My Name Is Not Easy

Mail arrives for the students. One student named Junior gets the best mail because it is not even letters; he receives tapes of people from back home talking to him. Junior then tapes his own stories over these voices to send back home.

The nuns enlist Luke and Bunna in skinning the dead moose and harvesting its meat. The fact that they have never seen a moose before does not occur to the nuns and priests, who assume that Luke and Bunna are good hunters and skinners because of where they are from. Luke and Bunna pretend that they know what they are doing for the sake of their survival and resilience. On the bus ride to the dead moose, Luke finds Father Mullen’s mailbag and a letter addressed to Luke, already opened. Luke slips the letter into his pocket.

Luke skins open the moose and starts to remove the organs. He has seen his uncle do this on caribou and tries to imitate those movements, pretending he knows what he’s doing. Luke successfully strips the moose and cuts its meat; the entire school eats moose meat later that night. Father Mullen distributes the mail and Amiq shows Luke a newspaper clipping of Luke’s uncle Joe at the signing of a paper for the Game Law Revolt. Luke reads the letter he hid in his pocket. It is from Isaac, who writes about a tree and how his father will build a treehouse. Isaac asks Luke why he never responds to his letters. Though there is no return address, Luke can see from the stamp that Isaac is in Dallas, Texas.

Chickie and a bunch of the boys go to a baseball game with a rival Catholic school, in which Sonny and Amiq are champion players. On the way back, their dilapidated military-issue bus breaks down. Chickie narrates everything that is going on in the diary her father gave her. The boys tease her about the diary, except for Junior, whom Chickie likes because he does not fight, and he is kind.

Soldiers arrive at Sacred Heart School. Luke, Bunna, and Amiq are among the many Indigenous children selected to meet with the military for some testing. A military doctor explains to Luke that they are studying Native Americans from cold climates to figure out how to train soldiers to survive in the Arctic cold. The military scientists, with the approval of the school, forces Luke to drink iodine-131 so researchers can examine his internal organs with their machines. Luke sees Amiq in the testing line and tells him about the iodine. Amiq looks panicked. He does not show up to class after the testing. When the boys ask Father Flanagan if Sacred Heart got the kids’ parent’s permission for the military testing, Father Flanagan tells the students that Sacred Heart and the church function as their parents now.

Before the military testing, a tall white student named O’Shay and Sonny give the soldiers a tour of the school. The general is impressed with Sonny for being personable and useful to the school, despite being a Native American. He is also happy to meet O’Shay, whose father is an attorney.

Sonny sees a frightened Amiq trying to hide from the line of military testing. Despite their feud, Sonny understands Amiq’s fear. When the general approaches Amiq, asking him if he is one of the Eskimos, Sonny steps forward and informs the general that Amiq is his brother. The general lets them go, and Amiq brings Sonny to the Eskimo hideout spot in the forest. Sonny and Amiq laugh at the general for so easily believing that two Indigenous kids who look nothing alike could be twin brothers. Amiq explains that he wanted to avoid the testing because he does not trust scientists. Amiq grew up in Barrow, where the Naval Arctic Research Lab is located. After Amiq’s mother and siblings died in a house fire, Amiq spent a lot of time at the Lab, mostly against his will. Moved by his story, Sonny shares that his father died in the war. The Lab funds Amiq’s education at Sacred Heart, hoping he will return and work as a scientist with them.

Amiq and Sonny sneak back into the school, but Father Mullen catches them. Father Mullen beats them with his paddle as he utters slurs about Native Americans and their families. He tells them all Native Americans are destined for Hell. Sonny and Amiq take the abuse but individually resolve to avenge their pride and the honor of their families.

At Sacred Heart, the students undergo drills to prepare for an atomic bomb attack from Russia. Evelyn, Donna, Rose, and Chickie read a Life magazine together, admiring photographs of Elvis Presley. They see an ad that says that they can win a car with Betty Crocker coupons. Bunna overhears them talking about the competition, and he convinces the teachers at the school to have the students write letters to random people, asking them to help with coupons that can benefit Sacred Heart School. Chickie is annoyed that Bunna co-opted her idea and that he pretends to write numerous letters. Bunna frequently annoys Chickie. He teases her, nicknames her Snowbird, and picks on her. Chickie suddenly changes her mind about Bunna when she stares into his eyes, which she realizes are beautiful. She also realizes that he likes her and that she likes him.

Luke has a vivid and ominous dream the night before he and Bunna are to return home for the summer. When Luke wakes up, he knows with absolute certainty that he and Bunna cannot go home. Luke cannot explain why they must stay at Sacred Heart, but his sense of foreboding is an intense knowledge. He is not sure if he cannot explain this knowledge because he now speaks more English than Iñupiaq or if there are no words in either language to describe his dream or his feelings about it. Bunna refuses to stay at the school. Luke and Bunna fight over their uncle’s gun. Bunna lets Luke keep the gun with him, while Luke knows he cannot prevent Bunna from leaving.

The Sacred Heart letter campaign works: they collect enough Betty Crocker coupons to win a new school bus to replace their old military bus. Chickie boards the old military bus one more time for her transportation to the airport. She notes that Sonny, Donna, and Luke are staying behind. Luke packs his gun in the trunk for Bunna. Chickie looks behind her to see Luke pack the gun, and when she turns around, she accidentally smacks her face into Bunna’s. Rose calls it an Eskimo kiss and Chickie is embarrassed. Michael O’Shay asks Chickie where she is really from, not believing that a white girl could be from Alaska. Bunna stands up for her. When they stop for gas, Bunna and Chickie walk around and look at the constellations. Bunna and Chickie kiss, then hold hands on the bus to the airport.

Luke knows that something is wrong when Father Flanagan and Sister Mary Kate speak in whispers, looking over at him. Luke’s premonition that something bad would happen if he left Sacred Heart comes true. The airplane that Bunna was on for his return trip home crashed. Bunna is dead. Luke is bereft, in grief, and angry at the world for taking away his family, his beloved brothers, and a piece of his own life and personhood.