Free Why the Star Stands Still (Gives Light Series) by Rose Christo Page B

she wouldn't hold it still.  Rafael intervened.  He took the paper from her little hands and smoothed it out.  Now I saw it for what it really was; a drawing in colored pencil.
     
    "That's Nai Nukkwi," Rafael said.
     
    Michaela wrinkled her face.  "Who?"
     
    "Nai Nukkwi," he said.  "She was Shoshone, like us.  She lived a long, long time ago.  When she was nine or ten, an enemy tribe captured her.  They were going to sell her to white fur trappers as a slave.  But Nai Nukkwi escaped.  She ran a thousand miles home, all by herself."
     
    "Why's there a bear in the picture?" Michaela asked.
     
    "Okay," said Rafael, "when she was on the run, she came across an angry sleuth of bears.  There were dozens of them, and they were standing between her and the Lemhi Valley.  But she wasn't afraid.  She knew that if she wanted to survive, she had to stand up straight, and look the leader in the eye."
     
    I took a closer look at little Nai Nukkwi in her colored elkskin dress.  A hungry black bear towered over her on hind legs, jaws wide open.
     
    "But she looks like me ," Michaela said.
     
    And that was true.  I saw freckles on Nai Nukkwi's face, her nose small and snubbed, her hair straight and brown.
     
    "How do you draw like that?" Michaela said.  "Can I draw like that?"
     
    "I could teach you," Rafael said.
     
    My heart tightened in my chest.  Rafael's father had taught him how to draw.
     
    "Okay," Michaela said.  "You do that."
     
    "But if you act like a brat again," Rafael said brashly, "then I'm gonna stop teaching you.  So you've gotta behave from now on."
     
    Michaela let out a great big sigh.  "Fine."
     
    She padded out of our bedroom, the drawing clutched possessively in her hands.  I heard her trundle down the hall; I heard her door click shut.
     
    "Softy," I accused.
     
    "Shut up," Rafael said, and turned his head away so I wouldn't see his smile.
     
     

5
    Mickey
     
    The date of the annual raft race was mid-June.  Probably a good thing, because the heat climbs steeply just around the monsoon.  In June, it's still--arguably--tolerable.
     
    Children and their families all gathered by the lakeshore with their handmade rafts.  I saw Aubrey with his sons, and Isaac and Daisy with theirs, and Serafine and Charity checking the lashing on their beechwood one last time.
     
    "Go, Charity!" I heard Gabriel shout.  "Go, Serafine!"
     
    "You sure you don't want to join them?" I asked Michaela.
     
    "No," she said adamantly.  "It looks stupid."
     
    "Why are you still wearing that turtleneck?" Rafael asked me.
     
    "It's a different turtleneck," I said.
     
    "But why are you wearing it?"
     
    Mr. At Dawn blew his whistle.  The kids pushed their rafts onto the water and jumped on.
     
    The morning sun shone coolly on the dry grass.  Michaela's chin drooped on her hand.  I noticed.  I nudged Rafael and nodded her way.
     
    Rafael coughed.  "Hey," Rafael said.  "You wanna do something else?"
     
    Michaela looked at him suspiciously.  "Like what?"
     
    "You haven't seen the rest of the reservation yet," I said.
     
    Her suspicious gaze redirected at me.  "There's more?"
     
    We slipped away while Gabriel shouted his lungs out.  Not bad for a guy hitting fifty.  We followed the path through the woods and out to the firepit.  From there we headed west.
     
    "Are we going to the farms?" Michaela asked.
     
    "Nope," I said.
     
    We went first to the windmill field.  The grass is always green there; I don't know why it doesn't go brown the way the rest of the reservation does.  Michaela stood in the middle of the open plain, her eyes on the whirring windmill blades.
     
    "What do they do?" she asked.
     
    "That's where our electricity comes from," I explained.
     
    She snorted.  "You guys don't even use electricity."
     
    "Yeah we do," Rafael said testily.  "How do you think the computer works?"
     
    "Can I go on the computer later?" Michaela asked.
     
    "Depends on my mood."
     
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