***

In the morning she refuses breakfast.

“What?” asks Mother. “You must eat. And if you do not eat you must still go to the school.”

“I will go.”
Aunt Shamil puts Salej’s breakfast in the shopping bag with her lunch. “Eat when you are ready,” she says kindly. “Today

will be better than yesterday. And tomorrow will be better again.”

Salej walks to school swinging the bag. Even now she is the smallest in her class, and very thin. If she does not eat, in

three days she will be a skeleton - then she will be with Father.

The children are playing and shouting. Salej watches from behind her tree. There are no ants this morning. Where have

they gone?

She enters the school with the others, finds her room, hangs her plastic bag on a peg.
“Hello Sally!” calls the teacher – and a question. Salej glances at her, her mouth set. The teacher looks troubled. Salej

takes her seat.

“Hello, Sally,” says her seatmate.
The children open their desks. Under the commotion Salej mutters: “Hello Sally” and “Quiet!” Her seatmate indicates

that she should open her desk. Salej lifts the lid to discover books and pens inside. The other girl selects two books and a pen and slaps them on top. She shows Salej that the thinner book is full of white paper ruled with blue lines.

Salej studies the first page. The twins spoke the truth: the paper is white like the clouds, with no splinters. While the

other children frown over their textbooks and write in their exercise books, Salej uses the chipped ruler to draw lines down the page. Soon she has a whole page of squares.

At an order from the teacher the children put their books away, then they carry their chairs to the front of the room and

form a half-circle. The teacher sets up a white board and begins to write on it with a red pen. Questions are asked, and answers given. Then the teacher drops her pen. The pen jumps up once and rolls near to Salej.

Salej bends to pick up the pen and freezes, arm outstretched. No one else has moved. She looks up to the teacher. The

teacher is smiling and nodding. Salej drops her eyes, retrieves the pen, and gives it to the teacher.

“Thank you, Sally!”
Salej sits back. Thank you, Sally. Thank you means, “I am grateful.” It means: “You have done something good.”

Salej whispers, “Thank you, Sally.”
At breaktime she takes her breakfast roll to the playground and sits on a bench. She begins to eat so she will not

become a skeleton.

“Hi, Sally.” It is her seatmate in the classroom. The girl sits beside Salej and talks to her. Salej says nothing, watching the

moving lips, hearing the unfathomable sounds as she continues to eat her roll.
The girl points to her and says, “Sally.” She points to herself and says, “Gina.”

Salej nods. She swallows the last of her roll and says, “Gina.”
“You got it!”
Salej points to her own chest and says, “Salej.”
Gina’s eyes widen. “Sulledge?”
Salej nods again. It is close enough.