A Little Piece of Ground

Contents

• Cover
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty-One
  
• Chapter Twenty-Two
  
• Chapter Twenty-Three
  
• Chapter Twenty-Four
  
• Chapter Twenty-Five
  
• Chapter Twenty-Six
  
• Chapter Twenty-Seven
  
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
  

“No one but Elizabeth Laird could have written this book. She has lived in the Middle East. She knows it, feels it, loves it, grieves for it, and hopes for it. Read
A Little Piece of Ground
, and we know what it is to feel oppressed, to feel fear every day. And we should know, for this is how much of the world lives. We are apt to see events in Palestine and Israel as television drama; violent and repetitive. We are distant from it. But in this book we are taken into Ramallah: we live there, no longer mere observers, but involved as we should be. A fine book, and a daring book.”

—Michael Morpurgo, Britain's Children's Laureate

 

“This story of how it feels to be under the heel of an occupier and how it affects day-to-day
life is an oddly homely one. We get to care about this boy and his family and, yes, to loathe their oppressors—and I say that as one who lived in Israel for years and has written the story of terrorism in that area for children from the Jewish side.... I know it is a good book and needs to be read by others like me.”

—Lynne Reid Banks, author of
The Indian in the Cupboard

Also by Elizabeth Laird

Paradise End

 

The Garbage King

 

Jake's Tower

 

Red Sky in the Morning

 

Kiss the Dust

 

Secret Friends

 

Hiding Out

 

Jay

 

Forbidden Ground

 

When the World Began: Stories Collected in Ethiopia

 

The
Wild Things
Series

Haymarket Books wishes to extend its gratitude to Jane Jewell for her unceasing support for the publishing of this book. In recognition of her efforts, we would like to dedicate this edition of
A Little Piece of Ground
to the memory of Rachel Corrie.

 

Copyright © 2003, 2006 by Elizabeth Laird and Sonia Nimr

First published in 2003 by Macmillan Children's Books, London

Cover and interior illustrations © 2006 Bill Neal

Cover design by Jaime Orozco and Eric Ruder

 

Published in the United States in 2006 by Haymarket Books

P.O. Box 180165, Chicago, IL 60618

www.haymarketbooks.org

 

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data Laird, Elizabeth.

A little piece of ground / Elizabeth Laird ; with Sonia Nimr.

Summary: During the Israeli occupation of Ramallah in the West Bank of Palestine, twelve-year-old Karim and his friends create a secret place for themselves where they can momentarily forget the horrors of war.

ISBN-13: 978-1-931859-38-7 (trade paper)

ISBN-10: 1-931859-38-8

1. Arab-Israeli conflict--Juvenile fiction. [1. Arab-Israeli conflict--Fiction.
2. West Bank--Fiction.] I. Nimr, Sonia. II. Title.

PZ7.L1579Li 2006

[Fic]--dc22

2006008707

 

A packet of teaching resources for educators is available for download from www.haymarketbooks.org/laird.html.

 

This book has been published with the generous support of the Wallace Global Fund.

 

 

For Kays and all the children of Palestine

 

 

 

 

 

This is a story about Palestinian boys living under the Israeli military occupation. Theirs is a particular experience, in a particular time and place, but all such occupations are harsh, causing great suffering to the occupied people, and misery to the occupying army. The boys in this
book stand for all who live their lives in such circumstances and manage, against the odds, to go on growing up.

Chapter One

Karim sat on the edge of his bed, his head framed by the mass of soccer posters that covered the wall. He was frowning at the piece of paper in his hand.

The ten best things that I want to do (or be) in my life
, he had written,
by Karim Aboudi, 15 Jaffa Apartments, Ramallah, Palestine
. Carefully, he underlined it.

Underneath, in his best handwriting, he listed:

1. Champion soccer player of the entire world (even I can dream).

2. Extremely cool, popular, and good-looking and at least six feet, two inches tall (or taller than Jamal, anyway).

3. The liberator of Palestine and a national hero.

4. Famous TV presenter or actor (famous, anyway).

5. Best-ever creator of new computer games.

6. My own person, allowed to do what I like without parents and big brothers and teachers on my back all the time.

7. Inventor of an acid formula to dissolve reinforced steel as used in tanks and helicopter gunships (Israeli ones).

8. Stronger than Joni and my other friends (this is not asking much).

He stopped and began to chew the end of his pen. In the distance, the sound of an ambulance siren wailed through the afternoon air. He lifted his head and stared out of the window. His eyes, large and dark, peered out from under the straight black hair that framed his slim, tanned face.

He started writing again.

9. Alive. Plus, if I have to get shot, only in places that heal up. Not in the head or spine, inshallah.

10.

But number ten defeated him. He decided to keep the slot free in case a good idea came to him later.

He read through what he'd written and sat for a while, tapping the end of the pen against the collar of his striped sweatshirt, then he took a fresh sheet of paper. More quickly this time, he wrote:

The ten things I don't want to do (or be)

1. Not a shopkeeper like Baba.

2. Not a doctor, like Mama keeps saying I should. (Why? She
knows
I hate blood.)

3. Not short.

4. Not married to a girl like Farah.

5. Not shot in the back and stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life like that boy who used to go to my school.

6. Not covered in zits like Jamal.

7. Not having our house flattened by Israeli tanks and ending up in some lousy tent.

8. Not having to go to school. At all.

9. Not living under occupation. Not being stopped all the time by Israeli soldiers. Not being scared. Not being trapped indoors.

10. Not dead.

He read his lists through again. They weren't quite right.

There were things, important things, that he'd left out, he was sure of it.

He heard raised voices outside the door. His brother, Jamal, was arguing with their mother. He would come into their shared bedroom in a minute and Karim's moment of peace would be over.

He reached down for the box under his bed, in which he kept his private things, ready to stow his lists inside it, but before he could squirrel them away, Jamal had burst into the room.

It was obvious at first glance that Jamal was in a bad mood. His brown eyes, under the wedge of black hair that fell across his forehead, snapped with irritation. Karim tried to hide his lists behind his back, but Jamal lunged forwards and whisked them out of his hands.

“What's all this secrecy about, huh?” he said. “What are you plotting, you little creep?”

Karim jumped up and tried to grab the sheets of paper back again, but Jamal, who was tall for his seventeen years, was hold-
ing them above his head, out of Karim's reach. Karim dived at his brother and pulled at the belt loop of his jeans, trying to wrestle him down onto his bed, but Jamal kept him off easily with one hand, and, still holding the lists out of reach, read through them both.

Karim waited, his face burning, for the scornful comments that he knew would come. They did.

“Champion soccer player? You?” sneered Jamal. “With your two left feet? I think I can see you scoring a goal in the World Cup—or not. You? Liberator of Palestine? With your brains—or lack of?”

Karim swallowed. There was no point in fighting with Jamal. The best thing was to pretend he didn't care.

“Don't worry,” he said, as casually as he could. “Jealousy is a natural emotion. When I'm world-famous I'll be good to you. I won't hold anything you say against you, not even that crack about my feet, which is totally unfair because I can cream a ball in between the goalposts like Zinedine Zidane any time I like.”

Jamal threw the pieces of paper back to him. He was bored with the subject already.

“So you ought to be able to,” he said, “seeing as how you've probably spent at least a year of your life kicking that damned soccer ball against the wall downstairs, on and on and on, driving everyone in this building totally nuts.”

Cheated out of a good fight with his little brother, he began to box the air, kicking Karim's nearly new best sneakers out of the way and shuffling around in the small space between the beds as if it was a miniature boxing ring.

Karim went to the window and stared down at the ground, five stories below. An empty plot lay next to the apartment block. It had been flattened, ready for the builders to start work, but nothing had happened there so far. Karim had made it his own, his personal soccer field, the place where he played his special game.

He could feel his legs twitching as he pressed his face against the cool glass. With all his being, he longed to be down there, doing what he loved best, kicking the ball against the wall, losing himself in the rhythm of it.

Kick, bounce, catch-ball-on-end-of-foot, kick, bounce....

When the game went well, his mind would click into neutral. His head would empty out, and his legs and arms would take over. The rhythm would satisfy and soothe him.

Jamal had flopped down onto his bed, stretching out his long, slender legs.

“Get away from the window,” he growled at Karim. “They'll see you. They might take a pot shot.”

Karim turned his head and looked in the other direction. The Israeli tank that had been squatting at the crossroads just below the apartment block for days now had moved a few yards closer. A soldier was sitting on top of it, his gun cradled in his arms. Beside the tank were three other men, one crouching down, talking into a cell phone.