But I do not want to walk away. Nor do I want to argue. I came here to get away from the confusion in my mind. I came here to play chunkey with my friends. I keep scraping the tip of my pole into the ground, digging it in hard as I do so.

“Tlahhuh!” Gayusoli suddenly shouts. He leaps up, trying to back away from me so fast that he falls on his bottom. “No!” he shouts again, his face twisted with fright as he pushes himself farther backward with his hands and feet.

The others all turn to see what is wrong.

Gayusoli is holding both of his hands toward me as if to ward me away, as he makes signs against bad magic with his fingers. His eyes are wild.

“Those, those marks,” he stammers. “Look, there on the ground. Uwohali is trying to cast a spell on me!” He scrambles to his feet and runs over to the safety of his other friends who have stopped what they were doing to stare—not at me, but at the red earth in front of me.

I stand up and look down. Just as Gayusoli says, I have made marks there. I dug them so deeply with the end of my pole into the red earth that they are easy to see. I’ve made them without thinking. But they are not sorcery. They are just those foolish signs that were inked on the back of my sister’s dolls.

I look at my friends who are all still staring my way. Galuloi has dropped the chunkey stone he was about to roll. Ugama is holding his chunkey stick in front of him like a spear. Their expressions range from the terror on Gayusoli’s face to the questioning look worn by my friend—if he still is my friend—Yugi. Yugi is rubbing his hands together as he always does when something has upset him. He looks almost like a raccoon washing its food.

What can I say? I have no words for this moment.

With my right foot, I wipe out those designs in the dirt. Then, without a word, I turn and walk away.

CHAPTER 10

My Mother Knows

I am not sure how my mother does it, but she often seems to know exactly what I am thinking. So, when I come stomping into the house after my unsuccessful attempt to play chunkey with my friends, she does not ask me what is wrong.

She simply pulls back one of the chairs at the table and nods her head toward it as she wipes her hands on her apron as if dusting it off.

Sit.