Free Outlaw in India by Philip Roy

it impossible for him
     to resist; otherwise he tramped steadily at my feet. Through the trees I caught
     sight of a nearby rice field, and the shiny brown limbs of workers there. I
     wondered if you took an x-ray of the fieldhow many snakes you
     would find, and where they would be. I supposed you’d have to have such an
     attitude as Radji had about life and death if you were going to work there. I
     wouldn’t do it. I’d walk to the sea and fish for a living instead, like my
     grandfather.
    We hadn’t gone far when Radji had a bit of bad luck. He tripped on a fallen log
     and twisted his ankle. He said he was all right but I noticed he limped a little
     after that. I wondered if he tripped because of the sneakers he was wearing, as
     he was used to going barefoot. But he was attached to them and refused to take
     them off.
    The woods widened and narrowed and widened again before it reached a field that
     was not a rice field, and we felt comfortable crossing it. Then we crossed a
     road and entered another wooded area. Beside the road I saw a poster that showed
     a father tossing a girl up in the air. The poster said, “Save the Girl Child.”
     “What does that mean, Radji? What does it mean . . . save the girl child?”
    Radji turned red and stared at the ground.
    “What? What’s wrong? What’s wrong, Radji? Did I say something wrong?”
    “No.”
    “What’s upsetting you?”
    “It means babies.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    Radji started breathing very heavily. I was starting to wonder if he had
     asthma. He took a few deep breaths and spokewith great
     stress. “Sometimes . . . sometimes people kill their babies if they are
     girls.”
    “ What ?”
    He was breathing so hard. I didn’t want to upset him anymore. “It’s okay,
     Radji. We don’t have to talk about it. It’s okay. Let’s talk about something
     else. Let’s talk about . . . chess.”
    “Okay.”
    And so we did. And I was astonished to learn that Radji had fixed the game in
     his mind so well already that he could talk about the players and their moves
     and the spaces as if it were all in front of him. Even so, I couldn’t stop
     wondering what he meant about killing babies. But I wouldn’t ask him again. I
     would ask someone else.

Chapter Eleven

    EVERY COUNTRY SMELLS different, feels different, and looks
     different. India was the most beautiful country I ever saw. If you think of a
     country as being like an animal then India was the animal with the most colour,
     the softest fur, the shiniest eyes, the sharpest claws, the longest tail, and
     the prettiest face. She also smelled the nicest . . . and the worst . She
     smelled like cinnamon and sandalwood and the heat of the ground and your own
     skin. But she also smelled like the sewer, and you learned quickly which way to
     turn your head. But that was only in the cities. In the country everything
     smelled wonderful.
    India was also the friendliest country to me, but the mostunfriendly to her own people, it seemed. She was the safest in some ways,
     yet the most dangerous in others. She was dangerous because of the slithering
     beasts that lay on the ground like shiny pieces of jewelled rope—hidden behind a
     log or a bush—that would rush away from you like ribbons in the wind, or stand
     up and strike you with deadly poison.
    The snake caught us completely off-guard. We didn’t know it was there because
     it wasn’t where snakes are supposed to be. It wasn’t in the field. It wasn’t
     near water or rocks or any place to hide. We had stopped in the woods to look at
     a beautiful bush with flowers on it, and the snake was there. But we couldn’t
     see it. The colour of the snake blended in with the bush so well we thought it
     was all one. Even Hollie didn’t know it was there. But when it came out of the
     flowers and struck at Radji, I saw it. And even though it happened in an instant
     I saw the black eyes of the snake as it went past. Then Hollie started