Finally he says, “The ministry has found you a foster family in the city. You have been enrolled in a high school. Your papers are ready. My assistant will drive you to the bus tomorrow morning. Pack your bags and be ready. The bus will not wait for you.”

I’m glued to my chair, stunned. The words dance in my head. City. Foster family. Bus.

I try to stay calm.

“It says all that in there?” I ask, pointing to the file.

“Yes, it’s all here. In black and white!”

He waves the letter in front of me as positive proof. Then he quickly puts it back in the file and closes the folder with a slap of his speckled hand.

“My boy, you have no secrets from the government. It knows every step you make, okay? Everything is written down here.”

He stands up and puts my file away and pushes the drawer closed with the tip of his finger. He locks it and leans his arm on the file cabinet.

The interview is over.

I stand up. I’m shaking. I have so many questions, but I know there’s no point staying in this office any longer. I need to get outside so I can think.

“Tomorrow morning,” he says again. “In front of the band office at 10:30 A.M., okay?”

I feel as if I’ve been stripped naked. I’m more stunned by that file than I am by the news about going to the city. I never suspected anything like that even existed.

Could they know things about me that I don’t even know myself?

• • •

Nothing gets past Manie. She has the nose and eyes of an old lynx. I know she’s been watching from her observation post. She’s seen me enter and leave the band office.

I slowly head home, deep in thought.

It’s true that I was thinking of leaving here one day, but tomorrow morning?

Halfway home, I get out my pack of tobacco. I stop and roll a big cigarette. I pack in the ends carefully. For a few seconds I think about nothing but rolling this cigarette.

I take a long drag, like a deep sigh. I start walking again, cigarette between my lips, my hands deep in my pockets.

Manie is sitting at the kitchen table. She has pushed aside all the scraps of leather, spools of thread, pots filled with glass beads, the patterns. A flowered chair is waiting for me on the other side of the table.

I sit down. I take one last drag and throw the butt on the grate of the stove.

We are alone, Manie and I. This is rare in our house because more than a dozen of us live here and there are always people coming and going.

I suspect she’s arranged this so we can talk.

She’s bent over her work, stitching an upper sole of a moccasin. It’s delicate work that requires a lot of attention.