The Dragons, the Giant, the Women, стр. 20
“Leave my dog!” Papa had said.
“And what you will do? Go back to the village and tell your country Ma?” one said and threw another stone.
“My Ma’s not country,” Papa said.
“Where is she then? That’s not your Ma at your Pa’s house. Why nobody seen your real Ma?”
And Papa could not answer. Even he did not remember her, only her promise that she would one day return for him after leaving him with his father.
“You country boy, say you country boy. Your Pa Congo, that don’t mean you’re not a heathen.”
And this was my favorite part of the story. One of the stones the boy had thrown landed on Nobody’s neck and he yelped. And Papa, when he saw this, grew ten feet tall, right where he stood. Nobody hid behind Papa, and he picked up those stones that had fallen and began to throw them back. One of them even flew into the window on the boys’ house. And he knew he would get a beating that night because of it, but he did not care. He threw and threw, and he was so strong that the stone went into another window. And he was so strong, so tall, that he picked those bullies up, one at a time, and he threw them across the yard. And he was so strong that one of the stones he threw, the heaviest one, landed on one bully’s shirt and pinned him to the ground. It took days and three whole men to push it out of the way and free the bully. And from that day on, they never touched him or Nobody again. They stopped calling him names, stopped making fun of him for being only half of his father, and they barely even looked his way when they returned to school.
While we traveled through the checkpoints to Junde, I remembered, though he looked quite different and skinnier now than he was in Caldwell, that Papa had the incredible power to transform into a giant who could protect us and carry us away.
The third-to-last checkpoint was set up in the middle of a road beside an abandoned store. There were tables outside the store where guns lolled on top of one another. One soldier sat next to the table with guns while he cleaned the one in his hand with a torn and dirty camouflage cloth. Across from the building, there was a tank that some of the dragon’s men leaned against and sat on. The remaining soldiers crowded the road and questioned each group and individual traveler about who they were, what tribe they were from, where they were going, what they did for a living, if they knew anything about the war, or if they were on the side of the prince of the rebels. When the soldiers stopped us to ask questions, I saw the fear lift from Papa’s eyes as he transformed into the giant that I knew and loved.
“Stand and be recognized,” they would say.
Papa stepped forward.
“What your name? Where you from? You Gio?” a soldier asked him.
“Augustus Moore. Monrovia,” he answered and Ol’ Ma squeezed my shoulder.
“You people Congo? You Congo man?” the soldier said as his eyes scoured our small group for signs. The soldier’s eyes rested on Ma, who wore a lappa like she had just come from the country, and he looked quickly back at Papa.
“You Congo man?” he asked again as Papa avoided his eyes. “Where you work?”
“At the university,” Papa answered.
“You got ID with you?” the soldier asked.
“In my bag, yeh,” Papa said and Torma handed him the backpack she carried. Papa handed the soldier an identification card, and he looked like he did not believe whatever the card said, and he kept looking at Papa to make sure the man on the card was the man in front of him.
“Go,” the soldier said, and we walked past him and joined the rest of the crowd toward the north.
We followed him. Sure that, like all giants, he had the ability to see an end of the road that we could not. I was small, and if I had any power like him, I was no more than a fairy whose hand barely fit into his palm. I left all of my dust in a small teacup in my room corner in Caldwell, so the only power I had to share with him was the power of touch, something that my sisters and I perfected one afternoon as we held hands and flew from our back porch with old lappas tied like capes to our backs. So I touched the leg of his pants as he walked.
“You all all right?” he asked.
“Yeh,” I answered, and did not let go of his pants until the next checkpoint, where Torma took my hand as Papa moved forward to speak to the soldiers.
“Stand and be recognized,” they said. We had just passed a Gola man who lay on the ground sleeping, and Papa stood in line to be questioned while Ma took us ahead to pass the checkpoint. Papa was Gola and Congo, and from Arthington, just like Taylor, so what if the soldiers thought he was like one of the prince’s people and wanted to get rid of Hawa Undu?
Once again he became the giant. The dragon’s men asked the same questions about who he was and where we were headed. The soldiers questioned Brother James and Amos just as thoroughly. Brother James stuttered as he answered the questions, but the soldiers let them all pass down the road walled by flowers with blackened petals.
When we continued, I ran to Papa’s side and continued to hold on to his legs. My power was minimal, but maybe it would be what he needed, if the soldiers came for us, to gather me and the rest of his fairies, Wi and K,