Parvana's Journey Read Online Free

you hungry, Hassan?” she asked. “How about some golden rice pilaf, with extra raisins, and huge chunks of roasted lamb buried in it? Then we’ll have some bolani dumplings, and some tomatoes and onions, and lots of sweet noodle pudding. Doesn’t that sound good?”
    While she described the menu, Parvana settled Hassan onto her hip. He clung there like a monkey she had once seen in her school geography book clutching a tree branch. She scraped the fuzzy green mold off the cold rice in the pot and shared it with him.
    After breakfast, they explored the rest of the little settlement for things they could use. Parvana stayed away from the baby’s house, and they saw no more bodies.
    A tiny building behind the houses turned out to be a small barn with two goats and a few chickens. Parvana had a vague idea how to milk a goat, and she was thrilled when all her squeezing actually resulted in milk spurting into a bowl. She gave a lot of it to Hassan and drank some herself. It was warm and sweet.
    The hens didn’t want her taking their eggs, and they kept pecking at her hands whenever she got close to them.
    “I need those eggs more than you do,” she said, finally picking up a bit of old board and swatting at the chickens until they hopped out of their nests, squawking with annoyance. She put the eggs high on a shelf in the house where she slept. She didn’t want to step on them by accident.
    As long as Hassan could see her, he didn’t fuss, so Parvana made sure they were always close together.
    She went from house to house, pulling out of the rubble anything that could still be used. She put everything on a long piece of plastic sheeting and dragged it from house to house. When she was finished, everything was spread out before her.
    “I don’t like taking other people’s things,” she said to Hassan, “but if I’m going to take care of you, your village will have to help me.”
    Parvana looked at everything she had scavenged and carefully chose what she could carry with her. She already had a small cook-pot, but she did take a sharp knife, an extra blanket, some candles, a few boxes of matches, a small pair of scissors and a length of rope. She added a long-handled spoon and two drinking cups. The cups were small, and maybe she could teach Hassan to hold one. He looked smart enough.
    She made a food bundle, too, with flour, rice, onions, carrots and some dried apricots — all the food she could find. She put a small tin jug of cooking oil into the bundle.
    Finally she added a wonderful find — a bar of soap wrapped in paper with roses on it. The wrapping looked old. Parvana wondered where the people had got it and what special occasion they were saving it for.
    She placed both bundles by the door of the least-damaged house, next to her other belongings.
    “Now we’re ready to continue our journey,” she said to Hassan. “We’re going to find my mother. I’ll let her help me take care of you, but I’m going to be your boss, not her, all right? Nooria — that’s my older sister — will definitely try to boss you. She can’t help it. She’s naturally bossy. But I won’t let her.”
    She was ready to leave but didn’t want to.
    “I’ll just tidy up the house first,” she said to Hassan, who was watching her sleepily from the toshak.
    With a small whisk broom she found hanging on a nail, Parvana gave the floor a good sweeping. There was a lot of dust, and it took her a long time, but the floor looked better when she was finished. The rest of the little house looked dusty now compared to the clean floor, so she left Hassan sleeping on the mattress and ran down to the stream to fill a pot with water. She wiped down all the walls and shelves, going back to the stream twice for clean water. The whole house soon looked much better.
    “I could plant some rose bushes outside,” she said quietly, so as not to wake the baby. Afghanistan used to have beautiful gardens. She’d heard about them from her