got to say good-bye.
    The captain’s head swivels, and his eyes glitter under the bushy single line of his eyebrows. Cigarette clenched between his teeth, he watches my half-standing seatmate. The street boy, to my amazement, stares right back. For a long minute, their eyes meet. Then the captain takes a drag on his cigarette. Smoke puffs out of his mouth and wafts toward us.
    I’m reminded of a picture in
The Arabian Nights
of a genie casting a spell on a captive prince. The captain’s magic works just as well. The boy beside me sits down and closes his eyes, lids dropping like window blinds.

6
    I try to soothe my bruised face against the cold glass as the bus hurtles along. Is this really happening?