Prison Boy Read online

  For Saeideh Ciabi, a woman of great strength and courage.

  “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

  EDMUND BURKE

  Chapter 1

  Two visitors arrived on the same day. Each, in her own way, would change the future of the Pink House.

  The first was a prune-faced representative of the King. She stood on the porch of the orphanage flanked by two soldiers wearing empty faces. In a low, flat voice she demanded to speak to Bell. Seven-year-old Pax stood behind Bell’s empty rocking chair and watched.

  Tiny Mega, who was all of eight but no bigger than a five-year-old, bashed back the plastic sheets that made do as a door, and ran into the house. She raced across the great room, leapt over the sleeping mats, and stood in the doorway of Bell’s office. “Bell, a lady wants to speak to you.” Mega’s voice wobbled. To her, soldiers were big and scary.

  “Now what?” Bell grumbled. Her real name was Isabelle, but everyone, even the children, called her Bell. She had come from England many years ago. She ran the orphanage, which was not really an orphanage, at least not the kind of place where children hung out the windows crying to be fed. “It is our home. We are a family,” she repeated. The government called it an orphanage and Bell, tired of the politics, shrugged. Really, what did it matter as long as they were left alone?

  It was called the Pink House because it was, inside and out, pink. A long time ago someone had given Bell cans of pink paint. There were still some stored in the outhouse.

  Santoso came up behind her. “Mega, what does that lady want?” Mango squished out of his cheeks and coated his lips.

  “Come, come,” urged Mega.

  One by one, the children followed Mega and Santoso out onto the porch. They stood silently, looking at the woman and the soldiers.

  At last Bell pushed aside the sheets of plastic and stood on the porch. The children moved closer to her, like little chicks gathering around a mother hen. Only Pax remained where he was, distant but watching.

  “Can I help you?” Speaking in her most proper British voice, Bell put her hands on her hips and glared up at the woman. (Really, Bell had neither hips nor waist. Bell was short and round, like a puddle.)

  “I am from Children’s Services. Our great King has decided that people like you should go back to your own country.” The woman’s words were razor-sharp. Bell glared. “And what exactly do you mean by ‘people like me’?” Her singsong voice was now a low growl.

  “You Europeans, you think you know it all. Go back to where you came from and take care of your own orphans.”

  Pax braced himself for Bell’s wrath to descend on the woman like a thunderstorm. He waited. He waited some more. He tipped his head just enough to peek out of the corner of his eyes. Bell’s face was white with fury, but she said nothing. Pak’s mouth fell open with astonishment.

  The woman looked down at her clipboard and began to read questions from the top of the page.

  “How many children are currently living here?”

  “Six,” growled Bell. She sounded like a dog before it bites.

  “What are their names?” the woman asked without looking up.

  Bell motioned to each child. “This is Mega, our only girl. Santoso, Guntur—they are twins. This is Bambang and . . .” She paused, her hand above a small boy.

  “Bhima,” said Pax. Bell was always forgetting about Bhima. Bell forgot lots of things.

  “Yes, Bhima. And this is Pax, my best boy.”

  “Pax?” The woman raised a thin eyebrow.

  “Paxton, after my father,” said Bell, but not with the usual pride in her voice. That was odd.

  “Yes, fine.” The woman recorded each child’s name.

  The children stood in gloomy silence.

  When she was finished, the woman said, “You may continue to operate, but you must not take in any more children.”

  “Really? How very kind. But perhaps the obvious has eluded you. We operate as an orphanage. What are we supposed to take in—orangutans?” Bell snorted.

  “No, no, no,” Pax whispered as he dropped his head.

  The woman twitched her nose like a rat, then handed Bell a piece of paper. She left, and the two soldiers followed in her wake.

  Bell scanned the paper, crumpled it into a ball, and pitched it in the ditch that ran alongside the orphanage. The children gathered around her.

  “Will we be taken away?” Mega whispered. Her lips trembled.

  “Not while I live and breathe.” Bell gave the plastic door a good bash and left them standing on the porch.

  The second visitor arrived at the Pink House a few hours later.

  “Bell, Bell!” Mega ran back into Bell’s office.

  In a moment they were once again standing on the porch, Mega, Santoso, Guntur, Bambang, Bhima, and Pax. This time they were not afraid, only curious.

  The old woman held up an infant boy. It lay naked on a rag. “Take it,” she said. She had no teeth. She had a hump on her back, sunken cheeks, and foggy eyes.

  Pax stood behind Bell and held his breath.

  Bell looked down at the baby. It was stringy—all head and thin, jerky limbs. “It needs its mother’s milk,” she said.

  “The mother is dead. You give me money.” The woman thrust the baby at Bell.

  Bell took a step back and narrowed her eyes. “I don’t buy babies.”

  “Take it or I will drown it,” she cackled.

  Pax sucked in his breath. She did not hold the baby properly. Its head dangled. Pax reached out, scooped the baby in his arms, and hugged it against his chest. The woman let out a howl.

  “Pax, wait,” said Bell.

  “I want money!” the woman screeched.

  “Go away before I call the police,” Bell yelled right back.

  Pax took the baby into the great room and sat on his mat. He rocked him in his arms. The baby made twittering sounds like a little bird. “Ca, ca, ca.” He looked up at Pax with clear, big, brown eyes streaked with gold—like a baby lion’s eyes.

  “What can you see?” Pax whispered. Little bubbles appeared on the baby’s lips. He smiled. Pax smiled back.

  Bell stood above Pax. “It will likely die,” she said, but gently.

  “No he won’t,” said Pax.

  “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Pax looked up at Bell. “I don’t feel hungry now,” he said.

  “Hungry? What are you talking about?”

  “Being alone is like being hungry,” he whispered.

  Bell sighed. “Pax, I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about. You are surrounded by people. We have enough food.”

  “I know, but holding him makes me . . .” He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t understand it himself. “He makes me feel—full.” Pax rocked the baby back and forth.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, you are talking in riddles. Mega, boil water and sterilize those old baby bottles in the cupboard. Let the water cool in the small tub and then bathe the baby. Check the temperature. No need to cook it,” said Bell.

  Mega nodded. She was young, but she could do things like use a sharp knife, boil water, and bathe babies.

  “No, I will take care of him,” said Pax.

  Bell wasn’t listening. She stormed off in search of her purse.

  The other children looked at the infant over Pax’s shoulder. Bambang, who was round with big cheeks (although he ate no more than the others), got down on his knees and touched the baby’s face. “He’s soft,” he whispered.

  “Pax, he looks like you. He has eyes like you. See the little yellow bits?” said Santoso.

  “Maybe he’s your true, true brother,” added Guntur.

  “That’s right. And that woman was a fairy go
dmother,” said Santoso.

  Bambang shook his head. “She’s not a fairy godmother. She’s ugly and has no teeth.”

  Bell returned with a purse hooked over her arm and a kerchief on her head knotted under her chin. “I will go to the medical unit in the city and get some formula, but Pax, remember what I said. It will likely die.”

  “His name is Kai.”

  “Why Kai?” said Bell.

  “He told me,” replied Pax.

  Bell sighed and shook her head. “Just remember what I said.”

  That is how Kai came to stay. From that moment on, Pax became Kai’s guardian, his protector, his father, mother, and maybe his brother, too. Stranger things have happened.

  As for Bell, it wasn’t the first time she had deliberately ignored the government’s regulations.

  Chapter 2

  Three years later

  It was still dark. The sun funneled through a pinhole on the horizon.

  Pax sat cross-legged on the porch listening to morning sounds—dogs barking, birds chirping, street sellers setting up shop. Someone was shouting. Someone was singing. And there were morning smells, too—hot cooking oil, bread baking, and underneath it all the stink of fresh poop.

  An alley cut through the slum. Little paths wiggled out from it in random directions. Open sewers, filled with brown swill, lined every path. Cardboard shacks and broken huts held together with plastic sheets, black tarpaper, bits of wood, old tires, and chipped shingles retrieved from the dump surrounded the orphanage.

  The wooden porch wrapped around the Pink House, all the planks were in different stages of rot. A small kerosene lamp sat on a three-legged stool beside Bell’s rocking chair. The chair was fastened to the floor with a black chain.

  Pax pulled the stool closer. He was holding a length of thread and a needle. First he wet the tip of the thread with his tongue, then he held the needle up to the light and slipped the thread through its eye. He stabbed the needle and thread into his old blue school shorts. Pax was almost eleven years old, and Kai was three. The shorts were too small for him and too big for Kai. Cutting the shorts down to fit Kai without scissors would take some ingenuity. Pax needed new shorts for school, but how to tell Bell?

  “I am awake!” Kai announced from the doorway. He flung out his arms, as much to announce his presence as to greet the day. He was a strong little fellow with big eyes, a big grin, and black, stiff hair.

  “It’s too early, go back to sleep.” Pax pulled the thread through the elastic waistband.

  “But the sun is up.” Kai kneeled beside Pax. The sun was not up, although the pinhole of light had expanded into the shape of a lemon.

  “You can sleep a little while more,” said Pax. He pricked his finger and sucked up the spot of blood.

  “No, tell me again.” Kai plopped down beside him and looked up at Pax with eyes as big as pies.

  “I’ve told you a million times.” Pax broke off the thread with his teeth and tied it off with a knot. “Try these on and see if they fit.” He held out the blue school shorts.

  Kai kicked off his brown shorts, stood bum-naked on the porch, and pulled up Pax’s old shorts. “Now I can go to school,” Kai announced.

  “You have to be six to go to school. Do they fit?” Pax tilted his head and tried to judge for himself. Kai let go. The shorts fell down. Pax sighed. This wasn’t going to work.

  “Please, please tell me.” Kai pulled on his old brown shorts, sat beside Pax, hugged his knees into his chest, and leaned his head against Pax’s shoulder. “Please, please, please?”

  “One last time,” said Pax, knowing full well that it would not be the last time. He threaded the needle again, and stabbed the shorts again.

  “On a planet far away, past all the stars and heaven too, a beautiful queen had a baby. War came to the planet. The queen asked a magician to save her baby from the enemy.” Pax sighed. He had told the tale so many times he was almost sorry he had invented it.

  “What did the magician look like?” asked Kai.

  “He had a long white beard and a blue hat. His wand was made of gold.”

  “Then what happened?” Kai covered up a yawn with his fist.

  “The magician used his wand to create a rainbow. Ouch!” This time a great bubble of blood oozed out of his thumb. Pax plugged his mouth with his thumb and flung the shorts on the floor.

  “Then what?” asked Kai.

  “The queen put the baby on the rainbow and the baby slid down to earth.” Maybe Mega could help with the shorts.

  “You forgot to say that I was the baby,” said Kai.

  “The baby’s name was Kai,” added Pax.

  “Then what happened?”

  “I caught you.” Pax looked up at the hole in the wooden awning that covered the porch. He’d found six straight, rusty nails at the dump the day before. But the house was rotting from the outside in and the inside out. Eventually the rot would meet, and then what? There was no money to fix anything properly. There was barely enough money for food.

  “You did not catch me. You saved me,” said Kai.

  “No, I caught you,” replied Pax.

  “What color was the rainbow?”

  “You know the answer—all colors,” said Pax. Of course, the real problem was the ceiling inside the house.

  “No, tell me,” Kai pleaded.

  “Blue and pink and orange.” Pax poked the needle into the spool of thread. Needles were hard to come by.

  “Did the queen love me?” asked Kai.

  “Of course.”

  “Will I go back up the rainbow?” asked Kai.

  “Everyone knows that you can slide down a rainbow but you can’t climb back up,” said Pax.

  “Why not?” Kai yawned.

  “Rainbows are slippery, and you must stay with me now,” said Pax.

  Kai nodded. It really was awfully early. He leaned against Pax and closed his eyes.

  Chapter 3

  “Pax, where are you? Come here, NOW!” Bell’s voice rebounded off the walls and wafted out onto the porch.

  “Kai, stay here.” Pax gave Kai his best stern look. Kai was growing curious about the world beyond the Pink House, but there were dangers about—rats and stray dogs, most carrying diseases, and there were holes and ditches to fall into.

  Kai nodded, his chin bouncing off his chest.

  Pax extinguished the kerosene lamp and scrambled up. He walked through the pink great room. Bell called it that, although Pax never understood what was so great about it. Bits of things were scattered about: a broken table, rugs, thin blankets, worn pillows, and sleeping mats—all but his and Kai’s were topped with a sleeping child. Not even Bell’s bellow could wake them.

  Pax walked around the edge of the room, his feet making soft slap-slap sounds on the floor. What was left of the pink floor paint had retreated to edges of the room.

  Bell was in her office, which had doubled as her bedroom ever since the roof above her real bedroom had fallen in. He stood in the threshold. Bell always said that standing in a doorway brought bad luck. “In or out,” she would say, waggling a finger. Today, she did not even notice him hovering there.

  He could see tufts of gray hair bobbing above the stacks of papers piled on her desk. Bell’s bed (she called it a cot) was behind the desk. To the right was a bookcase filled with fat, leathery books embossed with gold lettering—volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. There were also books on first aid, algebra, and taxidermy, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, and several on birds. On the bottom shelf were children’s books: Black Beauty, The Big Book of Fables, The Railway Children, and little books about a rabbit named Peter and a man called Mr. McGregor. The books had arrived over the years in small, wooden crates sent by Bell’s sister. Edible treats for the children often accompanied them, along with bubble-wrapped bottles of Camp Coffee for Bell.

  “Bell, do you want me?” asked Pax.

  “Why would I call you if I didn’t want you? Look at this!” She wav
ed a letter about like a little flag. She was still in her old, flowery nightdress. Her gray hair, bundled in the back, was a tangled mess.

  When had she received a letter? He always brought in the mail himself, and there had not been a delivery in days. The King did not consider their district important enough for regular mail delivery. Besides, Bell seldom opened her mail unless there was a chance that it contained money.

  “I found it under all this rubbish. It must have come weeks ago. It’s from the agency. Peter is bringing an American woman to see the orphanage this morning. THIS MORNING! Wake the children.” Bell was flustered.

  “Peter?” Pax was confused.

  “Dr. Bennett to you. He’s not a doctor-doctor. He’s an education specialist, but he has connections in the government. He can help us; he has helped us. Tell Cook to make a fruit plate, and coffee. Go.”

  Pax was thinking that it would be hard to tell Cook to do anything, since she wasn’t paid very often. And he was pretty sure there was no coffee left, or fruit, aside from what the children would need for breakfast.

  “But what about school?” he asked.

  “No school today. Hurry up.” Bell patted her hair, as if that would have any effect.

  Pax nodded, although he did not understand.

  “Oh, and keep Kai out of sight,” Bell added. “A government official may tag along, one of those ridiculous women from Children’s Services. Why don’t they help the children living on the streets? Millions of them. Why bother us? Oh, never mind.” She swished her hand in the air. “All the same, we don’t need the government finding out that we took in a child against their stupid orders.” Bell pursed her lips and shook her head. “Take him to Ol’ May’s hut. Tell her that I will give her a beer if she doesn’t smack him. Don’t stand there like an ornament. Go!” She pointed to the door.

  “No, wait!” she yelled. Pax spun in a circle. “Line up the children on the porch. Tell Mega to put the ribbon in her hair. How is it that we have only one girl in this house? Hurry, they could be here any minute. Close the door. No, never mind, I’ll do it myself. WAIT! Tell the children to put on their school clothes. Spit spot. Look sharp.”