The Red Pencil

This section covers Chapter 54: “Nali’s Gift,” Chapter 55: “Flitter,” Chapter 56: “Sand Sheep,” Chapter 57: “Peek-and-Prance,” Chapter 58: “Dawn,” Chapter 59: “Sudden Gust,” Chapter 60: “Hammering,” Chapter 61: “Happening?”, Chapter 62: “Shock,” Chapter 63: “Together,” Chapter 64: “Calling,” Chapter 65: “Nowhere,” Chapter 66: “Fleeing,” Chapter 67: “Ashes,” Chapter 68: “Soles,” Chapter 69: “Forward,” Chapter 70: “Footprints,” Chapter 71: “Hungry,” Chapter 72: “Stubborn,” Chapter 73: “No Moon,” Chapter 74: “Cursed,” Chapter 75: “Misery,” Chapter 76: “Queasy,” Chapter 77: “Dazed,” Chapter 78: “Quick-Stream,” and Chapter 79: “Displaced.”

Nali gives birth to a lamb on a starry night, and Amira names her Flitter. Amira draws Nali and Flitter in the sand. Flitter waits for Amira every morning when she visits the pen, playing hide-and-seek with her from behind Nali’s body.

One morning, the family begins the day with a meal of mangoes, the “farm’s best fruit” (107); Amira deems it a good morning. Dando and Old Anwar go to the fields to work, while Muma and Amira roll dough into loaves. Muma gives Leila a small ball of dough to play with while she shows Amira the right way to roll, asserting that “Bread is best when prepared from a woman’s deepest self” (108). Amira enjoys this time spent together. Suddenly, a gust of wind blows over them, and Amira wonders if another haboob has arrived so soon after the previous one.

Amira hears “hammering,” and it feels as if the “village has been plunged / inside a hollow gourd / that is being shaken by violent hands” (109); Muma looks frightened. She wraps her daughters in their sleeping pallets and urges them to stay hidden, before she runs out into the fields. Amira realizes that the Janjaweed have arrived. Helicopters fly above, and men on horseback and camelback spray bullets into the crowd around them. The novel’s accompanying illustration shows a helicopter in the sky and a member of the Janjaweed in the bottom corner, while flames lick the edge of the sketch. Amira hears screaming. She sees Dando fall, blood spurting from his back, and Nali consumed by fire. The hammering stops just as suddenly as it began. Amira realizes that she is still alive, but Dando and Nali are dead; her heart breaks, her “Bright, turned black” (114).

Muma quickly begins to pack their things; Old Anwar comes to help, with his old donkey and Gamal in tow. Gamal has suffered a severe burn on his face, and both his parents have been killed. Old Anwar insists that they must all stay together now. Amira repeatedly calls for Flitter, but the lamb does not come. She plays “What Else Is Possible?” in her head while she searches for Flitter; however, when Flitter doesn’t turn up the next day, Muma tells her that the lamb is gone.

The night after the Janjaweed attack, the villagers flee their homes. Muma allows her daughters to take one thing each. Amira takes her twig; Leila takes her broken-bottle doll; Leila herself constitutes Muma’s one thing, whom she carries on her back. Old Anwar’s donkey carries some food rations and their few belongings. Everyone walks single file across the desert at night; Muma tells Amira that they are walking to safety, her voice indicating that she must ask no more questions. As they leave, Amira sees Muma’s wedding toob, burnt and sitting atop a pile of soot, “its fringed edge / flicking in the breeze, / waving good-bye” (123).

The group walks for many nights, as it is unsafe to move during the day. Old Anwar explains that their direction is determined by what is safest in the moment: The “journey’s end will be shown as [they] go” (124). Amira’s soles are melting; she is extremely thirsty, but they must ration water. She tries not to whine even as she envies Leila who is being carried. Gamal keeps touching his singed skin as he, too, tries not to whine. The group keeps moving, as they cannot afford to stop and rest anywhere. Amira tries to pretend that Dando is walking beside her, his footprints marking the sand for her to follow.

Amira and the other children are allowed only one meal out of Old Anwar’s pouch: “A palmful of peanuts. / A rodent’s bit of rice. / A clump of corn” (129). She advises Gamal to chew slowly and make his ration last, but he devours everything in one bite, unable to wait. After many nights of walking, Muma is no longer able to carry Leila; she wants Leila to ride Old Anwar’s donkey, but the girl insists that she can walk. Despite Muma’s pleas, Leila refuses to budge and Old Anwar tells Muma to let the girl walk. As the villagers pass through a dangerous region under military surveillance, they no longer call out to the moon if she chooses to hide; they need the dark for cover.

Along the way, Amira loses her twig. Muma tries to console her, saying she can find another, but the twig is irreplaceable, a last gift from Dando. Amira thinks that the hidden moon has, indeed, brought bad luck. Nevertheless, she continues forward, feeling miserable, queasy, and dazed, stopping only to relieve herself behind a desert bush. The group finally arrives at Kalma, a “DISPLACED PEOPLE’S CAMP” (138). The camp contains numerous crowded shanties fenced in with barbed wire and tents; there are countless people already at the camp. Amira is glad to have finally reached somewhere, but she already does not like the place.