Without Refuge Read online

  I push myself up from the smoking rubble.

  Thirteen-year-old Ghalib wishes his life

  could go back to normal. He wishes he

  could still hang out at the market with

  his friends, root for his favorite soccer

  team, even go to school. But civil war has

  destroyed his home.

  Wipe dust and pulverized plaster from

  my eyes and nose. My throat stings. I spit

  grit. My lungs scald in the burning air.

  As violence rages around them, his family

  makes the difficult choice to flee Syria.

  Together they start out on a dangerous

  journey toward Europe. Along the way

  they encounter closely guarded borders,

  hardscrabble refugee camps, and an ocean

  crossing that they may not survive.

  “Hamza?” My voice is small and broken.

  Thick with dust. I cough. Spit again.

  I search for Hamza in the darkness and

  smoke and dust.

  When Ghalib is separated from the rest

  of his family, he must decide whether to

  wait for them or continue alone toward an

  uncertain future.

  He must be close by. But my world has

  shifted.

  The gripping story of one boy’s journey

  to find refuge pays tribute to struggles

  millions of Syrians face in today’s

  real-world crisis.

  Ages 9–13

  Jane Mitchell

  CAROLRHODA BOOKS

  M IN N E AP O L IS

  First American edition published in 2018 by Carolrhoda Books Text copyright © 2017 by Jane Mitchell

  First published in Dublin, Ireland in 2017 by Little Island as A Dangerous Crossing All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—

  electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Carolrhoda Books

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

  For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

  Cover and interior images: Secondcorner/Shutterstock.com (background); Chalermsak/

  Shutterstock.com (silhouette of boy); Emre Tarimcioglu/Shutterstock.com (letters).

  Main body text set in Bembo Std regular 12.5/17.

  Typeface provided by Monotype Typography.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Mitchell, Jane (Writer of books for young people), author.

  Title: Without refuge / by Jane Mitchell.

  Other titles: Dangerous crossing

  Description: Minneapolis : Carolrhoda Books, [2018] | Originally published: Dublin : Little Island Books, 2017 under the title Dangerous crossing. | Summary: Forced to leave his home in war-torn Syria, thirteen-year-old Ghalib makes an arduous journey with his family to a refugee camp in Turkey. Includes glossary.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017026040| ISBN 9781541500501 (lb) | ISBN 9781541510548

  (ebk pdf )

  Subjects: | CYAC: Refugees—Fiction. | Kurds—Fiction. | Muslims—Fiction. |

  Family life—Syria—Fiction. | IS (Organization)—Fiction. | Syrians—Turkey—

  Fiction. | Syria—History—Civil War, 2011—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.M69265 Dan 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026040

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1-43679-33486-11/6/2017

  Dedicated to every Syrian child

  whose life has been damaged,

  changed or blighted by the

  Syrian civil war

  TURKEY

  Izmir

  Reyhanli

  TU

  SYRIA

  R KEY

  Reyhanli

  Kobani

  ROJAVA

  (Kurdish Syria)

  ea

  Aleppo

  S

  ean

  E

  SY R I A

  uphrates River

  editerran

  LEBANON

  Damascus

  M

  IRAQ

  N

  JORDAN

  Miles

  0

  40

  80

  0

  40

  80

  120

  Kilometers

  TURKEY

  Izmir

  Reyhanli

  TU

  SYRIA

  R KEY

  1

  Reyhanli

  Kobani

  I sprint around the perimeter of Freedom Square in

  ROJAVA

  (Kurdish Syria)

  the center of Kobani. I hardly recognize this place any

  ea

  Aleppo

  more, it’s such a wreck now. I hug my bundle close:

  S

  women’s shoes and men’s shirts, mobile phones in

  ean

  boxes, coloring books only a little bit scorched. Even

  E

  SY R I A

  uphrat

  bicycle parts—all left in the blown-out shops and

  es Riv

  bombed stalls of the old souq. I glance over my shoulder

  er

  to check that no shopkeepers are chasing me. You’d be

  editerran

  LEBANON

  surprised how fast they move, considering the size of

  them, but they’ve never managed to catch us. We’re

  Damascus

  way too fast for them. I squeeze into the shadow of

  M

  IRAQ

  rubble heaps and ruined buildings. Leap past yawn-

  N

  ing bomb craters and snarls of rusted steel, over spent

  bullets and shell casings. I am Ghalib. I am invincible.

  My cousin Hamza runs ahead of me. He ducks

  JORDAN

  away from the square and into the narrow streets.

  Miles

  0

  40

  80

  0

  40

  80

  120

  1

  Kilometers

  Before I follow, I stop at the gable end of a bombed-out block to wait for my little brother.

  “Come on, Alan,” I say.

  He stops running when he sees me waiting, his

  red sweater vivid against the dusty streets. He wipes

  his nose on his sleeve.

  “I’m tired, Ghalib,” he says.

  His left leg kicks a spit of dust with every step.

  His lopsided walk is worse when he’s tired. His bad

  hand curls into a small hook-shape.

  “Straighten your hand,” I say.

  Hamza comes back to where I wait. My muscles

  tense. I wish he would go on ahead.

  Hamza looks at Alan. “You shouldn’t have

  brought him,” he says.

  “Shut up, Hamza.”

  “He’ll get us caught.”

  “He’s doing fine.”

  “He’s too slow.”

  “You don’t have to wait for us.”

  But Hamza waits. He shades his eyes with his

  hand. He scans the empty streets, the empty sky. He

  does it to try and pressure me. Shopkeepers come
fast

  if they see us snatching damaged goods, but airstrikes

  come faster, screaming out of the sky to pulverize

  2

  everything. When Alan reaches us, I take a box of shoes and two mobile phone boxes from him to stack

  on top of my stuff. He’s left with a box of shoes and

  a plastic bag of bicycle bells.

  “You carry those,” I say.

  We walk slowly now, sandals crunching on bro-

  ken stones and rubble. We pick our way around

  crumpled cars and shattered glass. When the road

  is blocked with fallen masonry from a collapsed

  building, Hamza scrambles over the scorched bricks.

  I hand him our goods, then pull Alan past gaping

  holes and lumps of concrete.

  “Stay away from exposed cables,” I say.

  Fat f lies rise from stinking holes where dead

  bodies rot beneath smoking ruins. As I lift Alan to

  the ground, a mild vibration shudders the twists

  of rusting steel poking from the massive slabs.

  The metal sings and moans like grieving women.

  My heart beats harder. I grip Alan’s hand. All

  three of us stop. We wait. We listen. It might be

  nothing.

  We hold our breath in the silence. Shards of bro-

  ken glass in a window frame chime, trembling and

  shivering like distant bells. It’s not good. The dark-

  ness crouching inside me seeps through my blood.

  3

  We clutch our bundles closer. I look up at the empty sky. Alan looks at me, eyes wide.

  “I want Dayah.” He always calls for our mother

  when he’s frightened.

  “I want shelter!” Hamza says.

  I pull Alan’s hand. “Come on.”

  The faint vibration has already been drowned by

  the faraway whine. It climbs higher. My chest tight-

  ens. We run now, hunting for shelter, panic adding

  speed to Alan’s crooked run. The hammering of our

  feet is the only sound other than the rising scream of

  the approaching airstrike. It splinters the waiting air.

  Cracks open the quiet of the empty streets.

  I hurl myself through a gaping hole punched in

  the wall of what used to be the central library. Hamza

  and Alan follow. I shove Alan against the scorched

  wall beneath an overhang of bricks and crumbling

  mortar. Hamza crawls in next to us. We crouch tight

  and hard in the corner, breath panting, hearts ham-

  mering. Alan trembles beneath me. Maybe Hamza

  was right. Maybe I should have left Alan at home,

  especially with an airstrike coming. Dayah will kill

  me if he gets blown up.

  The air swells and shudders. A flash of darkness

  blinks across the sun as the weapon screams over our

  4

  heads to smash into the ground far beyond where we huddle. A shuddering rumble passes through

  us, beneath us. The deep earth itself convulses. The

  remaining library walls tremble and shake, scatter-

  ing dust and loose stones over us. Then comes a brief

  silence—the familiar stillness after a strike. It rushes in, hot and insistent. It crams my throbbing ears. I

  lift my head. Wait for the chaos to unfold. Hamza sits

  up too, head white with dust. Alan coughs and spits

  grit. I grab him and pull him upright to check him

  over. He doesn’t cry or even speak. He stares blankly,

  eyelashes thick with fine powder. I brush dirt and

  dust from his dark hair. Wipe his grimy face.

  “I want Dayah,” Alan says.

  “We’ll go now,” I say, relieved he can still speak.

  We need to get moving before the bedlam that

  always follows an airstrike tears the place apart. I take his hand. We clamber from our makeshift shelter,

  brushing down our jeans and sweaters. We stare at

  the towering column of black smoke twisting upward

  from the city’s newest bomb site. None of us speaks.

  The excitement of looting has run out of us, knocked

  aside by the airstrike and a sudden hunger to get

  home. We snatch up some of our scattered goods—

  they don’t seem so important anymore—and make

  5

  our way past blown-out shops and businesses. Buildings spill broken walls and splintered roofs across our

  path. People appear in ones and twos from structures

  shattered in other strikes. They emerge from cur-

  tained doorways. Watch us through broken windows.

  “Get home to your families,” a man says. “You

  shouldn’t be out on the streets.”

  Others perch high on crumbling balconies to

  peer across the city. The reek of burning fuel reaches

  us now, pushing aside the normal stink that fills the

  broken streets, of rotting food and smashed sewers

  and bodies.

  “Came down near the stadium,” a woman says

  from half a room two stories up.

  “Near the business center,” another says.

  We don’t talk and we don’t stay to listen. Our

  bodies tremble. Our ears ring. We hurry back to the

  Kurdish district where we live. I shift the goods in

  my arms to take Alan’s hand.

  “Nearly there,” I say. I keep him moving.

  I see Dayah and my sister Bushra before they see

  us. They run up the narrow street, peering down

  side alleys, stopping to check doorways, gazing again

  and again at that tower of black smoke. Dayah’s face

  wears the frantic look she always has now. A twist of

  6

  guilt tightens my belly. Bushra just looks annoyed.

  That’s Bushra’s permanent expression. I’ll be in

  trouble for leaving the neighborhood. I’ll be in more

  trouble for going with Hamza. I’ll be in most trouble

  of all for bringing Alan with me. Maybe Dayah would

  like a pair of new shoes, I think. I peer at the boxes in my arms, searching for women’s shoes.

  When they see us, they stop running. Dayah

  stands in the middle of the street, headscarf held to her mouth, eyes locked on us. Bushra scowls at me.

  “Hi, Aunt Gardina,” Hamza says. “Hi, Bushra.”

  He grins like there’s nothing wrong. Bushra glares at

  Hamza; Dayah ignores him. Her gaze is fixed on me.

  “Where did you take him?” she says.

  I hear anger and relief, sadness and terror, woven

  all at once through her words.

  “Dayah!” Alan says. He releases my hand and

  runs into her outstretched arms.

  “See you later, Ghalib,” Hamza says to me. He

  heads for his own home.

  Dayah drops to her haunches and snatches Alan

  to her. She examines him fiercely, running her hands

  over his dusty body, feeling the shape of his skull with her fingertips, turning him around to lift his sweater

  and check his spine, his smooth undamaged skin. He

  7

  is her precious baby who nearly didn’t live to be her precious boy. She caresses his two arms, pausing over

  the weaker left one, and his skinny legs, touching his

  scuffed knees, lingering over his gimpy leg. Only

  when she’s certain he is uninjured and just filthy and

  frightened, does she hug him tightly to her. She grips

  him like she’ll never let him go. She breathes in the

  fear that rises
from him with the grit and dust. She

  presses her face to the top of his head, her headscarf

  coated in the grime from his dust-thick hair, the front

  of her dress imprinted with his sooty silhouette.

  All the while she examines him, I watch them. I

  say nothing. Alan submits to the inspection without

  resistance or questioning. There’s comfort for both

  of them in the grooming, the checking over, the safe

  return. I’m not part of it. I’m too old for my mother

  to run her hands over my body, but as I watch them,

  something vivid and sweet blossoms in my memory.

  I know she doesn’t have the same love for me right

  now after I sneaked Alan away from her and brought

  him into the city, where airstrikes and barrel bombs

  scorch through the sky.

  I don’t look at Bushra. I know what her expres-

  sion will be like and I don’t want to see it. She ignores me. My sister has little time for me.

  8

  Dayah turns to me at last. It was only a matter of time. “And you,” she says.

  I brace myself. I meet her eye. I stand straight.

  “How dare you take him into the city!” Fury

  flashes from her words like the glint of a new knife.

  “I brought you shoes, Dayah,” I say. I hold out a

  box of shoes. She ignores it.

  “Look!” she says. She sweeps her hand toward

  the towering column of black smoke, snatched now

  by air currents so it smears its oily filth across the

  sky above the city. Fire alarms and the dull thump

  of explosions at ground level fill the silence between

  her words.

  “Look!” she says again. She gestures toward Alan,

  grimy with concrete dust and smudged with dirt.

  “It didn’t hit the souq,” I say.

  “I don’t care where it hit, Ghalib. Look at the

  state of your brother. You could have been blown to

  pieces.”

  “But we weren’t. And we got good stuff.” I try

  again. “Look at the nice shoes I got you.”

  “Seriously, Ghalib?” Bushra says. She turns away

  from me in disgust.

  “I don’t want shoes, Ghalib!” Dayah says. “I don’t

  want you going downtown with Hamza to loot and

  9

  steal. It’s wrong! We didn’t raise you to be a thief.

  And it’s worse that you’re teaching your brother.”

  We start walking toward home. Alan holds

  Dayah’s hand. “I suppose this was Hamza’s idea,”

  she says.

  “It wasn’t Hamza’s idea,” I say.

  “Do you always have to copy whatever he does?”