Free The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis Page B

choice was to go to the bathroom outside the doorway, where people might see her and figure out she was a girl. The third was to step into the darkness, go to the bathroom in private, and hope she didn’t explode.
    She picked the third choice. Taking a deep breath and uttering a quick prayer, she stepped through the doorway. She did not explode.
    â€œNo land mines?” Shauzia asked when Parvana returned.
    â€œI kicked them out of the way,” Parvana joked, but she was still shaking.
    When Shauzia came back from her trip to the doorway, they made a bundle of the bones in the blanket, with the skulls thrown in, and carried it together over to the bone broker and his scales. He had to fill the bucket on the scales three times to accommodate all their bones. He added up the weight, named an amount, and counted up the money.
    Parvana and Shauzia didn’t say anything until they were well away from the bone broker’s stall. They were afraid he might have made a mistake and given them too much.
    â€œThis is as much as I made in three days last week,” Parvana said.
    â€œI told you we’d make money!” Shauzia said as she handed half the cash to Parvana. “Shall we quit for the day or keep digging?”
    â€œKeep digging, of course.” Mother expected her for lunch, but she’d think of something to tell her.
    In the middle of the afternoon, there was a small break in the clouds. A stream of bright sunlight hit the graveyard.
    Parvana gave Shauzia a nudge, and they looked out over the mounds of dug-up graves, at the boys, sweaty and smudged with dirt, at the piles of bones beside them, gleaming white in the sudden sunshine.
    â€œWe have to remember this,” Parvana said. “When things get better and we grow up, we have to remember that there was a day when we were kids when we stood in a graveyard and dug up bones to sell so that our families could eat.”
    â€œWill anyone believe us?”
    â€œNo. But we will know it happened.”
    â€œWhen we’re rich old ladies, we’ll drink tea together and talk about this day.”
    The girls leaned on their board shovels, watching the other children work. Then the sun went back in, and they got back to work themselves. They filled their blanket again before stopping for the day.
    â€œIf we turn all this money over to our families, they’ll find things to spend it on, and we’ll never get our trays,” Shauzia said. “I think we should keep something back, not turn it all over to them.”
    â€œAre you going to tell your family what you were doing today?”
    â€œNo,” Shauzia said.
    â€œNeither will I,” Parvana said. “I’m just going to turn over my regular amount, maybe a little bit more. I’ll tell them some day, but not just now.”
    They parted, arranging to meet again early the next morning for another day of bone digging.
    Before going home, Parvana went to the water tap. Her clothes were dirty. She washed them off as best she could while they were still on her. She took the money out of her pocket and divided it in two. Some she put back in her pocket to give to her mother. The rest she hidin the bottom of her shoulder bag, next to her father’s writing paper.
    Finally, she stuck her whole head under the tap, hoping the cold water would wash the images of what she had done all day out of her head. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw Mr. Skull and his companions lined up on the gravestones, grinning at her.

ELEVEN
    â€œYou’re all wet,” Maryam said as soon as Parvana walked through the door.
    â€œAre you all right?” Mother rushed up to her. “Where were you? Why didn’t you come home for lunch?”
    â€œI was working,” Parvana said. She tried to twist away, but her mother held her firmly by the shoulders.
    â€œWhere were you?” Mother repeated. “We’ve been sitting here terrified that you had been