Читать книгу Tiny - Mairead Case - Страница 37

42

T I N Y

There are no sounds in Tiny’s dreams, so when she wakes up she adds them, like carding threads back into a sweater. Tiny smells the chemical char. She sees mouths opening so wide necks become mouths too. Izzy thinks about ways to help. She could knit mittens for the soldiers, or put cool handkerchiefs into plastic bags, to use for mopping fluid and sprays. She could make them apple cake, which keeps well in pockets and also has fruit. People can take fruit and cake into a field. When Izzy makes these suggestions, often people think she is too simple, but the reality is that Izzy is a good listener, and so she is good at helping. It is a strength. Izzy helps people in the ways they ask to be helped, which means that she makes them stronger. She cares. Tiny and Izzy talk about the war all the time: what it is, and how they understand it. How afraid they are. Over time, this fear edges into anger. They have never known the world otherwise.

The war is about oil. The far-away country has more than they could use in lifetimes, in generations, and so other countries are fighting to share. To take. Other countries want oil to lube, wax, tar, and cement. To run cars, planes, and buses, and to make plastics. The fighting is awful, which is a factual observation even though Tiny doesn’t know anything about specific weapons, or even what the country at war looks like, really. She wouldn’t know how to find beans, eggs, or candy in their country. Or flowers or grapes. Tiny wouldn’t know where children play color in-between, like she did with Izzy. She doesn’t know where people go to work, or what they do. There is a lot to learn. But Tiny has time.