Lucky Child Read Online Free Page B

lids with her hands, too scared to even peek through her fingers. But as conscious thoughts return to her, Chou realizes her foot has escaped the net and is now being feasted on by mosquitoes. Quickly, she pulls it back into the net and out of reach of the hordes of hungry bugs. Fully awake now, she is suddenly aware of her throbbing full bladder. She wants to wake up one of the cousins to accompany her to the outhouse but she knows better. The last time she did that, they almost pushed her off the bed.
    Reluctantly, Chou sits up, quickly throws the mosquito net over her to prevent any bugs from entering, and drops her bare feet to the dirt floor. Guided by the moonlight shining through the slits of the wooden walls, Chou makes her way to the back door. Beneath her, small pebbles dig andgrind into her soles but her callused feet do not feel them. The last time she owned shoes was before the war.
    At the door, she lifts the thick wooden board off its hinges, unlocks it, and pushes one panel open enough to squeeze her body through. The door whines and creaks but it lets her through. Outside, the air is cool and fresh but she knows that by midmorning, the June sun will burn hot and humid. Thirty feet away, the wooden outhouse sits, dank, dark, and partially hidden by thick bushes. Too scared to venture that far, Chou walks a few feet away from the door to a low brush area. There, she hitches her thumbs at her pant waist and swiftly pulls them down. As she squats to release her bladder, her urine splatters on the grass, bounces onto her leg, and warms the grass beneath her feet. With her eyes half closed, her hands automatically fan her bottom to scare away mosquitoes. Once she is finished, she walks over to the large round water jug and reaches for the plastic container floating on top. She scoops a bowl of water, and pours it on her hands and feet before walking inside.
    Back in her bed, Chou tries to return to sleep but finds herself staring at the top of the mosquito net. Her gaze passes through the porous net, the wooden house frame, and then the layers of palm leaves to the big outside world. Out there beyond the village and Cambodia, she pictures America, a place filled with rich white people and big buildings. Though she has never seen pictures of it, Kim once told her they have buildings that are fifty, sixty, and even seventy stories high!
    “Seventy stories!” she’d exclaimed then with disbelief. “People must look smaller than ants from that height!” To this, Kim could not answer.
    She tries now to imagine what it must feel like to live that high above the earth, to be able to open a window and reach out to touch the clouds. For a moment, her thoughts shift to Loung and her heart squeezes tightly in her chest.
    Chou closes her eyes and laces her fingers on her stomach. She wonders if Eldest Brother and Loung live in one of these homes in the sky. She hopes Eldest Brother doesn’t let Loung lean on the railings the way Pa let her climb them in their home in Phnom Penh. Chou knows her sister can be bad and reckless sometimes but she still loves her. Loung doesn’t know how much time Chou has spent worrying about her and all her antics. Like the time she went to see the public execution of the Khmer Rougesoldier in Pursat Province. Chou cried and screamed for her not to go and even threatened to tell their brothers about it, but Loung didn’t listen. Chou worries about her now and hopes she’s not making trouble for Eldest Brother and Eldest Sister-in-Law, wherever they are.
    Since the day they left, Chou’s heard so many stories of other refugees who were kidnapped by Khmer Rouge combatants, captured by Thai pirates, and injured by land mines in their attempts to escape Cambodia. Chou’s dark thoughts spiral like a tornado, sucking all the light out of her eyes. Quietly, she repeats her constant prayers to the gods to protect her family.
    A few days before they’d left, surrounded by the uncles, aunts, and