Operation Oleander (9780547534213) Read Online Free Page A

been reporting on educational statistics. The replay reveals a static city scene glimmering in the distance. In the foreground, palm fronds wave in the sunny late afternoon. Wind ruffles the reporter’s hair.
    Without warning, the screen rips apart. For a second the flash of an explosion consumes everything, and I can’t turn away or close my eyes. The reporter crouches, covering his ears, and for a second drops the microphone. The footage shimmers as if an earthquake is upending everything.
    I squeeze my eyes shut. The red and white streamers from the fireworks reflect against the back of my eyelids. The sound of the explosion rockets through my eardrums. The scene on television reminds me of last night on the beach, the way the silhouettes made everyone look like soldiers. I was afraid, afraid for Dad and everyone in the unit. It was just a moment, a flash, and then I tried to brush it away like sand off my legs.
    On television, smoke and dust are all I can see.
    The anchor cuts away. “We’ll be back with more on this unfolding story.”
    The scene changes to a cat food commercial.
    The phone rings, and I snatch it off the receiver.
    â€œMeriwether?”
    â€œIt’s Sam.”
    â€œI tried to call you,” I say. “My mom’s still asleep. What’s happening?” He has to know something, or he wouldn’t call. He won’t let what he thinks about Operation Oleander stop him from doing the right thing. From telling me what he can.
    â€œThe major offensive. It’s started. Troops are moving south.” Sam’s voice sounds like a television reporter’s. Neutral and practiced. “A car bombing got part of the unit before they could join the convoy. They’d stopped at an orphanage.”
    Orphanage.
    The word reverberates in my head.
    â€œOurs?”
    For a moment he doesn’t answer.
    â€œYes.” His voice drops as if he’s telling me something he shouldn’t.
    â€œCasualties?”
    â€œYes.” We talk as if in Morse code: clipped, in as few words as possible.
    â€œSoldiers, too?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWho?”
    Again Sam is silent. The emptiness inside the receiver deafens me.
    I close my eyes. He knows. He has to know. His dad is Commander Butler. He’d get word here first. Even though he’s here now, not in Afghanistan, he’ll know, since the soldiers are from Fort Spencer.
    Opening my eyes, I check the muted television screen again. Smoke curls toward the late-afternoon sky. People behind the announcer run back and forth on streets crowded with honking cars jammed at all angles like Cara’s toy trucks. A man dodges through the chaos, a child limp in his arms.
    â€œSam. Tell me. Who?” Was that why he came to the PX? Because he knew then but he couldn’t tell me? And he still can’t tell me?
    â€œI don’t know.” He evades me like Cara does when she’s taken one of my gel pens without asking.
    â€œYou do know. Who’s injured? Tell me.” I can’t ask if anyone’s dead. I can’t get those words out. I won’t think them.
    â€œI’d better go.”
    â€œIs it my dad?” I rush to get the words in before he hangs up.
    â€œI’m not sure. I wasn’t supposed to hear anything. I was standing outside the living room when the colonel came to talk to my dad. Dad barely had time to get dressed, and then he ran out.”
    â€œYou don’t know about my dad? Really?”
    â€œI don’t.”
    â€œWhat about our orphanage?”
    â€œWhat do you mean, ‘ours’?”
    â€œYes, ours,” I say. We sent pencils and paper. Contributed toward food. “Even you.”
    â€œI helped. I got us the space, didn’t I?” he asks, his voice rising.
    He did.
    â€œYes, but you haven’t been around much,” I tell him. Not ever since Mrs. Johnson complained that the operation is unsupportive of our troops and we