Free Sold by Patricia McCormick Page B

on. I burrow against the wall, hugging myself, and soon I am sweating again.
    It has been like this since last night. Sleeping then waking, fever then chills. Each one in a battle for my body.
    Now Harish, in his David Beckham shirt, is standing over me. He puts his hand on my brow. If I could speak, I would beg him to stay with me forever, his cool, cool hand on my forehead. But he disappears. And I am dreaming again. Of flying—on the wings of his kite—high above the snowy, swallow-tailed peak, while he is on the ground below, letting out more and more string, more and more, until he is just a tiny speck.
    An angry voice brings me back down to earth. It is Mumtaz.
    “Faker,” she says. “Get out of bed.”
    I open my eyes and see her standing over me, with Harish next to her, shaking his head. He puts his hand on my brow again and tells Mumtaz something that makes her frown. She waves a hand at him, like she is swatting at a mosquito, and sends him away.
    “Have you been washing yourself?” she says. “After the men. Do you wash yourself down there?”
    I try to nod, but my head is heavy, achy, a distant thing I cannot control. All I can do is close my eyes.
    Now I am in another bed. A kindly woman in white leans over me, swabbing my head with a cool rag. She tells me she will bring me some of the sweet American treat made from snow, then she disappears.
    Now I am climbing out the window of this new place, sneaking through the streets in my nightdress, past the peanut vendor, past the children playing ball, past the women shopping for fabrics, past the mongrel dogs sniffing through the trash, until I am running, running, running toward home.
    “Here,” says a voice. “Take these.”
    I open my eyes.
    Mumtaz is standing over me. Mumtas, with her plump mango face, has taken the place of the kindly woman in white, and she is holding out a pair of white pills.
    I understand then, that the woman and her cool cloth and the snowy treat and the running were all a dream.
    Mumtaz lifts my head from the pillow, places the pills on my tongue, then brings a glass of water to my lips.
    I swallow, and for a moment, I love her.
    I love her like a mother, for giving me the medicine that will stop the fever and the sweating and the chills and the shaking. I love her for not throwing me out on the street, for caring for me.
    I reach out to thank her, but she is bustling around, putting two more pills on the table next to my bed, refilling my glass of water.
    “Take these pills tonight,” she says. “And you’ll be back at work in no time.”
    Then she unwinds her waistcloth and takes out her record book. She wets her pencil with the tip of her tongue and writes a number in her book.
    “You’ll be able to work off the cost of the medicine in a few days,” she says.
    And then she is gone.
    And try as I might, I cannot bring back my dreams.

AN OLD WOMAN
    A few days later, when I am finally strong enough to get out of bed, I pass by a mirror. The face that looks back is that of a corpse.
    Her eyes are empty. She is old and tired. Old and angry. Old and sad. Old, old, a hundred years old.
    I speak to her in the words Harish taught me.
    “My name is Lakshmi,” I tell her. “I am from Nepal. I am thirteen years old.”

THE LIVING DEAD
    Today at the morning meal, an unfamiliar figure is at the table, hunched over a bowl, picking at her rice. She looks up, and I see that it is Monica.
    “Well,” she says with strange cheer. “My father recovered from his operation.”
    Her smile is wide, too wide. And I am afraid of her angry happiness.
    “He needs a cane,” she says. “But he is still as strong as a goat.”
    I nod slowly, unsure what to say.
    “Look,” she says. She shrugs off her shawl, revealing arms and shoulders covered in angry purple bruises. “He did this with his cane.”
    I wince.
    But Monica laughs bitterly.
    I don’t understand.
    “I thought you said they would honor you and thank you,”
    I say.
    She