Free Never Fall Down: A Novel by Patricia McCormick Page B

a blank face like always.
    I walk past this guy, after, on the way to meeting, my hand in front so no one can see that my pocket, it’s a little fat. This guy see, though. He look at me so hard with his little shark eye, I know he can see inside my pocket. He look so hard at me I think maybe just his eye can kill me. But he don’t do a thing. Only watch me go by.
     
    This new guard, his name Sombo. I ask the kitchen girl about him. She says he’s the bodyguard to one of the top guy. Very fierce, two gun, one on each side, and always making a frown face. Everyone very afraid of this guy, she says. Too quiet. And always staring.
     
    This guy, Sombo, he catch me again. This time by the tamarind tree. Not even near the music building, not near the kitchen. Wherever I go, this guy, he show up. No one else around. But this guy, he come every time. This time he see me eating the tamarind. His little shark eyes exactly on me when I chew it.
    I walk right to him. “Why you not hit me?” I say. “Why you not tell the Khmer Rouge I steal the food?”
    Still he’s quiet.
    “The other Khmer Rouge, they find out you not report me, they beat you, maybe kill you,” I say.
    He only walk away. And this time, it’s me just looking at him.
     
    Now I watch this guy all the time. I see how he tap his foot when we play the music. I see also his face is like a baby. No hair on his lip. Soft cheek. This fierce guy, he’s a kid. A kid four, maybe five years older than me. A lot of Khmer Rouge soldier just teenager, but this guy, he make frown face all the time so he can seem old. Quiet all the time, and watching very suspicious so he can seem fierce. But all the time, really, he’s a kid.
    Also never he yell at us. Never yell at Mek. Only time he use a strict voice is when we play at the meeting, when the top guys come for celebration and we play for them. But when only us kid are around, he doesn’t yell, doesn’t hit. I tell Mek, “This guy, Sombo, he’s not like other Khmer Rouge.”
     
    Now a lot of day, Sombo, he asks me to play for him after the band practice. First couple time, Mek hide behind a building and watch to make sure nothing bad can happen. But soon he leave me alone with Sombo, no problem. I play for him now, no blindfold, only playing the song. Still no talking.
    One day I ask him again why he never tell the other Khmer Rouge about me stealing the food.
    “I see what you do,” he says. “Sometimes you give food to the other kid. So I stay quiet.”
    Finally this guy talk, and I don’t know what to say.
    “Before the Khmer Rouge,” he says, “I was orphan, and hungry all the time. The people, they judge me, shame me, hit me sometime for what I do to get food.” He look over at the rice field, where kid are working now at night. “Why I would give this shame to other kid?”
    So one Khmer Rouge is good, I think. One guy, this Sombo, he is good inside.
     
    Many night now, I play the khim for Sombo. He sit under a tree after dinner and I play song. These night I can lose myself in the music because I don’t sing the word. No blood-red field, no glory to Angka, only notes. No hate in notes; notes just notes. All the hate is in the word. Also this music, it’s not to cover the sound of people being kill, of skull cracking. It’s for this one guy, this Khmer Rouge who really is just a kid acting like tough. Like me.
     
    One night I show him how to play the khim, like the old man taught me. His hands clumsy—hard skin from hard work—and I tell him, “Touch it light, like hummingbird wing.” He hold the bamboo stick dainty now, like girl; and inside I smile at this Khmer Rouge, this tough guy, playing the music so gentle.
    After, we walking home, I ask him, “The other Khmer Rouge, what make them be so bad?”
    Sombo says, “It’s not bad or good. They kill only so they won’t be killed themself.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    ONE WAY TO KNOW HOW LONG WE’VE BEEN HERE: COUNT THE season. Eight harvest now means